TODAY'S HARVEST

"I grow plants for many reasons: to please my eye or to please my soul, to challenge the elements or to challenge my patience, for novelty or for nostalgia, but mostly for the joy in seeing them grow."

David Hobson

 

R.I.P Hive Mary

 

 

Sad day today. 

We went out to inspect our hive, only to find very little of it left. A month ago it was doing well.  Then, about 2 weeks ago we noticed that the hive was not as active.  The hive seemed smaller, and the bees were more agitated than usual. Today, about 100 bees remain.  We will have to wait to spring to try again.

 

 

 

 

The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
~ William Blake

 

A colony of bees consists of 20,000-60,000 honeybees and one queen.

 

 

 

 

"Unique among all God's creatures, only the honeybee improves the environment and preys not on any other species."
~ Royden Brown

2nd HIVE INSPECTION and FINDING OUR QUEEN!

 

 

 

"If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live.”

― Maurice Maeterlinck, The Life of the Bee 

 

 

Finding your Queen can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack!  

There is only one Queen per hive, which can contain around 50,000 bees (give or take).  Her sole purpose is to reproduce, laying up to 2000 eggs per day.  She does not control the hive, but is constantly attended to by the worker bees.  The queen can live between 2-7 years, while the average bee lives for about 35 days.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Queen!  Note the longer abdomen.

 

 

 "If you want to gather honey, don't kick over the beehive." - Abraham Lincoln

HIVE ENTRANCE ACTIVITY

"Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath." Michael Caine

Hanging out in our front yard.

So tiny!

Proud parents.

Feeding time.

"Have you seen a duck gliding smoothly on water? Does it ever look like it is paddling furiously underneath the surface? I don't have to show that I am working very hard."

Salman Khan

 

FIRST FLIGHT OF NEW BEES

New young Bees take their first flight!

FIRST HIVE INSPECTION AND FEEDING THE BEES

 

 

One of many books!

 

 

 

Preparing sugar syrup for feeding the bees.



First line of defense.....

Preparing the Smoker

Hive inspection.

Feeding the bees..

View from above.