Take Joy!

The Storm's Aftermath

We had (and the operative word here is 'had') a big spruce tree in front of the house. John planted it when his children were small (it was a Christmas tree one year), so it was close to 40 years old, and at least twice as tall as the house.

Was.

It came down in the weekend's winds; I don't know when, for no one heard it, but it was down on Sunday morning. Snapped off at the root . . . which, I'm told, is fairly common with these trees. They have one long taproot and a shallow network of supporting roots, and if the taproot snaps there's not much to hold it in the ground.

Fortunately, it missed the beehives . . . one panel of the electric fence (currently referred to as 'the fence that was formerly known as electrified') and the power box, but all three hives are intact.

Two of the three hives made it through the winter. The bees are gone from the third hive, or were when John checked it during last month's warm spell. So, naturally, we ordered another set of bees to replace the departed ones. Lately, though, we've been seeing bees going in and out of the 'empty' hive. What's going on here? John will have to open it up and investigate, as soon as he and Roger get the tree out of the way.

 

Yesterday all the bees decided to come out of the end hive . . .

We thought at first they were swarming, but apparently not. The winter board is still in place (or was; John's taken it out now), so we think they were too warm inside and came out to get cool. We could almost feel the air vibrating, and their humming was loud enough to hear on the porch.

It was wonderful.

After an hour or so, they all went back in. We all sat and watched them flowing over each other back into the hive.

If you like bees, and reading, you might take a look at Kij Johnson's short story, "At the Mouth of the River of Bees." Here's a link to a short review, which in turn has a link to the archived story.

It's worth reading.

Autumn Gold

Goldenrod, under the feeders behind the house

 

Jerusalem artichoke flowers (there's a row down at the edge of the woods, but this one is a volunteer in front under the big fir)

 

and a golden bee

 

One Misty Morning

Yesterday morning, when we had to get up early for the tailgate market:

This is looking from the front of the house down toward the chicken and goat lots. That's the grape-and-morning glory arbor on the left.

Some folks had obviously been busy in the night . . .

Some were already up and about, busy with the day's work . . .

And some weren't . . .

Though, to be fair, he HAD been up most of the night, guarding things.

Hot, hot, hot!!

Well, OK, not as hot as the Midwest or California . . . but hot for the North Carolina mountains! (must be that global warming thing the powers that be keep saying doesn't exist . . . ) 90+ is too hot for me; I can't imagine living where the temperature is over 100 for days on end. So we stayed inside today: John went to the farmers' market and got a couple of bushels of peaches to freeze, and he and Christnia worked on them. I hung the laundry out (one good thing about all this heat: it dries in no time, before the evening rain), weeded a bit and took the weeds down to the chickens, who were in the shade under their house. The turkeys were under the trees in the new part of the lot, and the guineas were busy dusting themselves. The goats all came up the hill and lay on the bare dirt where it was cooler; William and Henrietta retired to the shed. I decided, since I was out already, to investigate the state of the blackberry bushes . . . John came out to tell me I had no business out in the sun, but I pointed out that I was wearing a hat, and was in the shade (even though it was thorny . . . some of those bushes are a good eight feet tall) . . . and came in later with these

Worth every scratch! I suppose it might be just barely possible to have too many blackberries, but I can't imagine how. Not quite enough for a pie, I don't think, so I shall gorge on cottage cheese with peaches and blackberries for the next couple of days.

Even the bees are hot . . . these are young bees, John says, who are doing hive duties for a few days before they fly out in search of blooming things, and who have come out to get cool:

And, to finish up, here is a picture of Emma in her frog pants and top (courtesy of myself—isn't it wonderful how grandchildren enable one to buy and sew with fabric that's irresistible, but that adults wouldn't be caught dead in?), all prepared for sun:

John has repaired to the Waffle House, where they have air conditioning, and I am sitting in front of the fan, preparing to work on Willie . . . who is wearing a crocheted wool cap! I need to go down in the woods and forage for a walking stick for him. Pictures tomorrow, probably . . .

Lord, I hope it's cooler tomorrow . . .

Bees in the Lamb's-Ear

Odds and Ends

Today is/was Fred Chappell's birthday. He is North Carolina's Poet Laureate, and his evocative novel Farewell, I'm Bound To Leave You is one of my favorites.

I picked up a copy of The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan at Goodwill the other week. It looks to be interesting (especially the chapter on tulips. Here's what caught my eye:

But if the pleasure bees and people take in flowers have a common root, standards of floral beauty soon begin to specialize and diverge—and not just bee from boy, but bee from bee as well. For it seems that different kinds of bees are attracted to different kinds of symmetry. Honeybees favor the radial symmetry of daisies and sunflowers, while bumblebees prefer the bilateral symmetry of orchids, peas, and foxgloves.

How interesting! I suppose that explains why the altheas at my grandmother's were always full of bumblebees, but not honeybees . . . and why bumblebees love lamb's ear.  In fact, my mother swears that she has petted bumblebees . . . you must go out early, early in the morning and inspect the althea blossoms, for bumblers sometimes sleep in them. If you find one not yet awake, you may very gently stroke it with a delicate finger, and it will hunch its back and buzz sleepily, as a drowsing cat would.

We have no altheas (yet), so I have been unable to try this myself . . .

No, I'm Not Dead . . .

no matter what some people might wish . . . but I have had a nasty cold, and not felt like doing anything other than the absolutely necessary. Which mostly involved taking long hot showers and lying about trying to read. . .

But now I seem to be recovering (at any rate, I can breathe again), so here is the latest on the bees:

First off, do not believe everything you read in a "beekeeping for dummies" book. John has had bees before, but it's been a while, so we decided to go by the book . . . When your bees come, there's a can of sugar water in the box with them. You put the queen and her daughters into the hive and put the sugar water in with them so they'll have something to eat right away. In order to do this, you have to leave out three of the frames containing the comb foundation (I'm not sure how many there are, but they fill the hive, with just enough space in between for the bees to get through and deposit was to build up honeycomb).

Well, the book said to wait three or four days, or maybe a week, before taking the sugar water out and putting the other frames in. John said he used to do that the next day, but perhaps things had changed . . . So we did . . . we were waiting, anyway, for the top feeders to come. (These are built just like another story in the hive, and filled with sugar syrup, but each one has a little entryway sort of thing covered with screen for the bees to crawl in, but they can't get into the syrup and drown.)

They came, and we (John; I just get to watch and fetch things . . . and wear my helmet) opened the hives, and lo and behold! They had gone and built comb anyway, and guess where?

 

 

Why, in the open space, of course!

So we had to scrape the bees and comb off, very very carefully, into a box, then make sure the queen was actually in the hive where she belonged, put the feeder on (being careful not to squash any bees in the process) . . . repeat for all three hives. It took a couple of hours, but all was well in the end, apparently, for this was last weekend, and the hives are all active this week.

Here is a closeup of the freeform honeycomb . . . impressive, isn't it? All that work . . . we really hated to tear it up.

There are bees in everything that's blooming. It's so nice to have them again. The lamb's ear is beginning to bloom, and they ought to be all over that.

As a bonus, here is are cat photos. (Remember that story in Winnie the Pooh, where Pooh gets a balloon and floats up to steal the bees' honey, attempting to look like a small cloud? Well, here is Widget, the small black thundercloud . . . )

And here is Mr. Schmoodge, sometimes known as The Mighty Earl, stalking a ferocious pokeweed under the big fir tree . . .

 

Bees settled in

 

The bees are settled in nicely, by all appearances. I still need to go out and retrieve their shipping boxes, but I keep forgetting it when it's dark, and I don't want to bother them during the day. They have sugar water to tide them over (those jars in the front of each hive), but they've found the flowers and are busy among them. . . it's so nice to look out and see bees working in the tradescantia and the blackberry blossoms. There are a few patches of clover, but they aren't blooming yet.

John is away shearing someone's sheep again today (half of them were done yesterday) and I am left to my own devices . . . it's raining off and on, so I've put a pot roast into the oven, done the cleaning up this morning, and am spending the afternoon sewing sunhats for this weekend's tailgate, hemming a too-long skirt (in my next life, I'd really like to have long-enough legs so I can wear off the rack clothing without altering it), and watching the catbird in the weeping cherry tree. I keep trying to get a picture, but he's fast (I say he, but could be she . . . only another catbird knows for sure). I think they may have a nest somewhere close . . . I'm sure the bluejays do. They are at the suet several times a day; I love to watch them.

The goats and William are huddled in their shed, glowering at the rain. They hate being wet. I've built a small fire in the stove, since it's so damp, and half a dozen cats are sprawled over the hearth and on the bed . . . When John comes home, we'll have pot roast and fried potatoes and summer squash with butter and garlic, and the rest of the strawberries with a little whipped cream, and sit around digesting happily for the rest of the evening . . .

I have some photos of the iris, but I haven't done anything with them yet. Tomorrow . . .

In Which We Acquire Real Live Bees

Here they are in their shipping box (which is/was wood with screen): manymanymany bees, all coming to live at my house.

 

This little box contains the hive's queen; when she's put into the hive, all the other bees will follow her. In theory, at least . . .

In reality, they meander about on top of the hive in an exasperatingly random fashion.

However, at least some of them do come out. The rest stay stubbornly in their box. We're not going out there, no siree, and you can't make us . . .

We have the secret weapon, though . . . the bee smoker. It comes with a bunch of hockey-pucklike discs of pressed cardboard stuff; you crumble one or two up inside the smoker, light it, light it again, add some pieces of newspaper and light them, add more newspaper . . . eventually the thing is lit and smoking (and smelling to high heaven, too), and you puff (with the tasteful yellow plastic bellows) smoke into the box to stun the bees a bit and make them more tractable. (Oh . . . the other yellow thing is the bee brush, used for [naturally] brushing bees off things and into things. It's nice and soft so it won't hurt them.)

Here is the evil machine . . .

Now they can be shaken gently into the hive.

We'll just leave them to their own devices for a bit while the last few go in.

I ran out of picture space on the camera. Final photos tomorrow, barring rain . . .

Back to Normal, or what passes therefor . . .

I am be-modemed again, and beginning to rebuild my bookmarks, etc. . . . all lost after the demise of my previous hard drive. (Also all photos of grandchildren, goats, chickens, and sheep, and let's not look at the Freudian implications of that list, if you please.) Ah, well, there is a lot to be said for a fresh start. My knees are functioning in what passes for a normal fashion, thanks to many bags of frozen peas and lots of aspirin (now why did neither of my doctors recommend icing my knees? heat only made things worse, but ice worked wonders. I had to find out about it on the internet.), and a new pair of shoes. I am now wearing Earth shoes . . . you remember, those negative-heel, ugly, clunky, 60s shoes? Except that these are neither ugly nor clunky, and oh so comfortable now that my feet are getting used to them . . . their only drawback is that they cost a great deal and I'd really like to have another pair that aren't sandals. This fall. I just need to save this summer's egg money . . . .

As promised, here is a photo of William in his shorn state:

This was last week, so he isn't nearly so ragged looking now, but he's still pretty pitiful. He acts much happier, though, without all that hot wool. . . which is now sitting, along with five other bags, in my living room. Yes, that's right: I have six trash bags full of greasy wool waiting for me to do something with it. (Wash it, for starters, just as soon as I figure out how.) Wool from William, ad from two sheep belonging to one of John's friends, and three of another's. He shears and gets the wool. If this sort of thing continues, I may need a drum carder and a spinning wheel. (Just what I need . . . another interesting thing to do that requires a whole 'nother set of tools and things, and takes up a lot of time . . . but surely a book on spinning could do no harm?)

And here are our beehives, ready and waiting for inhabitants:

The bees should ship this month . . . any time now! I shall have to get my helmet and veil ready . . .