Spring Bee Hiving Moon
Croci
Daily Archives: April 14, 2012
Spring Bee Hiving Moon
Peaked under the feeding pail just now. Bees clustered under it. Where they should be. Closed it back up. I’ll check again on Friday to see if they’re queen right.
A Short, Short Story
Spring Bee Hiving Moon
First, you take a blank page.
Throw marks at it, enough to light a fire under it.
Bring to a simmer.
Stir violently. Then chase it with cars and a motorcycle.
Throw in a vampire or an alien.
Cook for 45 minutes.
Turn off the heat and let it set.
Stuff Done
Spring Bee Hiving Moon
AC cleaned out. Limbs moved and put into brushpiles. Weed prevention completed.
Muscles a little achy, but feelin’ good. Bees this afternoon. Then a Latin day tomorrow.
Working outdoors at this pace at 65, a blessing. I’m ready to go longer.
With Kate’s sprucing up, the onions, leeks, shallots and garlic growing, asparagus popping up, rhubarb going strong, daffodils in bloom plus a few croci, bees buzzing about the cherry and apple and pear blossoms, the vitality of our home bursts out from every square inch.
The Outdoor Season, Well and Truly Begun
Spring Bee Hiving Moon
Kate got a nasty cellulitis on her left arm. Probably from scratches incurred while vigorously pruning and weeding. Spring clean up. It swelled up, got hot and sent her to the urgent care last night, the doctor visiting her own clinic for treatment. They gave her a couple of jabs of rocephin, prescribed some sulfa and sent her home.
After a restless night, she got up and drove out to the arboretum (today) for a class on fruit tree pruning. She’s a Viking, moving past the pain, just as she has from the first days of our life together. I’m no where near as stoic.
Later on today I’ll check on our new colleagues, making sure they’re clustered under the feeder pail, then I’ll leave them alone until next Friday. Next Friday I’ll go in and check for larvae. Finding larvae means the queen has gone to work laying eggs and the colonies will be queen right. After that, it’s the normal hive checks, hive box rotations and following their life as the colony builds up to full strength.
The outdoor season is well and truly underway. Got 2.5 pounds of potatoes from Seed Savers yesterday. I’ll supplement them with sprouts from leftover potatoes of last year’s crop and, possibly, a few from Green Barn, up the road a piece near Isanti. That bed has to be dug and amended.
Also on today’s docket. Move the large limbs I pruned a month ago onto brush piles, clear out the work Kate did yesterday, clean off the AC and do some weed prevention. That’s enough for today.