This week we had one near-90 degree day and Hegemone 1 did this:
It’s called bearding, and honey bees do it (generally) when they are trying to cool the hive to keep the brood at the right temperature. On this hot/humid day these girls removed themselves and their body heat so the bees left inside could maintain the proper environment for brood health. I continue to be amazed at the innate knowledge honey bees possess. It’s fascinating to watch them.
On Saturday we got our new nuc, which was a bit of a drama because the nuc had opened up and there was a cloud of a hundred of more bees outside the nuc when my husband went to pick it up. There’s no way to get them back inside, so he had to cover the nuc with a tarp and bring them home. I hope the workers left behind integrated with another colony. We set the nuc on top of the waiting Echo hive box, opened their entrance the rest of the way, and left them be until yesterday when we installed them into their permanent home. I hope they settle in and get to work during the peak of our tulip poplar nectar flow!
Also, in an exciting turn of events, we had a swarm move into our bait hive last Thursday! This is possibly the most exciting bee event I’ve been party to thus far, though I didn’t actually see the swarm move in. We’ve left them to settle in. The bait hive in our case is actually an 8-frame deep hive box, so we won’t have to move them out of there, but will simply take the box down and put it in its permanent location when we think they’re ready. Which is in itself a guessing game!
I just remembered I need to buy a hive stand to put them on. This colony is named Mnemosyne, who was the goddess of Memory. Once we get them set up, that should be it for the big stuff this spring and summer seasons. Artemis is still going, not exactly strong, but they seem to be hanging in there. If the Echo nuc thrives the way I’ve been told they will, we plan to take frames of eggs and brood and nurse bees and move them to Artemis to help get them fully on track. We’ll see how that goes.
In other news, we’re gradually managing the outside projects that always get ahead of us this time of year. I’ve mowed the buttercups in the pastures once, and my husband mowed the grass paddock yesterday. Our weed-eater suddenly needed work, so it’s in the shop and I have a very lightweight electric one that I plan to use for my own small chores. Hopefully on Friday we’ll get the weed-eating done and the annual poison ivy removal done.
Our way-back fencing is about 90% complete. There’s one small section that was confusing and we’ve had to figure it out on the fly, but that will be completed Tuesday and we can check that whole thing off our list.
Our upstairs front window replacement scheduled for yesterday was canceled at the last minute by the company, and is now rescheduled for May 17th. We’re on the list for top to bottom exterior painting and the HVAC guy is coming today to look at our 26-year old attic unit that will get replaced. Once these three tasks are done, I am calling it a done deal for home repair projects for the season.
In the gardens:
I’ve planted three oakleaf hydrangeas, two new mountain mints, additional white wood aster, and we’ve put in tomatoes, basil, and cucumbers in the potager. We still have two wild plum trees and a persimmon tree to add to Poplar Folly and then I’m calling myself on adding anything else to the gardens until fall. (Even as I type this I realize I will probably break this pledge, so don’t be surprised when I do so!)
Everything is coming up beautifully and I’m very happy with the progress of my native plant transformation.
Another thing I’m happy with is my gradual but effective process of getting the garage storage back in control. By sending a few things to the Habitat store or the dump each week I’ve managed to get things back in shape down there. My joke is that we have a general store in our garage, and it’s like taking inventory when I start clearing stuff out.
I’ve also completed one closet update in the house. There’s another closet 50% done. And I am not sure I can take on the bedroom closet right now. I may save that for July when it’s too hot to do anything else.
Oh, and one very fun announcement:
My prose poem Journey won third place in the NC Jung Society poetry contest! I’m super excited about it and happy to be included in the list of winners.
First Congratulations on your poem, that's a great accomplishment!
ReplyDeleteCan't believe it got so hot already. Bees are amazing, then again I think most animals are way smarter than humans. Maybe they don't think as much as we do and just live by instinct!
Sounds like you've got a lot of projects that are doable and are getting done. Right now we're having our house painted outside. They workers were sanding and scraping for two days and it sounded like we were living in a bee hive. Next is the primer then the paint. I've got a dogwood and andromeda bush to plant but I did put in some flowers and a rose bush already. So almost done there. J. still has to plant the vegetable garden, just waiting for them to deliver the soil. Spring is a busy time.
Oh my gosh - tell me the house painting won’t kill me. LOL! I dread it but it needs to be done and it will be a long time before we have to have it done again, so...
ReplyDeleteDefinitely busy time of year. I just spent an hour and a half moving Gray’s sedge, columbine, and mountain mint babies from the main pollinator bed to the other side of the pathway. I had to dig up and cut landscaping cloth that was beneath - it killed all the grass and weedy things we don’t want but it’s too dense to plant through and I just removed about 7 feet of it so I could plant these things. Having fun but really don’t enjoy the outside work on the docket - between navigating scheduling stuff and then the work time itself, it’s just not my favorite thing. I dread the painting because it’s going to take a week from start to finish. My brain can’t process! But we’ll live through it.
We have a night in the low 40s coming up tomorrow. Our temps are all over the place this spring. Hope you get your stuff done and then we’ll both sit back and enjoy it, right? :)