One month closer to fall!
Showing posts with label bees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bees. Show all posts
Friday, August 7, 2026
Thursday, July 23, 2026
We've Almost Got The Band Back Together
When they demolished Stella's little shed behind her bee yard I asked that they save the quilt square I painted for her birthday back in 2011. I hope it's safe somewhere...but it never made it down the hill :-/.
So I painted a new one.
Again with purple coneflowers blooming nearby.
Hanging next to a hive of happy bees flying in and out, working hard.
Now all we're missing is Stella...
...but I hope she's hanging out in the B Garden sometimes.
Thursday, July 9, 2026
Thursday, July 2, 2026
Everybody Gets A Pergola!
The weather has been ridiculous. We are currently in a stretch of mid to upper 90s and the sheep are hot, the horses are hot, the cats are hot, Pinot's hiding in the air conditioning and I'm...trying not to cry. The bees are hot too.
Bees work very hard to keep their hives warm in the winter and cool in the summer. They do this by working together to generate heat when it's cold or try to fan it out when it's hot. There are lots of interesting articles online about this. Here is a good one.
Stella and I had the good fortune of having a small building and some trees to provide afternoon shade for our bees when they were up on the hill. Here's a link to a great Stella and the bees story and also a picture of our set up. She also had an old leaky cistern and the bees gathered water there every day. I'm not sure if I have any pictures of that.
There's no shade down here for the new hive and I had been thinking about how I would handle that. Sure, the bees could probably take care of things on their own, but why add any extra stress to an insect that is already facing so many stressors these days.
I started with just a lattice back and top, but that really didn't help much. I added the small shade cloth and while it looks a bit janky, it did the trick. The front porch of the hive had been covered in bees trying to help fan cool air up into the box. The numbers went way down almost immediately.
This picture was just after I added the cloth, but it's not very clear. You might be able to biggify it to see more bees.
The other issue in high heat is water. The tank I've had sitting out in the B Garden to provide water for birds, bees and plants was getting super hot and soupy really quickly. I've tried to keep it clean and I've seen birds and wasps drinking from it, but never any bees. I added a shade top to that as well and changed the safety landing to something hopefully more bee friendly. We'll see.
Ideally it would be great if the weather could just cool off a bit...
Sunday, June 28, 2026
Pinot's Pergola
Several year ago I built a small(ish) shaded stand for my night blooming cereus. That worked so well and the plant has been so happy under it that we decided to build a Wool House version to try to help me get through summer as well.
Since we have Pinot's Porch and Pinot's Patio, it's only fitting this is Pinot's Pergola. When I was putting his fence (that you can barely see in the picture) back up, I made an extra side paddock...Pinot's Paddock :-).
I went with a pergola design because I didn't want to completely cover up the front of the Wool House. There are several most months of the year that I actually like the sun shining through the windows and front doors. For those months that I don't...here's hoping the removeable shade cloths will help.
With some roll down side shades.
The vining flowers in the elevated (because of sheep ;-) pots are cardinal vines that the hummingbirds are supposed to love. Can't wait!
I spotted this four leaf clover while we were hanging the side shades yesterday. I was standing up on a ladder when I spotted it. Tim couldn't find it. Pinot did...and ate it ;-D.
I built this raised bed using leftover scraps from the builders. The big nails holding the 8"x8" sides together are the spikes we used every year to anchor Maisie's "birthday cake" to the bale of straw.
The little shelf holding the not so little anymore hoya is another favorite detail. That tiny cutting happened after the parent plant crashed during a storm last year...or maybe the year before... It's been living in the window over the wash room sink and has done so well that it's outgrown that spot. I hope it likes this outside location for summer.
I also treated myself to a bird bath fountain. I filled the basin with broken chunks of old clay pots so there are plenty of spots for bees, butterflies and birds to land. Waiting for my first visitors! In the meantime, I have a beautiful place to sit out with Pinot and watch the bats and fireflies.
If you'd like to sit out with me and Pinot for a minute, enjoy!
Saturday, June 6, 2026
May
May was a big month and so much never made the blog...because sometimes it's more important to keep your head up and keep treading water. Springtime...
Maryland Sheep and Wool seems like forever ago. May rain brought lots of May flowers. The butterflies are arriving. The bees are doing great. I may still try to say more about the little rabbit sweater. I definitely will say and show more about the addition to the Wool House...when it's finally finished.
Thursday, May 7, 2026
April
April was busy (unless you were Archie), but fun. Lots of spring flowers, new bees, new raised beds (that I'm having to replant after the really hard freeze over the weekend :-/) all the spinning, a little painting, beautiful moons, interesting fog, good sheep, good friends...
Saturday, April 18, 2026
I Gave Up
I'd hoped for the last two years that I'd be able to pick up a neighborhood swarm and feel pretty sure that I had at least some descendants from Stella's bees. That didn't work out and I finally decided to just start over. Of course, now that I've gone to all this trouble and expense, I'll probably find a swarm next week.
I've never installed a package of bees before. I've had lots of experience handling bees in general and am comfortable working with nucs (a small box of established bees with a queen), but dealing with a queen in a cage in a package of bees she doesn't know was a little daunting.
I wanted a particular strain (Buckfast) bees though and a package was my only option. That's okay. Stella and I loved learning new things about beekeeping. She'd have enjoyed the whole day, from going to pick them up to getting them settled. She'd especially have liked the new inside feeder I'm using.
While a friend and I were waiting for the stragglers to move from the package into the hive box, we were able to watch some of the bees start to fan and talk to each other and then saw some take orientation flights circling over the hive box. A few even started exploring whatever these flowers are.
By nightfall, all but a few were tucked into the box and I was able to pick up the last 10 or so and deposit them at the entrance. Hopefully they'll be happy here. They've had a long couple of days I'd guess being packaged up and moved. I promised them that tomorrow will be a better day.
Thursday, January 8, 2026
Tuesday, December 2, 2025
November
Usually putting the month end compilation together reminds me that no matter how bad the month might have felt, there was actually a lot of good. This month it reminded me what a crap fest the first 8 days were.
Do not be alarmed at the screen shot that will draw your eye to "deleting your blog". It was actually the last line about "suicide prevention" that I was, sadly, not surprised to see on a suggested topics list. The problem wasn't a blog issue, but it might have ruined the blog if it couldn't be fixed. All is well now, thankfully.
As always, as I scrolled through pictures and videos, I was reminded of some beautiful sunrises, moonlight, flowers and bees surviving the extreme cold, sweet sheep, friends and cookie parties. And somehow I'd forgotten about the Northern Lights. Who on earth forgets about something like that!
I'm glad I have these compilations.
Thursday, November 20, 2025
The Parable Of The Broken Doors
Anyone who's visited the Wool House in the last...embarrassable amount of months has surely noticed the falling apart doors. Feeling a bit like a broken door myself, I hadn't made any effort to even take them down, much less hang the new ones that were just waiting for a coat of paint in the garage.
The blanket flowers and salvias out front had been blooming like crazy all fall and had done their part to distract attention from the doors and we'd all enjoyed them, none more than all the bees still gathering food to pack their larders for winter. News of an upcoming hard freeze hit hard. Especially as, if we could just get through two miserably cold nights, the temps were heading back up into the 60s again.
All the potted plants were moved inside; the orange tree carried in as well. That job gets harder every year! The greenhouse, with its falling apart roof panels (yes, it's a farm trend) was patched back together and the resident writing spider tucked in. The plants in the ground...just covering them with a sheet was not going to do much good.
If it had just been a few flowers, I'd have accepted the inevitable. It was a lot of flowers. If I could just build a "greenhouse" over them...
A couple of old lambing jug pens, an ancient rusty puppy exercise pen, some miscellaneous tomato supports, three beat up Wool House doors as a roof and some booth tent sides later...a little fairly large "greenhouse" covered everything in hopes that there might be enough residual ground warmth trapped to keep everyone safe.
And cold it got. 21 degrees and snow.
...the bees were back at work!
I am sentimental to a fault (maybe/probably) and I hate to throw anything away because it's old or broken or just used up. Those old doors didn't want to just get chucked into the back of a truck. No one does. And like the parable of the leaky bucket, without those broken doors, we'd have had no temporary greenhouse.
Two weeks later, the flowers are still blooming and the bees are still around. The old doors are safely tucked into the barn. The lamb and puppy pens are in frequent use here, but those doors are beyond repair and will be replaced in the spring. The old doors can stay though, because I may well need their help again sometime.
Monday, November 10, 2025
For Once I'm Happy To Be Stuck Behind A Desk
The view from here this afternoon. After a warm and beautiful fall, today's cold and snow is hitting pretty hard. I'm glad I have a big pot of soup ready for dinner and the fireplace is keeping the Wool House warm. Whether or not Bea and I take our afternoon walk...is up for debate.
Everyone is pretty well tucked in for winter now even though it's going back up into the 60s for several more days after this cold blast. I still had a bunch of blooming blanket flowers and salvias out front and as they've been pretty cold tolerant all fall, I decided to try to save them and built an elaborate "greenhouse" over them.
If it works, I'll share a picture. If not, I'll just take it all down and lick my wounds and know I at least tried. I lost touch with the caterpillar so I can only hope that story has a happy ending somewhere. If I could keep the bees fed for another week or two, it would help.
I am working on the 2026 farm calendars today.
Friday, October 3, 2025
August
I know this is really late, but as the month progressed, I knew what was coming and I just couldn't bring myself to go through pictures and videos. I decided to put it off until the end of September and just get all the heartbreak done on one day.
Even though life was still pretty good in August...
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