A year to remember

 Well here we are. We have made it to December 2020. It has probably been a year that most people can hardly wait for it to be over. 

We had all gone into the New Year, last year, with big dreams of winter to be over early, a fine summer a head and travel to see our family. But it would not be so.

The winter dragged on and on with our share of -20C and colder. Finally somewhere around March things were starting to warm a bit. The spring was not too bad, but with the warmer days, it brought high water. With a wet summer in 2019 and then lots of snow over the winter. The water had a hard time leaving as the ground was still so saturated. We saw water where we had never seen it before. It was still in those places in October and November.

2019/2020 winter hives

But by mid March, life changed. Suddenly Covid made an appearance. People went crazy, buying toilet paper and face masks and selling them on the black market. People were caught in sting operations, reselling masks for over inflated costs. The shelves where once sat toilet paper were empty.

 Then suddenly in April, bags of potting soil were no where to be found, as people who had never gardened before, were planting "Victory Gardens". Next, came a shortage of flour, sugar and yeast. 

As summer approached, we all anticipated long warm days of endless sun. But that was not what Mother Nature had in store for us. Nope. It rained and rained, pretty well all summer. The poor bees could hardly get out because of the daily rains. It would stop raining long enough for us to cut lawns and tend our gardens. Then by the end of May the mosquitoes came out. They were horrible. We had lived up in the area since 1996 and had never seen them this bad....ever!!! Which led to a severe shortage of Mosquito coils and bug dope. Yup.....so all we could do was scratch and complain about the weather (and hoped that the locust weren't the next thing to arrive).

Our little container garden 2020

By mid summer, we were all getting use to our new way of life. And who knew at the ripe old age of 62 i would be adding new words to my vocabulary like, self isolating and safe distancing. Face masks were something you wore you when you went to town, along with hand sanitizer, gloves and soap. Everyone were making masks of different shapes and sizes, they had become an fashion accessory...who seen that coming?

Not sure how it happened, but our gardens seemed to do pretty good, considering the weather. Then it hit.....people were buying up all the canning jars and lids. They were no where to be found . Thankfully for the way some of us live.....we had lots of both on hand.  By the end of fall, i had put up close to 400 jars of canning. Mostly cause i love canning and i love being able to go into my cold room and find a quick dinner.

By the end of October, thankfully most of the mosquitoes were gone and  sugar and flour were back on the shelves. It was now time to get ready for winter. Time to clean up the yard and put away tools and remove batteries out of machinery. 

James had no luck hunting this fall, so sadly we didn't get any extra meat to process. I kept telling him whenever he went out hunting...."if you don't get an animal we might have to become vegetarians this winter". But there was definitely a shortage of animals out there as well. But luckily we have enough meat to do us.

Even though this has been a very hard year, life did go on. I wasn't able to go visit my Mum this year, but i do talk to her everyday,  I was thankful that my sister lives close to her and was able to see her on a regular basis. I am also thankful for the staff and caregivers where Mum lives, that they have managed to keep everyone safe and healthy. So, not everything was doom and gloom. James and I managed to get so many things done this year. I lost count of how many projects we did. I would make myself a list every week of things I wanted to do. It would of been so easy to sit and whine and have a pitty party. But nothing makes you feel better than when you can cross everything off your list. I was also thankful for how much food our little container garden gave us and for our friends that were in our "Bubble" (another new word)

And here we are in mid December, the snow has blanketed all the muck from the wet summer and fall and made everything looks so peaceful and beautiful. By looking around, no one would ever guess we have lived through the most trying year of, possibly our life time. Christmas will come, we will have a nice meal, with friends and family but it may be in a different way.  I guess we just have to look at what is most important to us. For me, its good health, happiness and the love of our friends and family. 

From our Hive to Yours, Merry Christmas.  

James playing during -30C

Yup....I actually did that

 It's funny the things we think of when sitting watching the snow fall. My thoughts took me back to Sept on one of the few days we had this summer that didn't rain. 

I had decided to go over to check my feeders inside the hives. As usual, I went in my bee shed and gathered up the supplies I needed. Then I went around the corner and disconnected the electric fence.

I preceded to fill feeders and realized I had forgot to bring something from the house. So went through the fence, reconnected it and left.

As I returned. friends had come and were doing some work on a vehicle in the yard. I said hi and carried on to the bee yard. I am not really sure where my mind was or what I was thinking, or even if i was thinking at all.....but I did something i had never done since installing the fence....yup, you guessed it, I forgot to turn off the fence. 

I don't go thru the gate, I just kind of fold in half and step in-between 2 strands of wire. And when you do this the inside of your leg is up against the wire...(you know the part of your leg that is so soft and tender....yeah, well that part).

Well, holy cow man.....it almost sounded like a shot gun going off in my head and in that milla-second I thought I could smell flesh burning. But at that point, I was obligated to keep going. I needed to stop the burning flesh and 8000v from travelling thru my body.  

Once through, I stood bee-wildered for a second, suddenly I hoped that no one had witnessed my act of stupidness. So i carried on with my chores.

When I finished, it suddenly dawned on me.....How was i going to get out of my 30ft x 50ft compound? I noticed the people were still within yelling distance so asked them to get James to come over here. 

After a minute or two James came and asked what I needed, sheepishly I confessed to him what I had done and wondered if he could please disconnect the fence so I could get out. He was very kind  not to break out in uncontrollable laughter , like I am afraid I would of. So......at least I know first hand, the fence works and gives a big kick. Don't think I want to do that again.

Panels for charging the fencer

When we first were building the fence

Fall is in the air

Fall:

A couple weeks ago the weather had started to  improve. The sun came out for 3 days in a row and we could work outside without getting wet or wear a coat. But the mornings are cool now and when you look around the leaves have turned yellow. Fall is in the air. I love fall and the changing of the seasons. The smells and the ever changing landscapes. Even our bees sense the change. The scour the fields and meadows for the last traces of nectar or pollen. There is a sense of urgency in their actions this time of year. Like us....they are getting ready for winter, 

Its been a challenging year.

Food:

For the first time that I can ever remember, there had been shortages. People who have never planted a garden were buying up bags of potting soil and trying their hand at growing their own food. People were buying food and toilet paper like it was going out of style. Yeast, flour and sugar couldn't be found anywhere for weeks. People were getting back to the basics, of planting, bread making and cooking their own food. Then suddenly in Sept, canning jars and lids were flying off the shelves. Those shelves still sit empty.

I am so glad we live where we do. We have always shopped to have a full pantry all the time. Its not unusual for me to can 200-400 jars of food every year. We live an hour away from a very small town with limited groceries and about 2 hours from a bigger city. I don't like going to town often so this works for me. 

Bees:

 A week or so ago, we had a break in the weather, so it was time to address the bees. I was helping James build our front porch but decided if I didn't start with the bees I may not have anymore good days to do it. So I went over with the intention of trying to get at least 1 or 2 hives done. 

Up to this point I hadn't taken any honey off this year. I knew there wasn't going to be tons so left it as long as possible for the girls to enjoy. So armed with my smoker and a Rubbermaid tote I began. I was actually surprised at the amount of honey there was. I pulled off the top box and made sure every frame in the second box was full of capped honey, gave them a new bag of fondant and shut them up. I managed to get all 3 hives done and ended up with 2 boxes of honey for ourselves. We had a frame or two which had some uncapped honey and i knew it would keep. So while working on the front porch, i went and retrieved my frame stand and hung up that frame of uncapped honey. Our bees are located across the road from our house, so I wasn't really worried about robbing. Within a few minutes, a few bees appeared, within a hour the frame was full of bees removing the uncapped honey and taking it back to their hives. It was neat to sit and watch them work so hard.

Slowly the bees were arriving 

Determined to get every last drop

On Oct 13 after seeing that frost might be coming soon, i decided to get the candy boards I made in the hives and insulate the attic boxes. So in-between black clouds and pounding rains, I went over and got it done. So now I just need to wrap them, which I don't normally do until the end of the month or early November. However....I don't trust 2020 and have decided to wrap them around the 20th, give or take. Something in my gut tells me I better get it done earlier this year.

Homemade Candy Boards

Home & Garden:
It is now cool enough we almost need a fire everyday. However as crazy as it sounds....we still hadn't had a frost. Nuts eh. This is so unusual for us here. But I will take it. I had planted some sun flowers this year and they are just starting to bloom, I can now see the yellow of their petals. I may have to bring them in the house to enjoy, as i hear we are to get a frost in the next day or so. But that's ok I will enjoy them anyway I can. Our vegetable garden is finished and everything harvested. It was just a little container garden this year but it produced a surprisingly good amount of food for us. I have a nice amount of carrots in the cold room and sitting in jars on the shelves.  

Some of our carrot harvest 

Well here it is October 15th and a few days ago we finally got our 1st frost. Then yesterday we got our 1st snow fall.  I love snow?  I love the peacefulness of it. (especially if I don't have to work in it) I love how everything seems to slow down and I love that you feel the need to make homemade soups and bake bread. I know a lot of people do not share my love of snow and that's ok. I feel good knowing that my root cellar and the wood shed are both full. But when I sit on the couch by the fire, with a warm cuppa and a stack of seed catalogs, I will try not to feel guilty for hoping it  keeps on snowing.

 

Until next time..... Bee Calm  Bee kind  Bee Safe

 

 

Where did the Summer go?

Busy getting ready for winter

Is August really coming to a end already? 

Seeing a few more yellowing leaves and noticing that the days are getting shorter, I am reminded that Summer is coming to an end. As i look around the fields and along the sides of the road the Goldenrod is now in bloom, along with Asters, Hardhack and Tansy. The last wildflowers to bloom. Soon that smell of dying leaves will be in the air. Then I will need to prepare for our first frosts which usually happens in the first couple weeks into September. I look around to see what else is blooming but sadly that is about all there is. I see lots of berries on the trees and bushes like Mountain Ash, Bunch berries and the Elderberry.

The other day I was in the bee yard quietly sitting on my chair by the hives watching. Its one of my favorite things to do. They were busily working and I could see they were bringing in both gray and yellow pollen. It seems like every year around this time, they are flying with real purpose.....getting ready for winter.  They are also feeding quite heavy on syrup. Soon i will place pollen subs and possibly some fondant for them, to help them get ready.

Its been a terrible Beekeeping year, not necessarily for us but lots of our friends. From down at the Lower Mainland and right up to Terrace and Smithers, everyone is reporting little to  no honey. Its been an unusually wet and cool summer. I know folks who take hives up to the mountains in Terrace in July/Aug for the Fireweed nectar flow and that was a bust for the second year in a row. We havent pulled our honey yet so I can't say  how ours looks but I know it won't be much.  But as long as the bees have enough for the winter, that is most important.

One of our beautiful days

Another weird thing that happened this year was, swarming. Lots of swarming......and from the same hive. A friend of mine bought a Nuc this June and she told me hers have swarmed 2 times. It seems crazy. I heard this over and over this summer....and late in the summer too. Crazy. Another friend told me 2 of her hives attempted to swarm...but the queen refused to leave....like what was that all about. I heard the same thing from a beekeeper in Prince George. I know my big hive must of swarmed as well. With the nasty weather and hardly any breaks from it, I found capped queen cells in one hive. I wanted to deal with it but it had started to rain, then the thunder started. I had hoped to deal with it on the next  day that wasn't nasty and hopefully split it before the new queens emerged. 2 days later i went in...and all the queens cells were open. It was too late. 

So now i am hoping for several nice days so i can get into the hives and check out their food stores. Maybe take a couple frames of honey for us and start removing any extra boxes. I have already started feeding them and will continue until the beginning of Oct. 

I can't believe the beekeeping season is coming to the end. At least we still have a few months to watch them work and sit in the beeyard with them before they disappear inside for the winter.

Until next time.     

Bee Safe

Starting to plan winter projects (already??)

Every August when you see a few leaves start to turn and fall, you mind jumps ahead to winter. The garden is starting to produce and canning season is in full swing, . The firewood is in the wood house and the chimney is clean. Outside building projects are discussed and ready to get started so they will be completed before winter sets in.

Winter in Northern BC can be long and dark. It can start in mid October but normally waits until mid or late November. For the past 5 years we have wrapped our bees no later than the beginning of November. But I remember doing it in October one year during a early snow storm. I prefer not to do that again.

But its also the time when I start to  plan my winter projects. Things that I want to do for myself....fun stuff.

For the past 7 years I haven't been able to do my leather work and have really missed it. I use to make leather dog leashes, collars, belts and in later years I started making leather and cow hide pillows. But i wanted to try something different but could still incorporate leather.

My machine has been waiting patiently for me for 7 years.

I plan on making aprons. Not frilly light weigh aprons like our Gramas used to wear, but heavy duty cotton fabric work aprons. Aprons that will have some leather and copper rivets on them. I will also be making half aprons as well.  They will be able to be used in the garden, in the workshop or even while working your bees, which is how i came up with the idea. I get so hot in my bee coat and if I could wear a apron with pockets instead, I would be so happy and cool. It would also keep the propolis off my pants. And we all know how hard that is to get off.

Anyways i have already started to stock up on some fabric for them.

They will be similar to this. 

The second winter project I am planning is..... to learn about Queen Rearing.  I want to do a bunch of splits next year and its so hard for me to get queens mailed to me. 

Where we live, we only get mail 3 times a week and chancing getting a queen sent to me is not worth the risk. 

While talking with our bee inspector last month, he said why don't you rear you own. We talked about it for a short time but it long enough to wonder if I could actually do this. I think I can, well at least I can try.  It doesn't cost much to get into it but it does take time and effort and a whole bunch of luck. (mostly with Mother Nature and we know how cantankerous she can be at times)

So, today, I picked up a few items that I will need to rear some queens next year. I am pretty excited about that too.

Grafting tool and queen cell bar

I am a little scared to ask James what winter projects we have to do in the house this year, but I am hoping I will have time to have some fun.

Well, that is enough rambling for now. Enjoy the rest of Summer. I hope everyone is having some fun of your own.

Rain Rain and more Rain

Living life inside a Rainforest one would think we normally would get lots of rain. But thats not necessarily true. Yes we get rain....but this has been crazy. Enough already. Our nieghbours keep track of the rainfall and the other day she let me know since the 23rd of May we had received over 12 inches of rain. Yikes!
We have had many challenges due to the rain and cooler temperatures this year, (oh and lets not forget the high water and flooding). Getting a window long enough to cut lawns has been tough.  They are very long and lush, but on the upside, the clover is in bloom and the bees have been enjoying them during the dry periods.
The garden.....it too is lush,  but we need some sun and warmth to help things florish more.

Peas growing in old honey supers

Our little container garden

The driveway....oooohhh what a mucky mess it is.  Its a good thing we have 4 wheel drive in most of our vehicles

Mud bog driveway

Then there are the bees. My poor little girls.  They are doing ok, thankfully there are many periods during the day where they can get out to forage. Some of the things i have noticed how the rain has been putting a damper on beekeeping are:
1.  Hard to get in the hives to check for queen/swarm cells and general inspections
2,  Bees have less foraging time, July is usually our big nectar flow time
3.  The heavy rains can cause damage to bees wings if they get caught out in it or it can knock them to the ground.
4.  Bees use the sun as navigation. So it is possible they may not find their way home
5.  Chalkbrood. Its a fungal desease that kills larvae. Its can be caused by poor circulation and cool damp conditions. There are other things that can cause chalkbrood but the last 2 wet summers we have had minor cases of it. Due to the wet.
6.   The pounding rains we have had, it can wash away some of  the nectar out of the flowers.

You may wonder what the forager bees do on these wet days we are having. If it is pouring rain, they hunker down inside the hive. The forager bees help manage the humidity and temperature inside the hives. This time of year they are trying to get the moisture content down in the honey so they can cap it for the winter. Not sure what else they do....maybe watch a little TV?

Well all things considering, i am happy at the weight of some of our honey supers. I had high hopes for a good bunch of honey this year. But as it is right now, I will just be happy if there is enough honey for the bees to take them thru the winter and for maybe a jar for us.
Hope you have a good day. Chat again soon.

Apple Blossoms and Grizzly Bears

     We are now entering our 4th month of this Pandemic. Life for us hasn't changed a lot, but there has been lots of changes in the world.
Words like, self isolation,and self distancing are used on a daily basis and has become part of the norm. And who knew we would all wear masks and gloves when going out? I hate having to dig into my stash of  Nitrile gloves for beekeeping, so i can wear them while grocery shopping.

     Anyways, onto happier things. The bees seem to be doing good. Our smallest hive which suffered a substancial winter kill, is now doing great. I just added another box onto their hive.
I recently did a quick inspection to check for queen cells. I left the busiest one til the end and it turned out to be the one with some issues. When I opened it up, I noticed a very spotty brood pattern. I could see that there had been a recent hatch as the population was pretty big. I tried finding new eggs but we all know how hard they can be at times. (Especially with my older eyes and a overcast day.) Then I noticed there wasdrone cells scattered amongst the worker cells. When I flipped over one of the frames I noticed a couple of queen cups with larvae in them. As i turned over the same frame i seen two large capped supercedure cells. So i assumed the queen was either dead or going to be soon.
     I sometimes lack confidence in myself and my beekeeping knowledge so I talked to our bee inspector and explained the situation and he explained that since the drone brood was scattered amongst the worker cells, it may be a sign that the queen was running out of sperm. Hopefully tomorrow, if the weather is ok, I will go back in and see if one of the queens have emerged. Then we hope the weather holds long enough for her to have a successful mating flight.
     Update: I went through the hive about week after the first inspection. The 2 capped queen cells were gone. So this means they probably hatched and now we wait a bit longer to see if it all works out. I still plan on throwing in a frame of brood from another hive just incase the queen doesnt come back. At least the bees can make another queen cell and hopefully get a new queen.

   

One of the girls visiting a apple blossom

      As spring arrived, we were excited to see that all our fruit trees had survived the winter and are now covered with blossoms. The honey bees, bumble bees and other pollinator bees have been busy visiting them. And we have been enjoying watching them go from flower to flower.
      Along with the apple blossoms, its also the arrival of the bears. Hungry from a long winter and late spring, we see them almost daily. A week or so ago we were lucky enough to capture on film this young Grizzy as he wandered through our front yard. We watched him carefully to make sure he didnt go across the road where our Apiary is, but he only paused long enough to munch on some dandelion flowers then toodled off into the bush. Two nights ago we had another visit but this time it was from the most beautiful rust colored black bear I had ever seen. He too passed through quickly without any trouble.

Young Grizzly in the front yard

Well, its a wet miserable day here in the Robson Valley, so i think, like my bees, i will hunker down inside today. Hope everyone is staying safe and enjoying their bees.

Bye for now