Narrow Escape

I just got excused from jury duty based on discretionary standards.  Whoo!  That's a relief!

Worm Bin

When my mom was here about a week ago we left my house to walk to the Waffle hut for lunch. From there we decided to go to the elementary school o see if Emme was out on the playground.  We walked past a house that was getting some work done, and there was a trailer full of garbage with a great big wood box on top.  I said "That would be the perfect worm bin!". We found the owner and asked him if we could have it, he said sure and got it out of the trash for us.  It has big metal wheels and metal handles on the ends too.  So I hooked Rosie to it and she towed it home!

We got out the drill and drilled some big holes in the sides for ventilation.  I covered them with that permeable ground cloth that I've ben pulling up from everywhere in our yard.  I hate that stuff, it's the worst temporary fix.  Put cloth down everywhere and cover it with barkamulch, so the weeds can just grow on top instead.  But at least I found one good use for it.  It should keep the worms from crawling out the ventilation holes anyway!

We shredded a bunch of newspaper and wet it down and added peat moss as well for the worms bedding.  We went to my favorite local nursery and bought half a pound of red wigglers.  1 pound is supposedly 1000 worms (no that anyone counts them!) so I should have about 500.

1 pound of worms can eat 7 pounds of scraps a week!  

There it is in all its worm bin glory:

One lucky afternoon and I now have a functioning worm bin.  Soon I will have fabulous compost!  

Wading Pools and Slip N' Slides

I love summer heat

Bees Update

The other day it got warm and the bees went crazy!  They were very busy bees.  But it was only a great big swarm for about 20 minutes, then they went back to normal.  

I had to get in the hive again on Wednesday to take out the bee box they came in and to put in more frames and feed them more sugar syrup.  This time AL was m brave photog.

Here's the smoker and the hive and the pot of sugar syrup.  The sugar syrup is 2 parts sugar to one cup water.  I think i did 6 cups of sugar this time. 

The smoker totally works!  I was truly amazed.  They run right back into the depths between the frames.

Moving the frames around.....

Buzz buzz bees

I think I found my queen.  She's a little longer than the others.  She was sort of at the end of my finger when this picture was taken, but I can't find her in the pic.  Even when I try to zoom in.

Reclaiming the Yard

Our backyard had been lost under butterfly bush branches for too long!
AL helped me reclaim my yard, she stacked all teh branches and we mowed. and I've been weeding....

BEFORE

AFTER

I'm a Beekeeper now!

I picked up my 3 lbs of bees today.

Here are some stacks of bee boxes at the bee supply place.  My bees were actually in much larger stacks! 


Here they are in the back of my trunk, along with a few other bee necessities.  Like a bee suit, and a hat.  (The home fax/copier/scanner is not for the bees.)  The lady at the bee place said "You DO NOT want to let them tip over in your car."  The sound of them buzzing was pretty intense.

Hanging out in their box in my garage.

One big mass of bees in a box.

They're really really pretty.....  The pics just don't do them justice.  They're amazingly yellow and kind of glow.  I took SO MANY pictures and just couldn't quite get it.  My bees are Italian bees, they're supposed to be less aggressive then the Carniolans, black bees, which were the other option.  The Italians are yellow, the usual honey bee, and of course they like pasta and wine.

Got the suit!  Got the hat!  Got the veil!  Got the gloves!  Got the BEES!

When I tilt the box back and forth, the bee mass tilts too.....

First you get your hive ready.  Then you pull out the can of bee food which is also the box stopper.  It was really hard to get out, and my gloves are way too big.  So I had to take a glove off.  

I had to put the glove back on REALLY FAST because once I got that plug out those bees started flying everywhere!

Lucky for me, Tina was nice enough and brave enough to get and stay close enough to take all these pictures.  Here's the rest of the audience.  As soon as those bees started flying they decided that a further vantage point was probably a better idea!

Checking on the queen...... She's in her own little box.  I had to pull the cork out and plug the hole with marshmallows.  The bees will eat the marshmallows to release their queen.

Unplugging the bee box again!

Putting the box in the hive.....  I read 3 different sets of directions on how to deal with package bees, and each said different things.  I decided I liked the one that said to put the whole box in and leave it in for a week instead of the ones that say to shake all the bees out.  

Putting in the feeder tray.  I made lots of sugar syrup to fill the feeder tray.  2 parts sugar to one part water.  Now I have to go by more sugar and make even more!  I also put little wood chunks in it for the bees to float on, to prevent them from drowning in their food.

Then you dump the bee food all over the inside of the hive.

There's the bee box in the hive with 5 frames and the feeder frame.

Pretty sugar syrup everywhere!

Putting on the cover.

Yay!  All done!

That was pretty intense.  I had a bee inside my veil right away.  But I didn't get stung!  Neither did Tina, and she was only about 4 or 5 feet away from me.  One landed on her arm and just hung out for a minute.  When I pulled that plug and they started flying everywhere my heart started beating a little bit faster.  It was pretty neat though, dealing with all those bees.  I'm excited to have my own pet honeybees!
Now according to some directions I'm supposed to leave them for a week and not get in the hive at all, according to others I'm supposed to get in there after 24 hours and THEN let them release the queen, then get in there in another 24 and find the queen, and all this other stuff.  I think I'll get in there in a few days to take out the queen box and maybe the bee box and check and make sure they have enough food.  I'll compromise somewhere in the middle of all the varying directions.