Honey Bee Package Installation Day

Tuesday, April 19 was package bees arrival day. This year the bees I purchased came from California. I wondered if they might beg me to send them back when they realized it was barely in the low 40's here as I dumped them into their respective hives. Often the bees are a little grumpy when installed at such cool temps, but this year all the bees were very calm and it went quite smoothly and uneventfully. I like uneventful when it comes to honey bees and driving. It was nearly a 200 mile round trip to pick up the bees and that was, thankfully, uneventful too. 

Installation is a simple process that seems scary to new beekeepers. The bees sting to defend themselves or defend their home. Packaged bees have not yet adopted a hive as their new home, so they are generally quite docile about being unceremoniously dumped into it. Sometimes in the cool weather some bees will take exception and thank me by stinging or pestering me in a way that makes it clear they are not too happy with me.

Bump the cage so all bees fall to the floor..........

Remove the can of sugar syrup........



 

Remove the queen bee's cage from the package of bees......

Place the queen in her cage into the hive.......

And shake, shake, shake the bees into the hive. Fun!

Check out my YouTube video where I install a package of honey bees. It doesn't all go smoothly on the video but it all worked out.

Bee Happy! Thanks for reading my blog.

 

Early Bloomers and More

Spring blooming witch hazel is a sign that winter is almost finished with us. In our woods we have late fall blooming witch hazel. I enjoy seeing its spidery yellow blossoms long after all other blooming things have frozen.

Snowdrops can often be seen popping up through the snow in late winter. They brighten our day.

The bloom of skunk cabbage, too, can be seen while snow still rests on the ground. It is an early source of pollen for honey bees.

 

This hellebore, Lenten Rose, is so named because it often blooms between Ash Wednesday and Easter, the season of Lent. It is a new addition to our landscape so I am pleased to see its first ever blossom(s).

Two types of Scilla or Squill here, I believe. They don't seem to mind our woodsy environs and the deer and rabbits do not use them for salad either! 

Our crocuses or croci (both are apparently correct for the plural of crocus) have been staying closed for days on end with the cool, cloudy weather we have been experiencing lately. The sunshine today opened them up and the deep purple ones (two pics up) had a honey bee in one and a fly in the other before I took this picture.

This Canada goose seems to have a broken wing. We have waaay too many geese around and I know they are a nuisance, but I still hate to see any animal (or human) suffer.

As the daylight hours lengthen our chickens get back into egg laying mode. We do have a light on a timer that comes on in the morning, but they sure seem to be happier with longer, slightly warmer days. I have been collecting five eggs per day for the last few days in a row. In mid winter I was getting just two or three.

These are ISA Browns. I started them from day old chicks two years ago. It was hard to find chicks at that time due to the pandemic. Everyone wanted to have chickens in case of food shortages. I had to eliminate one hen recently because it did not seem healthy. But, the rest seem quite well, thank you. They sure do squawk a lot when I go outdoors. They want treats, to be let out of their pen, or something, I guess. It can be a little bit annoying at times, but, I like to see them. It makes me feel like I am on a farm and their eggs are delicious.

Thanks to Leighton Twp Library for hosting us and our Maple Syrup Program in early April. It is always fun speaking at their library.

I hope you enjoyed the blog. I'll catch up with you later.

 

 

 

A True Fish Story (It happened to me)

 

 I wondered if I was losing it. Not a fish.....my mind. I was fishing with dad and had just pulled up bluegill number 25. It was a dandy and as I took it into my left hand and reached with my right to grab the lure and unhook it, my eyes went to my ice fishing hole where the white foam float of my depth finder was supposed to be floating. It wasn't! It was going down the hole below the surface of the water. My mind said my fish had twisted my line around the cable and was swimming down with it. But, my left hand said otherwise since it still held that bluegill. My right hand reached for the transducer cable which I pulled. I felt a fish pulling back for about 2 seconds. My mind said that cannot be true. I still am not sure it can be true. But, I found a story on the internet (gotta be true) of a guy who caught a 50 inch muskie on his transducer. It is one of my strangest experiences ever while ice fishing.

Fish Scales

This, my friends, is a fish scale. I believe this one is from a northern pike. It is the largest I have seen so far and I found it in my basement on the carpet by the wood stove. I have had a plague of scales here lately and have quietly declared war against them. I have not said a word about it to my wife because I don't want her to notice them too. Recently, after cleaning fish in the garage for the umpteenth time this last 6 weeks, I literally vacuumed my garage, including the floor where we park cars. I saw lots of scales by my fish cleaning table and apparently I track them indoors because I find them all over the house. I hate getting a scale in my mouth when eating fish, so I wash my fillets very well. But, I have seen a scale or scales stuck to the side of the garage/house entry door, in my bedroom, in the living room, in the basement rec room, etc. After vacuuming the garage I vacuumed the entry rug. I vacuumed the basement rec room and swept the garage and swept the kitchen and dining area. Still, not a word to my wife about scales. So far so good. She hasn't mentioned them. I used to enjoy seeing a stray scale around to remind me of the fun I had catching and eating fish. Sometimes one will stick like a suction cup to my hand and not be noticed for days, even after cleaning them multiple times. Now, I see a couple of scales and go for the dust pan; whisking them in with the hand sweeper. Shhhhh. Don't tell....

PS. See below for a partial source of all those scales I am cleaning up. The fillets are so delicious. 

Who's tracks these are, I think I know.........

 I enjoy seeing tracks in the snow and trying to figure out what made them, how big of an animal (or human), which direction it was traveling and how fast, etc.

The shovel handle has underlined a squirrel track. This animal was moving left to right. It's hind feet make the larger, print. Front feet land first, then hind feet come to land in front of the front feet so it can spring forward on its powerful back legs.

The two pics above are rabbit tracks. Just like the squirrel, the hind feet are ahead of the front feet. So, the rabbit is traveling in the direction my foot is "traveling". The more stretched out the tracks, the faster the rabbit is running.

In the above picture, I see three sets of rabbit tracks (left, middle and right) with fox tracks going down the middle.

In the pics with gloves, I see cat tracks. Cats usually place their hind feet in or very nearly in the print made by their front feet. Look for toe marks to indicate direction of travel.

This doesn't look good. Another form of "wild life" activity? These are vehicle tracks indicating someone had a rough time in the snow. Be careful out there.

My stick is "underlining" turkey tracks. This bird was walking from left to right.

Here we have cat tracks on the left, mouse tracks on the right and deer tracks underneath. Busy night for the animals.

The toe of my boot is pointing at a mouse track. This mouse was traveling away from my boot.

I am pretty sure this final picture has fox tracks, but I believe there are some cat prints, too. Plus I see a couple of deer prints and mouse tracks. There is much wildlife activity while we sleep.

Winter

 I love winter. For 35 plus years I have been a professional driver and dreaded winter. In June I was already thinking about winter weather being just 5 months away. Some years we have winter weather as early as October and as late as April. That makes for a looooong winter. This is my first winter that I have been retired from driving. In November I said I was done driving professionally until spring. Now, I almost wish winter would slow down. We could be tapping our sugar maple trees in a month or less. Yikes! 

Even on the coldest of days the winter sun brings some warmth. It does not rise very high in the sky this time of year.

Early/mid January brought us lots of snow. Great for snow shoeing through the woods.

It is interesting to see animal signs in snow. Here are dig marks from squirrels looking for food.

Note how the deer scrape snow away to find tender morsels of food. Fun to watch until they get into the perennial garden. 

I like to see the signs of subniveal (under the snow) life in winter. Mice and voles are very active in their snowy world of tunnels and trails.

Cold winter mornings are awesome for walks. Here frozen fog has formed on trees near the river. The picture does not do justice to the beauty.

We saw our first sapsicles of the year on a sugar maple tree just a few days ago. The temperature was just below freezing and the sun had been out so the sap ran a little bit and it came out of a break in the tree branch bark. What you see is the result. Later in February, sapsicles are our sign that it is time to get things ready for tapping the sugar maple trees for maple syrup making.

Winter beauty. For all its treacherousness, winter can be a time of awesome beauty as well.

Can you spot the deer bedded down in a little patch of woods at a very busy intersection? I saw it as I sat at a red light. I wondered how many people saw this deer as they hurried by. It is a good reminder for me to try not to "miss the moments" for love and laughter with friends and family. Hug 'em while you got 'em.

Finally frozen! It was a late start to the ice fishing season again this year. I am grateful for the gift of being able to participate in the short season of hard water fishing that I so much enjoy.

Thanks for reading my blog.