Sunday, April 11, 2010

Bees and Blooms

The Farm is in full bloom. Everyday I go out and take pictures of all the new things, its so beautiful. My patio peach is the most gorgeous color!!! The apple trees are finally blooming and my lilac bush is just about there.



Yesterday we met with our beekeeping mentors, The Honeycutts, and got to open up some hives. Talk about exciting!!! They have a beautiful home right in the city that looks like it could be next door to us. They have 7 hives in their apiary and 2 hives on someone else's property up on the Mountain.
We opened up 3 hives and got to look at different stages of brood, the eggs and larva, and we got to see the queens!!! I'm a Queen Bee kinda person!! The bees were already bringing in nectar, a lot of the comb was full of it! Hopefully there will be a good honey crop this year. From what I hear last years wasn't so hot.
We spent 3 hours over there and loved every minute of it. We learned a lot and the Honeycutts inspired us more than they'll ever know. Between their property, gardens, and bees....they're our mentors in many ways now, not just with the bees. We'll be going back there very soon and I'll be taking some pictures so you can see just how wonderful it all really is.
As you can tell I'm very excited about the bees. I was like a kid in a candy store. I couldn't stop smiling, especially when we saw our first queen. I was so excited! We were identifying the different types of bees and the different types of comb. We really learned a lot in just a few hours.
Now I want my bees...NOW!!! But its still a bit early. Last year was a bad year for bees and there is a shortage of them. We're praying that a local beekeeper will be able to provide us with our first package. Poppa and Step-Mommie are going to buy us a second hive which I'm really excited about. Now we'll be able to compare the two. Hopefully we'll be able to find a second package of bees. We might have to take a weekend and go down to Georgia or up to Kentucky to get them, which is cool with me just as long as I get my bees.
I guess I'll stop talking about bees now. I hear the lawnmower which means The Man is bringing it up from the barn for me. He'll be tilling the garden while I mow. Its a bee-utiful day!!! Ya'll have a good one!

2 comments:

  1. Hmmmm... I wonder of Gladys would miss a branch or two from her lilac bush? LOL!

    I'm so excited your meeting with the honeycutts went well.

    Poppa will be down this week to work on the trailer and the barn

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  2. I hope you will post here a lot about these bees so we can all learn more about beekeeping!

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