Tuesday, April 21, 2015

poor bees......

I had a bad feeling that my little bees did not survive the winter. For all the snow that we had, it arrived in January... which meant that the cold November and December days, there really wasn't any snow to help keep them warm. When we got snow on Thanksgiving, I thought that was how the winter would be. Then it left, the cold arrived and there wasn't any good insultor for the bees. I checked on them in December, they were doing well.. had food and the like.. but things got quiet after that. 
So, we opened the hive and sure enough, everyone was "gone"... I cried..... and then we found honey that had not been touched... so to make something good out of something sad... we do have honey to harvest.  We called Abi to come and help, and she was beyond thrilled to have some of this sweet treat....
She's become a pro .. and maybe one day she'll want to keep bees. I love how she is so interested with the things that we do on the farm..... she really wanted to try uncapping, but that knife is hot and Papa said it was better that he do that.....
With frames in the "spinner"... Abi can now take over.....

The frames were not completely full of honey and I had wondered how much we would end up with. Actually there was more than I thought. So, what happened was the bees were too cold to eat, and died that way.... I have already decided (well already ordered) bees for the spring... we'll try again, because I like having them here on the farm, and I already know I would miss them....
In the meantime, we'll enjoy all the hard work they did for us.....