It’s been a while since I blogged. The reasons were house guests over the holidays with whom we gladly dug in like hermits, eating wonderful home-cooked meals, playing board games with the kids when we could locate them, and reading books by the fire. Also, we watched Sharknado 2: The Second One together. It’s a …
Category Archives: bees
It’s a Wrap!
Okay, okay, I stole the title from my friend and fellow beek Kath – though her blog post title is “That’s a wrap” so technically it’s not the same. Anyhoo. This is what we woke up to this morning: and and The photograph above I call “Terrestrial.” …And so also I had been waiting for …
Candy Board Mod
After a few warm days of observing the candy board supers on the hives, I started to suspect robbing in one (the one to the left). This one has Honey-Bee-Healthy in the candy, which might be the main tip-off to other bees that there are goodies to be had. The other hive, where I decided …
Candy Board for the Bees: Food, Insulation and Ventilation
I went into my apiary a couple of days ago to replace the rotted through pallet that served as the stand for one of the hives. (One day in summer I happened to look out Amie’s bedroom window and saw that hive visibly starting to tilt, tilt, tilt toward the other hive. Throwing on just …
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That Exposed Bee Nest
We’ve had a couple of cold nights, in the upper thirties. Apparently, it’s beyond what an exposed colony can handle. I checked yesterday and except for a couple of stragglers, there are no bees left. I will ask my neighbor if he wants to climb up there and bring down that gorgeous comb.
Old, Clear Mead and Young, Sweet Mead
This mead is done! It was made with raw honey and champagne yeast. After more than a year in the carboy, I bottled it. It is quite dry, with that typical, somewhat surprising mead flavor reminiscent of honey. it can age some more in the bottle. Look how clear it is, compared to the next …
More Tomatoes
It’s getting a little repetitious, but there were again many more tomatoes. The warm weather continues and there are still many fruits on the vines, so this may not be the last of ’em. I’m looking forward to next summer, when I’ll have the super sunny front patio to grow tomatoes, peppers (can you spot …
Fruit, Veg, Eggs, Honey/Mead, and Books
Quickly. Made 25 pints of blueberry jam from Farmers Market berries and another batch from 5 quarts of berries Amie and I picked at a very locally IPM place with friends one thunderstormy afternoon. We came out of the field drenched but happy and surprised we had been picking for three hours. Our tribe will …
Exposed Honeybee Nest Update
We just had an almighty deluge come down like it was going to wash us all off the face of the planet. Aside from some flooding in the basement and porch, a wet husband and some wet chickens, all is well down here. Not so for the bees in the exposed nest up high in …
Bee Excited: Exposed HoneyBee Nest
My strong hive, H6, swarmed, possibly for a second time, on 7/14. Here’s one of of my friend Doug’s pictures of the swarm: They hung out on a tree about 60 feet up, still on our property, for days. Then I thought they were gone, and I stopped checking on them. My neighbor, however, has …