Google makes me crazy

Google is getting crazier and crazier.  The new trick is to ask you to connect your posts to Google+. Which sounds fairly innocuous.  But if you do, no one can comment on a post without a G+ account.

If this was an "also" thing, I would be OK with it.  But it's all or nothing and I don't want that.  And it looks to me like they are working hard to force users to coerce other people into using their products. So, this blog is being moved to Wordpress.

Someone else had already used the labyrinthfarm address so I have had to stick a C at the beginning.  C for Chuck.  C for Cunningham.  C for See Labyrinth Farm.  Whatever mnemonic works for you. 

Anyway, we'll leave this here until Google does something REALLY stupid.  With this link to future posts.

http://clabyrinthfarm.wordpress.com

Bees out of the box

I'm a little surprised.  When I tried peeking in to the hive yesterday, bees were sitting on the box and I didn't see a lot of movement toward the front of the hive.  It appears that they got moving when I finally calmed down and left them alone.  This morning when I went out to remove the box, they were ALL clustered up at the front and about a quarter of the quart of sugar syrup was gone.

 

It's difficult to take a picture through the plexiglass, but you can kind of tell.

It looks like about 20 didn't make it and considering how they are put in the box, that's pretty impressive. 

Actual package creation starts at 3 minutes.

More bees

Monica and Todd of The Carolina Bee Company drove for nearly 24 hours yesterday to bring packaged of bees from Georgia to North Carolina.  One of those boxes was for me.

AND it's raining today, which isn't prime bee-handling weather.  But, you have to do what you can when you can.

So, I used Monica's no-shake package installation method, waited for a break in the action and went for it.  The queen's carriage is dangling between 2 bars that are simply pinching the little strap in place and the box is in the back where bars 11-23 will go when I take it out tomorrow.  The quart sized sugar syrup bottle is between the box and the queen.  The queen is between the bottle and the entrance.

They are so busy that I can't put the flap down to take a picture, but I think they like it here.

Weed killer

Mix 1 gallon of vinegar with 1 cup of salt and a tablespoon of liquid soap.  The soap helps it cling to the leaves.

It works better on broad leaf plants but does affect some grasses.

Bees 2.0

I ordered another package of bees from Carolina Bees who are on our Natural Beekeepers list.

Annalys suggest that the the colonies may have absconded in the fall. To abscond is to leave with no forwarding address.  That description matches what I have seen in the hives.  There was a sudden drop in population like a swarm had happened. They left enough workers to tend to the brood they left behind and they left food for them.  There was capped and uncapped honey and lots of uncapped pollen. 

Yesterday, I extracted the honey that remained after all the abandoned bees died. We have a little more than 2 quarts.

I have 3 empty combs in one hive, kind of hoping it will encourage a swarm to wander in and call it home. The other hive is clean and will receive the new package on April 29. 

Bees

It was finally dry enough and warm enough at the same time to have a look in the hives today.  There is a little honey, some pollen and some half finished (uncapped) honey in both hives.  Dead bees in the bottoms.  Some bees on the combs in Rosamund appear to be dead.

If the single cluster I saw had a queen in it and they are alive, she has less than 50 attendants.

I saw no evidence of disease.

I take it back.

The bees may be OK.  I may have been seeing the change from summer bees to winter bees for the first time and panicked.

They aren't taking the syrup I've been putting out very quickly.  However, there were bees visible in Rosamund and syrup visible in the comb in Lucretia, today.

We'll know the truth when Spring actually springs.