A little update

Well it’s been a little while and I thought I better do a update.

The bees are getting ready for winter. I took the honey off a week or so ago and I’m checking to make sure that they each have about 100 lbs. of honey to get through the winter. I have a couple of hives that I’m keeping a close eye on. One of the hives got robbed out pretty bad and I ended up having to supplement feed them. When I tell most folks that they look at me like I’m crazy. Keeping bees is a responsibility that I don’t take likely. It was my mistake that caused them to get robbed out, so I have to fix it. Besides the hive that got robbed out I have two hives with weak colonies, I replaced the queens too late in the season I think, so they aren’t doing to great either.

What are my options? Well I could combine the two weak hives and hopefully they will all get along just fine. I’m supposed to have one queen and since I’ll have two I have the choice of killing one or letting the two of them fight it out. If you knew me you would already figure out that there is no way I could ever go squish a queen. It’s just not my nature, so instead I’ll put the two hives together with newspaper between them so they will gradually get to know each other and then when the queens meet up I’ll let them decide which one is going to rule the roost. Most beekeepers tell me that the strong queen will survive when you put two hives together. My luck it will just be the mean stubborn one instead of the great producing one that survives .

Remember the Market in Perrysburg Ohio that I was looking forward to. . well because I’m not a regular season vendor I was placed on the wrong side of the street. (Boy isn’t that the truth) Ok, there is no wrong or right side of any street, but there is a side that people shop on and a side that they don’t. Especially if there are only three vendors on one side and 40 vendors on the other side. Yes, we had Happy the Clown on our side, but even Happy wasn’t Happy when no one would cross the street to see us. So it was basically a dud of a night for me. I spent over two hours of driving time, an hour of setting up and tearing down time and five hours selling nothing time. While I don’t think I failed, I think this definitely will go down in the book as a learning experience. (My books is way full of those learning experiences) My favorite part as usual was the chance to visit with folks who either wish they had bees or actually have bees. It’s great to be able to ask questions from people who are much more experienced than me (And that’s just about everyone) but it’s also really great to tell people that beekeeping is a really great thing to do. So the people part of things was awesome the money part of things wasn’t great.

Thank goodness the Erie Street Market and Westside Market are both doing great for me.

An update on the shopping cart attached to my site. The shipping doesn’t work so if you contemplated ordering anything, email me first and I can send you the correct postage amount.

Oh I forgot to mention, I went to an auction where some bee equipment was being auctioned off and met a few very experienced (older than me) beekeepers and had a good time chatting back and forth with them. My husband can’t believe how I can just go up to people and talk about bees. Sometimes I think I embarrass him, but there is too much to learn not to ask questions from people when I meet them.

Till the next time. . .