Fall Waxing Autumn Moon We had our final straight from the garden meal last night. Roasted potatoes, onions, fennel, carrots and a lone beet. Raspberries for dessert. Marinated chicken for protein, not from here. Today I cut up the leeks, cooked some chicken breasts, carrots, celery, peas and corn (none of these ours), and cooked […]
Read the rest of this entry »Pictures of September
Lughnasa Waning Harvest Moon
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Lughnasa Waxing Harvest Moon Yesterday during the honey harvest (before the swarm) activity shifted among pulling frames from honey supers, delivering them for uncapping (Kate), getting them set in the extractor and going downstairs to work on Mark’s Saudi visa. Shifting from the concrete tasks of honey to the abstract and electronic tasks associated with […]
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Lughnasa Waxing Harvest Moon Tomorrow the season’s honey harvest. Kate and I will haul out the extractor, fasten it to the deck and begin uncapping our honey. The process goes like this. Each colony with surplus honey, 2 & 3, has at least two full honey supers and a third with some honey. The bees […]
Read the rest of this entry »Bee Diary: August, 2011
Lughnasa Waning Honey Extraction Moon Checked the honey supers this morning. On the two package colonies that I do not intend to overwinter, we have approximately four full honey supers. That is, we have for harvest the amount of honey they would have needed for the winter, close to 200 pounds. Figure that 40 pounds […]
Read the rest of this entry »Bee Diary: Memorial Day Weekend
Beltane Waning Last Frost Moon The bees. Today the second hive boxes went on each colony. This means that 70-80% of the frames in the bottom boxes have brood and pollen, requiring more space now for expansion of the growing number of bees. Without a second hive box the chance of swarming, increased by overcrowding, […]
Read the rest of this entry »Bee Diary: April 18, 2001
Spring Full Bee Hiving Moon My bee pick up date and time has come. I get my gals around 2:30 pm on Saturday. I’m mostly ready, having prepared the hive boxes and the frames on Sunday. I need a couple of entrance reducers and a bottom board, but that’s no big deal. I have frozen […]
Read the rest of this entry »Bee Diary March 26, 2011
Spring Waning Bloodroot Moon All three colonies are dead. I rechecked them last weekend. I have ordered three packages of bees, the larger 3 pounds boxes, that will arrive in early April, perhaps April 9th. Hiving the new packages takes place as soon as possible after I pick up the bees from Nature’s Nectary outside […]
Read the rest of this entry »Bee Diary: September 21st, 2010
Lughnasa Full Back to School Moon The fumagilin-B in heavy syrup, sugar 2:1 in a gallon water, rests now in the hive box wide feeder with the screen and two plastic reservoirs on each side of the screen. The bees can come up around the screen and reach the syrup. It will do two things […]
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Next to Last Day
Imbolc Waxing Bloodroot Moon I’ve had visitors now for lunch every day. Father Chris and I discussed being hard of hearing. When I mentioned saying something inappropriate occasionally in noisy places, he recounted a time when a parishioner said he was going to his sister’s funeral. That’s nice! Father Chris replied. Brother Paul presented me […]
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