100% Local Ohio
Posted in Honeybee Adventures on Aug 26th, 2010
We’re sort of waiting in limbo here about removing the bees from their tree. Our wonderful arborist, David Shaw (whom I adore), is busy securing permission to access the tree via property owned by whoever owns the big field next to the tree. We’ll need to access the tree via this big field; and then, [...]
Posted in Honeybee Adventures on Aug 23rd, 2010
Crap. Yesterday I dropped my brand new iPhone and busted the screen. Not to worry…the wonderful folks at the Apple store replaced it right away with no questions asked. (But if you’ve got the iPhone 4, beware: That danged screen will crack at the drop of a hat. I’m thinking of getting a case for [...]
Posted in Protective clothing on Aug 22nd, 2010
Do you like my new hat and veil combination? I do. But I’m still not sure I’m tying the veil correctly, and bees occasionally visit me on the inside of it. It’s always the littlest things that give me fits.
Posted in Going Naked on Aug 18th, 2010
I think I’m probably a shitty beekeeper. I watch videos of others working their bees, and they look so calm and confident. I’m sure a video of me would show me standing there swatting at bees and looking confused. And inevitably I get a darn bee inside my veil. Trying to figure out which side [...]
Posted in Honeybee Adventures on Aug 16th, 2010
You know I went to check out the bee tree, right? Well, for some reason, I thought I was heading to some guy’s house. I thought he had a tree on his property near some field he’d mown down to serve as a picnic area he’d planned on renting out. Instead, I drove up to [...]
Posted in Honeybee Adventures on Aug 13th, 2010
Good morning, Reader. Amazing that a week can fly by as this one has. Today I go to look at the bees in the tree. However, I’ve decided not to attempt removing them…unless I can convince the guy who owns it to cut the tree down. He says it’s pretty much dead anyway, and without [...]
Posted in Honeybee Adventures on Aug 12th, 2010
Every day lately, Reader, I get a call about bees. People call me to say they have a swarm of bees in their attic or in their doorframe or in a tree trunk. They don’t really mean “a swarm.” A swarm is a mass of bees that hasn’t yet found its next home. The people [...]
Posted in Food on Aug 11th, 2010
I began feeding the bees yesterday. After months of worrying about it, I decided to post my concerns on beemaster.com and run it by the nice treatment-free beekeepers there. To a person, they responded that if the bees haven’t built up ample stores for winter, then I should feed. Of course, there’s also an understanding [...]
Posted in Going Naked on Aug 8th, 2010
Once again, it’s time to start worrying if the bees will live through the winter. It’s just the weirdest thing to begin planning so early for winter, but the bees do it. They probably don’t worry, though…they simply do what they can do and that’s that. Maybe they’re too busy to worry. Maybe I should [...]
Posted in Hive Management on Aug 6th, 2010
I had a happy sighting yesterday. Remember that split I made exactly 24 days ago? No? Well, let me remind you: I took a frame containing some queen cells I’d found in Tomboys, and I made a split…which means I began a new colony from an old one by placing that queen-cell-containing frame in a [...]