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Posts Tagged ‘bees’

A Field of Wild and Happy

Posted in Fall, tagged , , , on October 4, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I should have taken a picture of it…maybe I’ll go back today since my time is now my own.

Yesterday, my afternoon plans shifted around when I got a call from Jerod about his bees. You see, Reader, we’re all feeding our bees right now in hopes that each colony will store enough to carry them through winter. I won’t go into detail here, but feeding often sets off some very very active behavior, and Jerod’s bees exhibited some excitement yesterday. Enough excitement to disturb the carpenter doing some work near the site of the hives. So, we went over to calm them down.

There’s a huge open lot where Jerod keeps his hives, and his grandfather let it go to weeds this year just for the bees…and yesterday Jerod took me on a tour of the wildness. It’s awesome. And it’s beautiful. And it made me wonder why on earth we ever mow our lawns.

Seriously, since I began keeping bees, my desire for a well-groomed yard has shifted. I now look at closely mown, manicured, weed-free lawns as dull. And worthless. I’m much more interested in those wild places to which any bee or bird or snake or mole would fly and slither and tunnel.

I’m of a mind to let my yard go to weed. I like it.

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A Little Quickening

Posted in bees, tagged , , , , , , , on December 30, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Let’s talk for just a minute about the bees. Because yesterday it began to warm up a tiny bit, and through the binoculars I keep at the kitchen window, I saw a bee flying out of her hive. Of course, I was delighted to see her. I hope they have enough honey in there to keep them alive for another two months.

You know (perhaps because I made such a big deal out of it) that we’ve just witnessed the winter solstice and now the days are getting imperceptibly longer (I say “imperceptibly,” but I swear, I think I can tell it). And the bees are clustering together in their hives. People ask me if bees hibernate, but they don’t. They cluster to keep the core temperature of the cluster warm, and they’ll leave the hive for “cleansing flights” on warmer days (bees will not soil their hive…they wait for warm days in order to take cleansing flights to relieve themselves. Gotta love that).

So, on the winter solstice, the bees somehow sense the shift in the length of daylight, and the queen bee begins to lay just a couple of eggs. Which amazes me beyond all measure. She will lay incrementally more eggs as the days lengthen, and in February, just when we’re all so damned cold that our nose hairs shatter, the queen will be in full-blown egg-laying mode and the hive will be buzzing inside like crazy. Warmth and honey and pollen are required to raise brood, and inside that hive, worker bees are providing all three of those things for the new eggs and larva and bees.

So, right now, things are quickening in the hive. That word “quickening” is the absolute perfect word for that last sentence, isn’t it? Aren’t words great? Aren’t bees great?

When I get very very cold and cabin fever begins to creep in, I think of the bees building up for spring. I think of the word “quickening.” Hmmm. As I was just now fantasizing about the observation hive I’d like to install in one of our windows, I think I just felt a little something quickening inside me, too.

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We Can’t See Everything

Posted in list, tagged , , , , , , , on December 13, 2010| 2 Comments »

  1. Did you see Jim and our florist sitting together during church? Yep.
  2. And when I talked with them afterward, they seemed relaxed and happy. Amazing.
  3. Our soup yesterday at Anne and Becky’s house was wonderful. Seriously delicious.
  4. And crusty bread from Shadeau. With butter. And salad. And little chocolate/graham cracker bars for dessert.
  5. I have all the recipes.
  6. And coffee. We had a very nice time.
  7. I hope the bees are okay out there.
  8. But you know, Reader, once the days start getting longer again (on December 21st), activity in the hive incrementally speeds up.
  9. Even though we can’t see it happening.
  10. Which, for some reason, fills me with hope for all things.

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Winterizing

Posted in list, tagged , , , , , , on October 31, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Update 10/31/10

  1. I pulled up all the tomato plants yesterday. I saved three of the green tomatoes and put them on the windowsill. This morning, they’re turning red.
  2. I’ve promoted several of my once-nicest wool sweater—sweaters I once wore to church and funerals—to around-the-house wear. I mean, I now wear them over my pajamas. I’m wearing a moth-eaten one right now.
  3. I’ve plugged the ventilation holes in the bee hives, I’ve closed the screened bottom boards that gives them air in the summer, I’ve reduced the size of their entrances. Stay warm, bees.
  4. My neighbor, John, asked me yesterday if I’ve been writing anything. I told him, no. He suggested I need a designated place to write. I agreed.
  5. John said that from his nice office with its long conference table at Merrill Lynch he looks down into a vacant loft space with hardwood floors and floor-to-ceiling windows. He says he often wants to move his office there.
  6. Funny how we yearn to move into a place like that.
  7. But I told him that I’m looking for perhaps a smaller space. Windows, yes. Hardwood floors, yes. But probably not downtown. That’s too expensive.
  8. He said that he now wants to rearrange his office.
  9. I suggested he lose the conference table. No one really wants to sit at a conference table.
  10. Put a workbench in there, I said. And tools. Everyone likes to go to work when there’s a workbench in the room.
My pumpkin

My pumpkin

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When You Say “Yes,” One Thing Leads to Another

Posted in bees, tagged , , on September 20, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Interesting news. Deb has a patient who mentioned Deb’s name to a group of her friends. Unbeknownst to me, one of Deb’s patient’s friends is also one of our friends and was in the group with whom the patient talked (the people in this story are all sort of like Deb and me…how shall I say this…they all wear baseball caps? They’re all athletic? They all wear sensible shoes? You get the picture). Our friend asked if Deb’s patient knew me, too. No, she doesn’t. They got to talking. Our friend mentioned that I keep bees. At dinner one night I had mentioned to our friend my idea about a bee company, and our friend mentioned that to Deb’s patient. Deb’s patient tucked that info away in her mind.

A few days later—two days ago—Deb ran into her patient while they were both walking the dogs (and where they walked the dogs that day is unusual). They got to talking. Deb’s patient told Deb about running into our friend and that our friend mentioned the bee thing. Deb didn’t dwell on that (she probably changed the topic to golf), but the patient took the conversation back to the bees.

Turns out, the patient has her PhD in business, and she teaches business strategies at a local university. The patient/professor chooses several start-up businesses each year, and the students in her class (I think they’re graduate students? MBAs? I’m unclear about this point) work all angles on a plan for the start-up company…anyway, the patient/professor was intrigued with my idea about the bee business, and she wants me to contact her to see if I’d be a game participant for her class this year. As you know, I have begun to say “yes” rather than “no.” So, yes, I am.

I call her today.

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I Prefer the Hum of the Bees or the Scream of a Chainsaw to a Jabbering Beekeeper

Posted in The Wild, tagged , , , on August 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I leave in just a few minutes to go get bees out of the tree. You can read about it over on TwoHoneys, and I’ll post a rundown of the day over there tomorrow. But my two favorite bee buddies are tied up with work today (even though it’s a Saturday)…so I’ve had to call a woman beekeeper who lives near the bee tree and with whom I communicate on an international beekeeping forum (sometimes I feel uppity when I write “with whom,” but it’s correct, so what’re ya gonna do?). She reads TwoHoneys but she doesn’t know about Not Alice, so that’s why I’m saying this here. I’ve not yet met this woman in person, only in writing until this last week. I called earlier in the week to ask her help today…and that’s when she started talking. She hasn’t stopped. Oh Lord.

I’ve warned my arborist…with whom I hit it off like crazy. He and I have been having a good time together (Mary, I don’t know if he’s married or not. He’s got a son who’s a senior in college at Mt. St. Joe…but if he’s not married, you’re going out with him. He’s probably married). He and I are getting to the tree at 8 AM, but I told the talking beekeeper to show up way later. I said it so that she might have understood that we’re all showing up at 10:30 AM. That bought us a few calm hours—and by the time she arrives, the chain saws should drown her out until the end of the project.  Either that, or we’ll have to duct tape her.

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“Hobby” Is a Word I Dislike

Posted in bees, tagged , , , , , on June 21, 2010| 2 Comments »

I’m sort of obsessed with bees right now. You know how it is. It’s all I think about and all I read about and all I want to learn and talk about.

Yes, I’m still riding my scooters.

Yes, I’m still fiddling in my garden.

And I’ve been fixated on each of those for a while in the past. But this feels different. Bees appeal to so many of my instincts. And the more I learn the more confused I get and the more I want to figure out. I swear, I could work with bees all day long, and though I get HOT, I do not get bored.

Comb Built (in One Week) on Foundationless Frames

Comb Built (in One Week) on Foundationless Frames

And just look at the wonderful T-shirt Suzanne gave us yesterday…it’s even got our TwoHoneys logo on the back. And it’s completely designed by Suzanne. I love it.

Bee Shirt designed by Suzanne (front)

Bee Shirt designed by Suzanne (front)

(This picture of the back of the T-shirt is a little blurry. Sorry. Darn iPhone camera.)

Bee Shirt designed by Suzanne (back)

Bee Shirt designed by Suzanne (back)

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All a Jumble

Posted in list, tagged , , , , on June 11, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Yes, I’ve been a lazy dog about keeping things moving over here. There seems to be so many other things to do these long summer days, you know?

I just now wrote a couple of paragraphs about what I’ve been doing, but I got bored reading it so I deleted it. I’ll list a few things here:

  1. The clutch cable on my daily-riding scooter busted yesterday, and now I’ve got to figure out how to fix it.
  2. If I try to fix it, I’ll screw it up, and then I’d have to get it to Jimmi (my scooter-fixing buddy) anyway.
  3. I don’t have a hitch on my car. I need a crapping hitch so I don’t have to depend on other people to haul my stuff.
  4. I visited with the guy selling honey at the Madeira Farmer’s Market. He has nine hives, and he said he’d love it if I hung around with him while he opens his hives. I like him. I’m gonna do it.
  5. There’s other stuff going on.
  6. I have to go walk the dog now.
  7. And then get a hitch. It’s crazy to have put it off for so long.
  8. But it’s expensive, and the car is getting oooold.
  9. Why put money into a car I’m gonna have to sell within the next couple of years?
  10. I’ve had this same argument with myself for three years now.

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Shhhhh

Posted in Family, tagged , , , on May 30, 2010| 1 Comment »

On Friday afternoon we discovered that Amazons had swarmed. That sure set up a chain of events, and you’re welcome to read about it over at TwoHoneys…I can’t document everything here, too.

I’m up early this morning to get a few minutes alone. With guests in the house, there is just never any downtime and never any real time to sit in silence. And my usual schedule is sort of thrown off. So, I’m treasuring the solitude for just a bit.

I hear footsteps.

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Glass Jars under Consideration: Ball, Bormioli, Kerr, Leifheit, Muth

Posted in bees, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 19, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I refuse to even think about plastic bottles for TwoHoneys. If you like those little squeezy bears with the flip-top hats, get out. Go get your honey elsewhere. TwoHoneys will be bottled in glass jars ONLY.

Now that that’s settled, I have to find some jars that fill the bill. They have to be small…no more than 8 oz. We decided that nothing’s worse than a big jar of honey that gets thicker and thicker on the pantry shelf for months or years. It simply gets less and less appetizing (though honey literally never goes bad). So, it seems to me that honey would be more fun if it came in smaller portions; I think smaller containers make us not only treasure whatever’s in it, but we use it more quickly, too. That’s what I’m after.

I’m testing different kinds of glass jars right now. No no no…there’s no honey for you yet, Reader. But it’s coming. Oh, yes. It’s coming.

Image

Muth Jar (Developed by Cincinnatian Charles Muth)

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