With the historic storm Jonas past our area, I thought I would post a few pictures for posterity. One of these was in my last post, but I’ll include it here as well to keep the images together.
This amount of snow is pretty unusual for Virginia, especially as one storm. In fact we set a new record for a single snowfall, about 30 inches (75 cm) in all. Plus I like the story told by the before and after pictures of the hives, and it’s my blog so I can post whatever I want. 🙂 Continue reading
An update on my recent activities, from my trip to Ithaca, New York through our current snow storm. The trip to my parent’s was a great success. My lovely wife and daughter stayed behind so it was just me and the ‘rents – it’s been awhile since that has happened! Building the top bar hives was a bit of a challenge, so I really appreciated having dear old dad to assist. We built two hives based on the plans from my prior post, and had a nice time in and around Ithaca. We even visited local beekeeper Duane Waid and toured his honey processing facility. More on that another time, perhaps.
This week we prepared for the big snow storm currently hitting our area, so I have a short update on this as well. Continue reading
My dear father with his booth at the Ithaca Farmer’s Market in Ithaca, New York
As I mentioned in my last post, one of my near-term goals is to build a new top bar hive. The plan is to travel to my parent’s house this weekend, where my dear father has agreed to help me build the new hive. He has become quite the woodworker in his retirement, building and selling custom furniture throughout the year.
Based on my first year of use, my existing top bar hive Venus has a few drawbacks. In this post I’ll lay out my views on the current hive and how I hope to address these in a new hive. Unless something goes wrong, my next post will present the finished product. Continue reading
Our Quince blooming on December 26, 2015
This started as my official end of year hive update, so now it has become my official beginning of the year hive update. Happy 2016 to one and all. The hives are officially closed up until spring is on the horizon. With our mostly warm days of late, this might come sooner than expected. We had some bushes start to bloom, especially our two Quince bushes, though the weather turned decidedly cold this week so winter seems to have finally arrived. Continue reading
Bees with eeb 