Beltane New Moon (Planting)
The sun. The sun. We’ve been doing a great imitation of Seattle for the past week, cool and rainy. Today and tomorrow we’ll have plenty of sun. I’m glad because I have to check on my division (#2), see how their doing; check on my package colony (#3), see if they’re drawing out comb, the queen’s laying brood; and, finally, I have to check the two honey supers on the parent colony (#1) and see if I have to add supers, as well as doing a reverse on the two hive boxes. The reverse follows, roughly, the amount of time it takes a queen to migrate into the next hive box. This way, she lays eggs in the bottom hive box, then moves up into the top one, lessening the chance that the colony will feel crowded and want to swarm.
Tomorrow, too, I’m going to take my new digital camera and shoot pictures of the pancake comb I’m seeing, as well as the dark, splotchy comb. I’ll send the pictures to Gary Reuters at the UofM to get his take on them.
The sun after a long stretch of Aunt Roberta dull, gray days makes me feel great. Work to be done and time to do it.
Kate continues to look forward to her hip surgery as the pain in her right hip has become excruciating. I’ll be glad for her when its better.
