Another day at the Market. This time Amie helped for about an hour, mainly explaining to customers about the layer of wax that will form like a seal on top of their honey in the next couple of days. You see, this honey was extracted only the day before (I was up till midnight cleaning …
Category Archives: bees
Get your Honey Here: BEElieve Honey at the Farmers Market
Today I spent five hours at our Farmers Market selling BEElieve honey. It was incredible. We sold out in 1 1/2 hour. What we sold this week was my honey, harvested last year and still left over, even after all that eating and bartering with it. I had twenty-three 10 oz jars (by weight). I’ll harvest …
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Goings On
Wild strawberries, which are said to be deadly when overripe, as these were: deadly because you die of disappointment: no taste, whatsoever. Bummer! A surprise patch of St. John’s Wort – this after trying to grow it from seed (50 seeds, only one germinated). Thank you! Hive 3 swarmed on the 16th and alighted in …
Swarm Update
A thunderstorm blew by, with pelting rain, thunder and lightening, and even some hail, but the swarm is still up there. They moved position to another, nearby branch, and are spread out along it. Poor bees. Maybe they’re thinking it wasn’t a good idea anyway. Maybe there can go back home? But then of course …
Swarmed!
Hive 3, my best hive, the one that gave me 70 lbs of honey last year and had already filled one and a half honey supers with Spring honey this year, swarmed! Around 11:30 am, my mom (parents are visiting) and I came around the corner into the veg garden and instantly noticed the noise. …
An Exhausting Day, But all Bees Taken Care of
Today I went into five hives, three my own and two of a BEElieve beekeeper who broke his ankle. All but the latter two were in the full sun. Today we also had a heatwave at 93F. And in the morning, before my bee run, I spent an hour with Amie’s classroom planting poor wilting …
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The Sun is Back and Hyper-Local Lovage Soup
After a couple of days of rain and chill (yesterday morning I even lit a fire in the wood stove) the sun has returned. I got a lot done what with all that pent-up green energy! I cleaned the chicken coop. All the veg beds (‘cept the hoop house ones) are now planted, the potatoes …
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The Yeast Lives
Brewing root beer and mead (with wine yeast, I’m not leaving it up to chance this time). The yeast at least is having a feast. It’s feasting on honey. Mead recipe (following this one but without the spicing): boiled 2 gallons of filtered tap water steeped one big of Tazo organic chai in it …
The Queen is Dead, Long Live the Queen (*)
(*) I totally stole that title from my friend and fellow chicken and beekeeper, Kath, who blogs at This One Good Life. She too had to do what I did today. Neither Hive 4 and Hive 5 , both installed on May 5, were doing well. In Hive 5, the split off Hive 3, I’m pretty …
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A Bees Kind of Day
My poor Amie. For months she and her orchestra colleagues worked on four pieces for her concert at Jordan Hall today. On Friday she had the sniffles, on Saturday she went rapidly downhill, and this morning it was obvious she couldn’t go. She spent the day in bed, reading, watching Youtube and napping. In the …