Beltane Waning Flower Moon A new feature on ancientrails, the ancient trail of bee-keeping. This diary will serve as my record of work with my colonies and a way to review the year’s learnings and prepare for next year. From … Continue reading
Beltane Waning Flower Moon The potato bed now has three bags of composted manure dug into it and the leek, sugar snap, bok choy bed has one and one more coming. Kate has weeded several beds including the herb spiral … Continue reading
Spring Waxing Flower Moon A bruising middle finger, swollen passes the inflammation onto the top of the hand. It itches. This aspect of bee-keeping has its annoying moments. Like using same finger to hit the i with regularity, or the … Continue reading
Spring Flowering Moon The netaphim ruined last year by dogs Rigel and Vega has repairs. The repairs sit safely inside fences that Rigel has shown either no interest or no capability to penetrate. They should last. The bees will wait … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
Imbolc New Moon (Awakening) Bees. Bees. Bees. Bees. I’ve had two 8 hour sessions of nothing but bees. And more stuff about bees. Today I learned about dividing a colony, a successfully wintered colony, which is our situation here. As … Continue reading
Imbolc Waning Wild Moon Big news. The dead live. Or, rather, the bee colony I declared dead last fall turns out to be very much alive. I checked this afternoon. That means the whole bee thing looks more and more … Continue reading
Summer Waning Summer Moon The smoker worked. Mostly. The bees have had 2 to 2.5 months of breeding, brooding and comb building. There are a lot more bees than there were in April when Mark showed me how to load … Continue reading