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Friday, June 30, 2006

Sunny Friday

Can you believe it? We have not had rain for two whole days. After last weekends torrential rains that is totally amazing. When we finally got out to check on the bees we found some not so good stuff. Two more hives just didn't make it. Yes I probably should have combined them. But one week earlier they were doing just fine. They didn't seem to be coming along the same as the rest of them but I can't find a single reason that we should have found what we found. No queen and most of the bees dead. They didn't have enough honey in place to be victims of robbing. I just don't know. Another question to bring to the H.A.S. meeting.

Jim and I leave on Wed. and I'm really looking forward to it. The amount of education provided by this meeting is so good. Because I'm so typically A.D.D. (unless it sparkles I loose interest Jim says) that I don't seem able to retain as much as I need to. I really think because it's so much that my brain is on overload. Having Jim go to the meeting for me is great. He on the other hand never misses a thing and between the two of us I think the bees will be better taken care of.

Worked on new labels for the bears. I'm really very proud of how they turned out and can't wait to bring them to the market this weekend. I also am better prepared to display the candles as well as the new Pina Colada Lip balm I'm bringing. I hope that the weekend turns out good but to be honest every weekend I've been down at the market has been fun. The other vendors make the time getting up early and time spent when it's dead bearable. And meeting new customers who have started to become new friends is really a good thing for me. I love when people come to market and ask questions. Because I'm so new, if I don't know the answer I get their e-mail address and find either the answer out or find somewhere to send them so they can get the answer. The other thing that has been the best has been the number of teachers who have been interested in having me come in and talk to their students. I can't wait. . . . . .Until that happens I always make sure that they have the National Honey Board information website address so they can get further information.

Well I've got to get moving and start getting things loaded up and ready for the market.

Have a bee-autiful day!!!!!!!!!!

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Getting ready for Heartland Apicultural Society Meeting



So. . . .it's going to happen July 6-8, 2006. What a great weekend to look forward to. I went last time with my Aunt and Uncle and learned a ton of stuff. You have no idea how little you really know when you get the opportunity to go to a meeting like this and learn so much.

If you have ever had an interest in beekeeping here is a great chance for you to learn just what it's all about. I've only been to a couple of other meetings and while they were good, this one is laid out so nicely that you can't help but find the perfect topic that deals with just what you need to learn about. In fact there are several classes that are the same time so I have to choose which one to go to. The good thing is Jim is going and we can split up to make sure that we get all our bases covered.

The bees are doing great. We had a great deal of rain last night, so much rain that the television spent the entire night focusing on the weather . . . yikes. We survived the rain; the beehives didn't blow or float away. We were out in them last Sunday and added a few supers and did some tweaking here and there. We did lose the two nucs as well as one hive. I have absolutely no idea what happened. We also were able to find the hive the swarm came from. It's really weak and I'm trying to decide what to do with it at this point. We found babies so I know there is a queen in it, but I don't know if it's too late to do anything.

The other exciting thing that’s going on is I started making candles. I didn’t know if it’s something I wanted to get into but I really had a blast doing it. . Seems like when you sell honey most people ask me if I have candles. Time will tell.







Have a great week!

Thursday, June 08, 2006

New Photo's


Well a friend of ours Steve Million created the neatest thing for the entry to the bee yard. He took some scrap metal pieces, soldered them together and then created the centerpiece which is the bee hive and the metal, nuts and bolt bee.

I had to include these photo's because I'm sure that everyone else would appreciate his talent as much as we do.






























The bees are slowing down a bit, and I'm not sure if it's because of all the rain we had. . .over 16 days with only two let ups in between or what.

I'm not really too sure. I did finally figure out which hive swarmed and am in the middle of trying to figure out how to fix that situation. Jim and I spent a few hours out in the yard on Sunday evening trying to see what was going on and to tell you the truth I was pretty dissapointed with what I found. Some of the hives have not grown much at all and then again there are a few hives that took off like crazy. I know it's time to do some serious thinking about what's best for the yard and figure out if I need to combine some hives or if I need to get a few new queens to boost the size up.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Time just flies by

June 1st, boy did that sneak right up on me. We only have a few days until the graduation and I've gotten the opportunity to spend a day a week with both of the grandgirls. I have been feeling a little overwhelmed with everything that needs to get done until last night. We made up our minds that the basement wouldn't be finished and we had too many other things that need to get done and it wouldn't be the end of the world if a few things just didn't get completed.

Now that doesn't seem to hard for most people, but for two first born goal setting people like us it was a painful pill to swallow. But there are too many other things not getting taken care of because of the pressure to get one thing done.

Yesterday we had a horrible accident at the end of the property. Our daughter Dana had just came in the door to tell me about a turtle that she had just moved out of the road at the end of our lane she was kind of laughing about the experience. She said, "Then to top it off I had to stop at the end of the driveway until a doe traveled across the drive." A few minutes later my brother in law knocked at the door and looked a little shaken and asked if we knew about the accident. A woman had been hit by a car where the turtle had just been moved. It didn't seem real. Dana said that when she drove away she saw that the turtle was headed back to the road but there was so much traffic that she decided she needed to head up to the house. The only thing we can figure is that someone else thought the same thing that she did. 15 minutes later we heard the roar of a life flight helicopter and I went outside to see if there was anything I could do. I let them know it was ok to land in the field but they were trying to land in the road. The police had it blocked off. The bees were flying like crazy and I thought I might have to get some smoke out if they decided to land so there wouldn't be any problems. The wind was whipping around as the helicopter landed withing 20 feet of the hives. The whole incident was so sureal. I feel horrible that this happened to anyone, but it also makes you feel grateful that it wasn't our daughter that was hurt. There is no win win here. As the helicopter pulled away we said a prayer for the passenger.

I couldn't help but think as I watched the helicopter pull away that life is too short to waste worrying about what things need to get done.