Sheesh…..what a year

 Holy cow man, it’s been one of them years. You know….the ones that things never seem to go right.

I decided since I lost some weak hives this spring I would order a couple of New Zealand packages. In the past I have had such good luck with them. But I know nothing is written in gold. They  arrived and they were big beautiful active packages. Then things went downhill from there. One seemed to be doing better than the other. I went in to check inside only to discover…..too much drone brood. Matter a fact, mostly only drone brood. While talking to others who received packages, they were finding the same thing. Not just one or two packages…..lots.

So we went in search of new queens. BeeMaid told us they would reimburse us for the queens so that was great. While waiting for them to arrive, I went in and checked them again and was horrified to find the hatching drones all had deformed wing virus…..a result of varroa mites.

Both hives were dwindling away slowly and after talking to our bee inspector he suggested, removing the hive that was infected the worse, sliding the other hive in its place and dump out all the bees from the first hive, on the ground. The drones and any other bees with deformed wings can’t fly so they would just wander around and eventually die. Any flyers would fly back to “their” (new) hive. Then I took any drone brood that hadn’t  hatched yet and through them in the freezer to kill them. Then treated them combined hive.

A short time later, the queens arrived, so I killed off the old queen and dropped a new one in the combined hive and did a split on my wintered over hive and gave the new hive a queen.

The split is doing fantastic….the combined hive, not so good. I’m not sure it’s going to make it. But on the upside, there is brood in it, but now I see chalk brood. Sheesh

As some of you know, we have listed our place for sale and have been working on our new property, getting it ready for when this place sells.

I told the bees, they just need to survive this year. They have been slightly neglected and I am sure my one older hive swarmed at some point and  I missed that. 

But on the upside:

We have our new yard almost done, so it’s ready in case we do sell our place this year. The nice thing is, the bee yard is right by the house. I will be able to give them more attention. It will also house the garden area. The old building in the photo was once a generator shed then hen house….now the bee shed. We dragged it over last week and will set it up with the solar panels for the electric fence charger and water catchment system. More on that later

This year has been a bit of a write off…Between running back and forth to each property, keeping up the yards and doing lots of Reno’s and clean up, my poor bees have suffered. Right now, I make sure they have water and enough  room for the queen to lay and empty honey supers. And that seems like it’s the most I can handle right now.

Until next time…..

Fermenting with Honey

Other than Sauerkraut, I have never really messed around much with ferments. But a month or two ago I decided to try some honey ferments.

Touch wood, we haven’t had a cold for a couple years, but when we do I hate taking over the counter meds, but on the other hand, who wants to feel horrible,

Last year I was gifted two elderberry trees. They didn’t do very good in their new soil but I am hoping the soil improved and they will come back this year, I have read lots on elderberry syrup and the benefits it had to your immune system. So I will be making that once our trees start to produce.

In the past I have made mead…one gallon at a time. Some have turned out pretty good. I think the fermented product I am most proud of is the vinegar I made out of our honey four years ago.

Honey Vinegar 2020

Bochet Mead 2019

It sits in my cold room and every so often I try some and it’s so good. Like mead it takes quite a while before it’s good. So one has to bee patient.

But in the meantime I started with three simple ferments, all of which help improve the immune system along with gut health and many other things. I am no expert by any means, so starting with something easy is the way to go.

Left to right, garlic, ginger and lemon

Fermented Garlic

This stuff is incredible, not only does it helps boosts your immune system but it tastes good, the garlic gets very mild in the honey after time. If you get a cold, it’s recommended you take a clove a garlic and honey everyday. And we all know honey is good for us too.

Fermented Ginger

Oh my goodness, this stuff is so good. I love grabbing a piece of ginger right out of the jar and eating it. Ginger is known to ease a upset stomach but it is also chalked full of probiotics which helps boosts the  immune.

Fermented Lemons

Yum. This helps soothes coughs and sore throats. Also delicious in hot tea or added to hot water when sick. Equally delicious as a tangy dressing for a salad.

Until next time….cheers

It’s a new year

Welcome to 2024

It’s a new year and with every new year comes changes. Some are small changes and some are life changing.

When we retired I said I never wanted to move again. Famous last words. It wasn’t planned but I think deep down inside maybe it was. 

James and I like the quiet life. For me there is nothing better than packing a picnic lunch, jumping on the quad and heading deep into the bush. We found lately that living where we do, we craved more quiet and more privacy. But, I never wanted to move again….right?

Last year while visiting friends, we found out a incredible piece of property was for sale. It was in a area where we had tried to buy many years ago. We took a drive down to it and fell in love. Mountain views, river frontage and lots of treed area to hunt and explore in. Long story short….we bought it.

Although the house is only 17 years old, an old bachelor lived in it and it needs some loving. So it will take awhile.

First thing I did after spending our first night there was pick out a spot for the bee yard.  It will be around the same size as this one but I will lay it out better so there is more room to plant around the hives.

The red is where the bee compound will bee.  So, close to the house so I can go out and sit with them several times a day.

My girls didn’t winter over so well this year. I had a couple of hives from 2019 that started to decline in late fall. There wasn’t a ton I could do other than give them food and hope for the best. Sadly neither made it. But I am thankful for the ones who did, I can do splits and get ready for a new season. I had decided to order a couple packages in January incase my gut feelings was right. So, at least I have them coming too.

There is still close to 8” of snow in the bee yard

The days are warming up now, nights are still chilly but things are showing life again. The pussy willows are starting and the catkins on the Alders are out in full swing and I suspect that is where the girls are getting their yellow pollen from. I also noticed the catkins on the wild hazelnuts are getting bigger too, so it won’t be long.

Well, I guess that is it for now, I started this so long ago, I need it to be done.

Take care, chat soon

 September 11 2023

It’s starting to feel like fall, cool nights, but it  warms up during the day, the leaves are falling now and some of our trees are getting bare already. It’s early. But considering the Summer we had its understandable why the leaves  are coming off now. It’s is still dry  and the creeks and rivers are the lowest I have ever seen for this time of year. Our well on the other side of the road is still dry.

But considering the drought and hot temperature, the bees are doing good, we took the honey off a few weeks ago. It is now piled high in the dining room until I get around to extracting it. 

I bought two nucs this year  and although one was slow to take off it is doing well now, the other one was crazy productive, it exploded in population and even produced extra honey to take off. I have learned with these .Carpathian queens you have to keep up on what’s going on inside the hives or they will swarm. I also found they are not quite as polite as my bees but I am sure that will change with  time. For the most part I am happy with them.

We had a field day here a few weeks ago with our bee club. Barry, our bee inspector, came out and did an educational talk and inspected one of our hives, we had a great turn out and nice weather. It was a fun day.

October 2023

My friend and I took a girls road trip down to Abbotsford to the BC Honey Producers conference. It was such a great weekend, full of educational workshops and speakers. It was fantastic and I learnt lots.

In late October we got the hives all wrapped for winter and when leaving the beeyard and walking home we noticed summer wasn’t letting go yet.

Saw one bee bringing in yellow pollen, new leaves on the apple tree and flowers still blooming.

Yarrow, Tansy and Calendula

November 20

We have a little snow but it’s been so mild. It’s an  El Niño this year so “they” say, mild temperatures and less snow. I am hoping for lots of snow to help with the low water situations in our area.

I’m excited for another year of keeping bees. There are things we want to change next year, new things to build and hopefully expanding our colonies.

But the most exciting thing coming is…..well, I can’t tell you that yet. You will just have to follow along for a while longer.

Chat again in December 🐝

One of the hives wrapped and ready for winter

The Weather 2023

Us northerners love talking about the weather. Matter a fact our lives revolve, for the most part, around the weather.

But this year…..wow it’s been crazy. It started last fall. The fall that never happened. It was warm and very dry right into October. Then…..winter came. No September rains. No October rains….nothing. We went into winter basically in a drought.

Fast forward to May of this year. Hot and very dry. Then June came and went without giving us much moisture.

Living inside a inland rainforest our grass and trees are normally green and lush all summer. But not this year. If you drive to Prince George there is miles of cedars red from the stress of no water. Leaf trees are dropping some of their leaves and the wild flowers have all been early.

We have been tolerating weeks of smoked filled air and only once in a while we get to see our mountains. The other day I checked the map of fires in BC and was shocked at the amount of fires through out the province.

But through out the long hot dry spell, the bees are hanging in there. Their honey supers are filling up quickly. 

To help keep them cool during the last few months, I added extra boxes on top to help scrub out some of the heat. I also fill their water bowls everyday, sometimes twice a day. They are doing good so far. 

I haven’t pulled any honey yet but really need to get in them and do it. My big hive is five deeps high, which isn’t ideal, so I need to do that one first.

Smokey sunrise

My concern is, the nectar flow started probably two weeks early this year….which means it may end two weeks early. Which means, we may be feeding them for quite a while before they settle in for winter. I best stock up on fondant and sugar soon.

Fireweed 

Anyways, I don’t have a ton of news, I will write more once I start pulling honey off the hives. I hope everyone stays safe during this hot dry spell and no fires come near you.

Cheers

Is it summer already?

 May has come and gone now. It was extremely hot and dry. Lots of forest fires sprung up in BC and in Alberta. We had one close to us in McBride, about 90km away. So needless to say on top of the dry and heat we then had smoke. Thankfully the fire was brought under control quickly and people returned to their homes.

We had our first nectar flow when the dandelions started blooming around May 16th, the bees were happy not only to get more pollen but to also get their first food of the season. The sad thing was, that the heat was so great that the dandelions  were closing their flowers around noon most days. The edges of some of the flowers looked as though they were burnt. It seemed dandelion season was short lived probably due to the heat and no rain.

The poor dandelions struggling from the heat and dry conditions 

We will be heading into Prince George on Sunday June 4th to pic up our nucs. I ordered two this year from our friends Christine and Tavis from Rushing Apiary in Terrace. I  am very excited to introduce new blood into our Apiary. They ordered Carpathian Queens from the Ukraine. So it will be great to see how they are. From what I understand, the bees are original from  the Carpathian Mountains which covers 7 counties including the Ukraine. They are quite hardy and are known to be calm . 

Here we are picking up 16 boxes of bees for us and our club members

I had just finished installing our new bees.
I think I might of been saying good night to them here

June 5

I was so surprised when we opened the lids of the nuc boxes, there wasn’t a huge outburst of bees as you would expect. Nope…..they were all busy inside the box and weren’t concerned at all. So needless to say, it took only minutes to transfer them out of their nuc boxes and into their hives. Within minutes they were fanning on the front of the bottom boards, telling their mates this is home. When I went over the next day they were already bringing in pollen and cleaning up their frames I had given them. So, they had settle in.

.

The beautiful Carpathian Queen
Photo taken by Monica Z 

June 10

After weeks of no rain, we were so relieved to get some late this afternoon. Hopefully more flowers will open and supply some nectar for the honey bees and native bees. We might actually get a day off watering the garden too.

Tomorrow, as long as it’s not raining, I will be doing my first inspection of the two new hives. I’m excited to see how they are doing. Stay tuned for pictures and an update next time .

Well that’s all for now. Take care.

 

 

Spring time in an inland rainforest

 May 2 2023 

9:15 PM.

 It was another hot day, I am enjoying the night air on the front porch. It’s almost dark but it’s one of my favourite times to sit out here. In the dark, you are forced to use one of your other senses to enjoy what’s going on. I can hear Robins and a few other birds still singing but the best are the sounds of the toads. Near the end of our driveway we have what I like to call our wetland. This time of year when the toads emerge they make a sound that almost sound like ducks quacking. I love it.

Cleaning up the bee yard

Now that the snow is pretty well gone, things are coming alive. The other day we had a bear grazing in the yard. The buds in the cottonwoods are bursting open with this hot weather. The brown dead  grass is greening up and the fruit trees are showing life once again.

The weather we have been having for the last week, is very uncommon for this time of year. Records have been broken all over the area for highs temperatures. It’s been +25C. We are not used to it yet.

Today I decided to remove the bees winter wraps and air things out a bit. I also removed their entrance reducers during the day. I haven’t  done inspections of the hives yet but all going well if the weather holds, I will get it done soon.  They are still bringing in pollen from the Pussy Willows, but on the weekend I noticed the catkins are starting to develop on the wild hazelnut trees. So it won’t be long for those.

We also tore apart the old strawberry beds and built new ones. Tomorrow I will fill them with dirt and get them p,anted. We also added two grape plants today. Most of the fruit trees and bushes survived the winteri, so we were pretty happy for that. However one cherry tree doesn’t look very good but we will leave it for now and see if it comes around.

Another cool project we got done last week was to build a water tower, we don’t have electricity or running water on the property where our bees are. So we decided to build a tower and have gravity feed water to make it easier to water the forest garden/orchard. 

New water tower

It’s such a beautiful time of the year…..crazy busy, but still beautiful. Cheers my friends. Until next time