busy bee



This day turned out to be the crash course in beekeeping that I have been dreaming of. I am so fortunate to be at this farm with a woman who has been at this for years and willing to impart her knowledge. It also happened to be on a day that an insane amount of work needed to be done while I acted as humble assistant.
Tasks included but not limited to: adding supers, taking away and combining old ones to make way for the ones we just built, sawing and adding reinforcements to the hive stands, dumping male frames, checking for viruses, trading in new and repaired frames for those deemed ready for harvest, checking on queens, attempting to aid in offering queen cells to recently divided hives, the extraction of kilos and kilos of extraordinarily sweet honey (which we have already enjoyed with Swedish pancakes, bread, and homemade cream cheese). Not to mention the early morning painting of the afore mentioned boxes with paint we made from scratch from pigment, oil, and eggs!
After nine plus hours of nearly non stop bee knowledge my brain feels full to the point that I will happily go to sleep extremely early tonight and dream of these strange and marvelous creatures. Until Monday when we will hopefully need to continue to do most of it again for the remaining hives. If I'm lucky, that is.