Spring Waxing Awakening Moon
Sunny, but cool though warm weather seems fated to come our way. Ice out has advanced on Round Lake though there is still rough, weak ice over most of its surface. Many daffodils have speared their way up through the leaves and other detritus from last falls end of the growing season. I’ve seen a few hosta roll-ups, too. I put in my last order of bee stuff yesterday, bringing seven honey supers, 70 super frames and 50 super foundations, a copper hive cover and 75 frame and foundations for the deep hive bodies.
The old machine shed, now to be the honey house needs a thorough cleansing which will be an early task once the weather moves away from soggy and I have some time for outside work.
Today, in just a couple of minutes, I have a call about Matt Entenza’s gubernatorial campaign. They want my thoughts on environmental issues. They can have every one of them. After the call, on to the language of ancient Rome. Later in the day I may revise Liberal II. That novel just sits there right now. Waiting. Meanwhile my promiscuous creative spirit entertains other guests, a new project, a big project, that will follow After the Hawthorn Wars.
Here’s another jaw dropper that I learned about bees during my bee course. Over the winter the colony becomes a large cluster with all the bees hanging, literally, together, shivering. The shivering produces heat and keeps the colony alive during the temperature drops of winter. This means, said Marla Spivak, that in winter the colony, the whole colony, acts like a warm blooded animal. The colony is a super-organism that gathers food, births larvae and nurses them, takes diseased and deceased members, defends itself and takes up a lot of time with architecture as well.
Since the cluster happens inside the hive boxes, it is difficult to picture. I’ve chosen a swarm in the picture here, to show you a cluster, but not like the one I had in my first colony this winter.