About The Bees

I started this post almost 10 days ago and that was a long, long time ago.  I'm not even sure I can remember everything so I can get caught back up.  Sigh...

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Okay, so we had to move Stella's bees.  I had been told they needed to be moved, but my hope had been to wait and catch a spring swarm from the hive so I could keep some of her bees around here before I had to move the hive to a site at least three miles away.  

I've always been under the impression you could move a hive three feet...or more than three miles because of the way they map the area and locate to their hive.  You can move them to a closer location, like down here, but you'd have to move them away from the area...and then move them back.  No one really wants to do that, especially not the bees.

Turns out you can move them within that range - in this case around 300 yards - but you need to do some tricky work.  You wait until evening, when the bees have all returned to the hive, and move them to their new location, but face the hive in a different direction.  We reoriented them from facing east to facing south.  

The next morning, just before you open the "front door", you pile up a bunch of brush across the opening so that they have to crawl their way out, and this is their second clue that things have changed and they need to reorient themselves.

After everyone has headed off to work, you can remove some the branches and then the rest a bit later. You also need to put a catch hive back at the previous location so that any stragglers or lost bees have a place to go and then at the end of the first day you carry them all back down to the new location, give them a stern lecture and hope they figure things out...but you repeat the catch hive at least one more day.

I think I covered the move on Instagram either in pictures or videos.  The first night after the move I brought down a pretty significant amount of bees.  The second night there were about half as many, but things the third day were starting to quiet down and I'm hopeful we didn't lose too many field working bees. It was extremely stressful and I felt very bad for the bees.  

A week after the initial move, the hive swarmed.  This is normal spring behavior.  It would have been better if they'd have been able to swarm into their normal small tree at Stella's where it would have been easy to pick them up and start a second hive, but alas, they swarmed into the top of Salt's pine tree in the yard where there was no way to get them and they eventually moved off.  

I saw them leave and followed them back to a smaller tree at the big pond and had hopes of picking them up out there, but they didn't stay there long and I didn't see where they ended up. I'm hoping they are tucked safely into a nice old hollow tree nearby and will keep in touch.  In the meantime, the remaining bees are happily working along and have resumed their normal calm demeanor.  They may make one more split before spring is over.  I hope I'll be able to catch them if they do.

Click to biggify

One way to tell if they are happy and things are working properly is if you see bees flying in with pollen to feed baby bees.  The bees flying in with yellow and orange dots on their legs are carrying pollen.  Watching pollen enter the hive was one of Stella's favorite jobs.  I'm enjoying having them outside my door now...but it was more fun to get the reports from Stella.

What follows is a random dump of pictures and IG posts.  I doubt they are in any sort of order, but I need to get this posted and move on.  I have a list of things to try to catch up on the blog including some Lamb Camp pictures, a new puzzle and a Frankie report.  How does everything get so far away from me?!?

This is the "cluster" of the first lost bees pick up - see below...I think.

Wrapping and strapping.  This all went very smoothly.

The pick up to load into the back of the truck.

Placing them in the B Garden

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Oh, and since there are no longer two Too Busy Bees, we are going to call ourselves The B (Bee) Team.

Slow Motion Train Wreck

The weather turned warm and sunny on Tuesday so I took a break and sat out in the barn and knit for awhile.  I took this picture and thought it would make a nice blog shot to go with a group of progress pictures I'd saved up as I knit through December and half of January.

This is the sweater I'm making.  I thought it would look great with Jared's yarn and since I like to learn something new with each project, a zipper would be a fun (I hope) challenge.  There were some other fun(ny) challenges as I got started, such as the videos accompanying the pattern being in Danish, but I managed to muddle through.

The sweater starts at the top with a fold over collar and then carries on through the yoke and divides for the sleeves and body.  I checked my gauge several times over the first few inches and was spot on my gauge swatch, so I "knit on with confidence".

I knit several inches past the armholes and the set the body aside to go back and work on the sleeves for a bit.  As I started the first sleeve I thought it looked too big.  I measured it next to the B. Willard sweater and decided it was okay, so I kept knitting.  

As I approached the midpoint on the sleeve I again tested it with B. Willard and it was a hair bigger, but within a reasonable size.  I did check my gauge though and I was no longer "spot on".  Did I stop and re-evaluate things?  Heck no.  I finished that sleeve and the second one and then back to the body...and started running out of yarn.

I always spin two pounds for a sweater so I know I'll have more than enough for whatever I'm making. I've never used the whole two pounds, not even close.  Now I took the time to stop and re-evaluate things, actually pulled it off the needles and tried it on...and you know what happened next :'-(.

As I ripped back each skein, one by one, I looked for clues as to why I let this happen yet. again.  Why did I ignore the gauge when it stopped being "spot on" yet. again.  Why did my gauge change?  Were the skeins that different?  No, they all looked fine.

It took until this morning to remember that through cold December I'd tensioned my yarn around my little finger and that most of January had been so warm I used my summer tensioning and just carried it through my palm without a finger wrap and sure enough, that was about when the gauge changed.

I recalculated my pattern size after making thorough notes on my yet. again. sweater sized gauge swatch and am ready to start over and "do it right".  It's never fun to rip out that much work, but it was even less fun to do it without being able to call Stella and hear her laugh about it :-/.

Knitting on, once again, with confidence.

Sigh...

 

Happy Ground Hog Day I Mean New Year

Something went wrong when I saved the year end photo slideshow yesterday and I didn't catch it until this morning...after I'd already posted it and deleted the "albums" where I store the month and year end photos on my phone.  Not to worry, I'd backed up all the pictures...just not in their albums.

What does this mean?  The pictures were all still there in the archives, so I could recreate the "memory".  They were just no longer in small(ish) curated groups...so I spent several hours this morning sorting through almost 4800 (!) photos from 2022.   

Interestingly the first "memory" cut out pretty much all of summer and early fall.  While I think eliminating those months is mostly a great idea except for maybe sweet corn and monarch butterflies, if I have to live through them, I'd like to remember them.

Luckily 2022 was a pretty good year here.  I'd have still recreated the year end review even if it hadn't been, but I'm incredibly thankful I wasn't sorting sad pictures.  

You can't have a year end review and leave Frankie, Fiona and baby Fritz out!  It was worth the trouble :-)

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Two Things

One of the problems with getting so far behind updating the blog is that I forget all things I want to share.  There are two more things I'd like to remember about going to the National Drive.  

First up, as I was perusing the tack swap area, a woman came over to see if I had any questions and then stopped short and said "Hey, I know you!"  She was a fellow beekeeper and we'd talked bees many years ago.  Then she added, "I was so sorry to hear about your neighbor."

We talked about Stella for a few minutes and it made me happy to think of her in such a seemingly random place, still being part of so many lives whether through her bees or her "Stella Knitting".  I'm getting ready to do some Stella knitting myself and it does help to think about her laughing about me ripping back yet another sweater.

The other thing is that when I got home, Pinto didn't talk to me for two days.  He didn't even come out into the barn lot like he does every night.  I was snubbed from afar.  He's since forgiven me...or at least is letting me slide on it.  

He's a funny sheep and a good friend.

Telling The Bees

Once upon a time a good beekeeper saw that the bees in one of her hives were getting ready to swarm.  She watched them gathering outside their hive and, with no way to stop them, watched them fly away.  They swirled up into the sky and landed in a nearby tree, 40 feet in the air.  

She was pretty good at gathering swarms, but that was far too high.  "I can't take care of you up there," I heard her tell them.  "You need to come back down."

An hour or so later she called to tell me the bees were going back in.  (?!?)  I got back up the hill just in time to watch the last bees crawl back into their old hive.

The next day they re-swarmed into a different nearby tree, about six feet off the ground.  We easily gathered them into a cardboard box and installed them in a new hive. She stayed to make sure every bee found their way into their new home.

Tomorrow I will go up the hill to tell the bees.

Stella Martin

August 16, 1923 - September 1, 2022

Happy Bees

 

I am happy to report that Stella's bee hives are all alive and well and once again we've made it through winter with no losses.  That's a pretty impressive record actually, as we've heard quite a few stories of significant hive losses over the last few years.  

We are no experts and aren't really "successful" honey producers these days, but we are very happy to help maintain a steady bee population and we think the keys to our successes/good luck are not opening the hives and bothering the bees any more than we absolutely have to and not taking too much much honey from them.  We've also never treated our hives for any serious diseases.

If you are looking for an enjoyable book to read about beekeeping...and life, I will once again recommend A Country Year:Living The Questions by Sue Hubbell.  It's one of my very favorites.

Here is a fun (and a bit hard) new puzzle.  For those keeping score at home, disregard my work time.  I actually worked it twice, once as a gift from a friend and once after I created it to my account so I'd have record of my working it...or something.  

Thank Goodness It's Not Still August

Most of August is just a hot, miserable slog, but a few things make it a little more bearable...or maybe it's just two things.  One is keeping track of the August fogs.  The other is celebrating Stella's and my birthday.

Sometimes we have neighborhood parties.  Sometimes we go get milkshakes and root beer floats.  Sometimes we go on a picnic and play cards.  This year we had a homegrown tomato party!  

Auntie Reg had an extra planting bag so we put Stella's favorite tomato, Cherokee Purple, on her porch.  I've never tried to grow a container tomato so I wasn't sure how things would go.  Obviously they went well!

Cheers to a happy birthday!

Oh, one other thing that August is good for is butterflies.  Stella has a couple of beautiful light purple (and white ;-) butterfly bushes next to her porch and they attract the most beautiful butterflies, humming birds and hawk moths :-D.

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Can't come up with anything else good about August.

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Maybe bats.  The bats are still flying strong in August...

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What else?

The Lightning Round

For installment three of our summer online horse show series I decided to set up a small cones course.  Cones are not only fun, but they are also a great way to practice steering as you have to actually make the prescribed turns, not just turn when it's convenient.  Cones are part of both Combined Driving Events and Pleasure Driving shows.

Frankie and I have only driven cones a few times and never an actual pattern, mostly just turning through whichever cones were "convenient" ;-).  I set up a simple course with easy, flowing turns and only a couple tougher lines or turns to challenge both of us.  I wanted it to be fun for Frankie, like a game, and to build his confidence.

We warmed up a few minutes and then got ready to start the video.  "I'm going to do the first trip around just slow and steady.  We'll go faster on the second round."  The first trip was...slow and steady.  I knew it was slow, but I was happy with how smoothly we'd driven.  "Okay, this time we'll go fast!"

Note to self...next time we do this only Stella gets to watch and Leslie and Derek have to video.  The rest of the peanut gallery with their barely disguised silent laughing and the out loud laughing...

"I'm giving it all I've got, Captain!"

"It's the pedal on the right!"

"Be careful!"

Despite my best efforts, the second round...was as excruciatingly slow as the first one.  Honestly, even I had to laugh.  Stella said we did a good job though, which...for a green horse, we really did.  It was just hilariously slow, especially for an ex-racehorse.  

"Let's try one more time.  Come on Frankie.  You can do it!"

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It still looks pretty slow, but it's waaaay faster then the earlier attempts ;-).  

A Bee Story

Literally a story about a bee.

There are several lambing, but not lambs, things I enjoy each year.  The dogwoods over by Tring Farm, the blue and white barn surrounded by redbud trees at the main intersection, daffodils on the road to Final Frontier Farm and the wild bees on their farm driveway.  

They were busy...as bees...yesterday afternoon and I stopped to watch them as I was heading home.  "I should get out and take some pictures and a video for Stella!"  

If you look closely you can see the bees who have been out gathering pollen.  They are flying into the hive with their pollen sacs stuffed full.  Look for yellow on their back legs.

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See the honey comb they've built near the bottom of the opening?  The comb probably goes throughout the whole tree, top to bottom.

These good old trees provide habitat for bees, bugs, birds and all sorts of other wildlife.  I wish folks would think twice before cutting them down.  Just because you don't think they look pretty doesn't mean there aren't thousands, literally thousands, of other animals who think they do.  But this is not just a story about thousands of bees.  It's also a story about one bee.

As I drove towards home, listening to an audio book, enjoying the scenery...uh oh...I hear a bee buzzing.  Sure enough I'd accidentally rolled the window up with a bee stuck in my car.  If I'd done that just a mile down the road, I'd have rolled the window back down and let her fly home.  I was almost to the river, way too far for her to have any chance of survival.  

Sigh...

I turned around and drove 15 minutes back past Tring Farm, the dogwoods, the blue and white barn, the still blooming redbuds, the daffodils to the bee tree, opened the window and out she flew.  I realize it was just one bee, but I'd caused the problem.  I could fix the problem.  Many problems are not that easy.

And as I repeated my track back home for a second time, the phone rang.  It was Stella.  I was hoping she was just calling to check in and I could tell her my story about my one bee, but this time of year I had a feeling she wasn't.  She too had a story about several thousand bees.  She was watching a swarm from one of her hives.

For Anyone Who May Still Be Keeping Score At Home

Mini Moose was looking quite knitworthy the other day!

I have not given up on the 2020 Iknitarod!  This sweater should have been finished...honestly...years ago.  At very least months ago.  It will be finished before I allow myself to start on my 2021 Iknitarod project, which should start this Saturday.  Which will start this Saturday.   

I'm happy to be getting back in the knitting groove at least a little.  You know the groove where I knit a bunch of inches and then have to rip back a bunch of inches and reknit them and hope I don't have to re-rip them back out and re-re-knit them...  

Me and Stella...keeping it real on the lane ;-).

Easter Eggs For Christmas

I came up with a plan for the Christmas card early in the year.  It was something cute and fun with the horses and sheep and I was excited about trying to draw and paint it.  Just before I started to work on it, B. Willard got into a bucket of greenery I'd cut and ate just enough off each branch that I could no longer really use any of them and would have to start cutting all over.  

I was laughing with Auntie Reg about that and we agreed it was 2020 in a nutshell and that should be the card design this year.

I sketched it out, had my yearly conference with my favorite art teacher, started painting...and I didn't love it.  It wasn't terrible...but it wasn't great.  There were good parts...and parts that I just didn't feel  were working out at all.  There were several things I wished I had done differently and I considered just starting all over.

It's been a sad, sentimental sort of year.  The thought of painting over the top of naughty Cheeto and Willard or the horses running around the yard or Salt sleeping under her favorite tree made me...sad and sentimental.  Those were good stories.  Good times.  

Tilly digging in the bucket to see if there was anything to eat, Possum, so happy on "her" porch, Maisie standing watch over the flock...and wearing a Santa hat, no less!  Rocky and Jared grazing in the yard and the chickens...the chickens... ;-)

There's probably too much focus on the Wool House porch, but sitting in those chairs with Kate and Tilly, watching the sun come up and Willard hobble out to "make the donuts" each morning meant a lot to me.  I hope we aren't the only ones still sitting out there somehow.

Maisie floating around by herself out in "left field"...is, well, kind of Maisie.  I added her red hat to try to draw some attention away from the heaviness of the porch and it became a nice reminder of the fun we had dressing her up this year. 

Oh wait, I did paint out one character - Betsy (said like "Newman" from Seinfeld).  I'd originally had her looking out of the window of the Wool House, but after yet another vicious attack on sweet little Possum, I replaced her with a potted plant.  It's a special plant though.  Every year Stella gives me a beautiful poinsettia and it made me happy to include it.  

So...while I might not love the overall design of the card, when I notice all the little stories behind the big story I have to admit it's still a pretty good card. Sure, there are good parts and not as good parts and things I wish I'd done differently and stories I wished had ended differently, but...that's probably 2020 in a nutshell.

Merry Christmas!

Sweet Babies

Hickory's mom, Paige, just had a sweet little baby and I wanted to knit her something special from the farm.  I have no clue what size to knit a baby sweater and I figured it would be outgrown in just a few weeks anyway, so I made a sweater for a sweet little stuffed lamb :-).

Since Paige was one of Liddy's aunties, I thought a Liddy sweater would be the most appropriate, so I spun a small skein of worsted weight yarn and pulled out a trusty Elizabeth Zimmermann book.  Most of it was knit on a couple of beautiful fall afternoons.

Of course it wouldn't be a sweater project if I didn't have to rip it all back at least once ;-).

The lamb waited and waited...

And finally it was finished :-).

Before he left for New York, he took his sweater up to show Clay's Kentucky Great Aunt, Stella. He loved hearing stories about the trip he was going to take and what fun he was going to have with his new family.  He arrived safe and sound earlier this week...and I bet he's glad he has a warm wool sweater :-).  

Early Foggy Morning

Or Early, Foggy Morning ;-).

We woke to heavy fog this morning.  A complete white out.  As I walked around the yard with Early while he did a little early morning grazing with Willard, I snapped some pictures with my phone...and thought to myself, "Sigh, I wish I had my big camera."  

Um, the big camera is just inside the house.  So I trekked All The Long Way Back In...which I can do without upsetting Early because he's just that good, and took some pretty pictures this morning.  I have a nice horse shot that I'll post tomorrow.

I've been wanting to do a blog all week, but thought I didn't have any new pictures to share and I feel a bit weird reposting Instagram pictures over here because I figure if anyone wanted to see Instagram pictures...they'd be following or at least watching the Instagram feed already.  Maybe that's not the case.  Let me know.

Anyway, as I was scrolling back through my phone last night looking for something, I found a whole series of pictures I took of a bee swarm Stella and I picked up a week or so ago and had already even forwarded them to my computer specifically for a blog post.  I can't get out of my own way sometimes.

Sorry for the long break in blog posts.  This is my diary.  I'm going to regret the missing posts.  I already do.  

How One Little Bee Saved Her Entire Hive

The greenhouse pansies are still going strong.  This is no surprise as the winter has been fairly warm other than a few odd days here and there like the last two nights when it went down into the mid teens.  The sun came out this morning, so I cracked the door open about 3/4" for some ventilation.  

As I headed to the house for lunch I stopped in to see how the blooms had weathered the cold snap and check to see is anyone needed some water.  I was completely surprised to see one of Stella's honey bees in there working!  It was 40 degrees and pretty breezy.  Way too cold in my mind for a bee to be out and that far from home.  

It's not unusual for bees to break their cluster on warm winter days and fly out to do some house cleaning and early foraging.  I worried though, as the winter weather has been so crazy, that maybe they had used up their winter stores and decided to run up and check.

While you should never open a hive under 50 degrees, you can lift up the intact hive and check the weight.  I knew heading into winter that I could barely lift it.  It should still be pretty heavy.  If not, they might be running low on honey and appreciate some sugar syrup.

As I approached the hive though I found an even bigger problem.  The over saturated ground had given way under one of the concrete blocks it sits on and the hive was in immediate danger of toppling over.  Even with a ratchet strap around the hive bodies, a fall would surely have cracked open the hive bodies, exposing the bees to cold, wet weather, surely killing them.

It took some doing, but Stella's son and grandson helped me get it reset on two new stable blocks.  By the time we got that accomplished I decided not to disturb them any further by checking their weight.  Stella's going to cook some syrup to set out in the morning and if they don't actually need it, they might just appreciate a little treat.  

I'm not sure if the greenhouse bee made it back up the hill.  I sure hope she did.  I wish I'd thought to capture her in a cup and carry her home just to make sure.  She's a pretty clever bee though and while she was most likely just down here looking for flowers, there's a little part of me that believes she came down to tell me I needed to go fix her hive.