• Bee Log Star Date 93

    Partial Inspection: Day 93

    Time: 2:30pm

    Weather: 90

    Blooming: Crepe Myrtle is still blooming around the ‘hood.

    Combs:

    Bar 12 is now okay. Bars 13, 14 had a slight “puff” so I sliced those out. Bars 15 and through 16: Wavy:

    mighty_wavy_comb

     

    Bar 17 is next to the follower board, so the small comb they’re building on 17 is straight. I scraped off some of the wavy and pressed some straight on 15 and 16, so I’ll have to check again next weekend.

     


  • What I did my summer (non-vacation) – Bee Log Stardate 86

    Partial Inspection: Day 86

    Time: 11:30am

    Weather: 92

    Blooming: Nothing that I really noted.

    Combs:

    After last weekend’s flood of angry bees, I had to check the cross comb situation……and…..it’s gonna be sticky. D’OH!

    Bar 12 is now okay. Bars 13 through 16 are a little wavy, bar 17 is next to the follower board, so the small comb they’re building on 17 is straight. I scraped off some of the wavy and pressed some straight on 13 through 16, so I’ll have to check again next weekend.

    This may take a while. There’s a lot of bees inside the hive. They’re crowded but I can’t open it up until they get the wavy situation corrected.

    On the plus side, the destruction wasn’t as bad this time, the bees didn’t flood out in a massive ball like they did last time.


  • Bee Log Star Date 79

    Partial Inspection: Day 79

    Time: 10:30am

    Weather: 82

    Blooming: Nothing that I really noted.

    Combs:

    After the party we threw and another “lost weekend” before that, it had been a while since I opened the hive. I opened it, and to my horror, I had cross-comb! *gasp*
    It was my own damn fault really. 6 bars of wavy comb. I added too many bars in a row and they didn’t keep straight. Damn organic really.  The smoker came in super handy.

    Sooooo…..I took my handy dandy beehive tool and scraped straight down on the comb, straightening out the comb.  A veritable FLOOD of honey drowned the hive. Bad, baaad beekeeper.

    They were not amused (below), but they were back to normal the following day. Not sure about the internals, will have to fire the smoker up again and check out the bars and make sure I fixed it “right”.

     

    10432113_10152584583309452_6894764021068271022_n

     


  • “For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all.” ~ Aristotle

    Bat update –

    When I ordered some bee supplies from Amazon I also picked up a small bat house.

    It arrived. I was underwhelmed.

    But it got mounted in the front yard.

    small_bathouse

    So, rather than mull over how I failed on my rocket style bat house (stupid warped wood) I went ahead and ordered a new bat house. I underestimated how big it was – even though I kind of roughed out how big it was from the dimensions they listed.

    Wow. Big bat can.

    Hope it works! (Shoes for scale)

    bee_can1 bee_can2

     


  • Bee Log: Stardate 64

    Partial Inspection: Day 64

    Time: 10:30am

    Weather: 82

    Blooming: Crepe Myrtle

    Combs:
    Long story short, on day 49 I inspected a comb (bar 3) and it fell over and broke off the bar. It sucked. I wired it back up using wire, which didn’t go well. In the meantime, I ordered a smoker since mine had never shown up, and it’s pretty great. It’s making everything a lot easier.

    Been feeding them up to three times a day – I just opened the hive today, removed all the wire. Busting up that comb slowed them down a lot. I’ve got 17 bars in there and they’re only building on 16 right now. Before/during the process of breaking the comb, I ended up adding another four bars. So we’re at 16 bars, smoker is goo.


  • “All we hear is, Radio-Ga-Ga” ~ Freddie Mercury

    Great weekend, there was a Rockabilly Revue benefit show last weekend at Sons of Hermann Hall in Dallas.

    rr_sons

    Matt the Cat Trio, From Parts Unknown, and Crash on the Barrelhead.  Truly a great time, I wish we had more pictures.

    As a slight aside, my house now has four baby (baby) kittens, five regular kittens, three regular cats, and one stray.  I found out the delineation of a feral and a stray is as such:

    Feral: Not friendly (wild)

    Stray: Friendly (former pet)
    The stray is actually pretty cool. He’s super friendly, I’m getting him fixed and checked for cat herpes on Saturday. The others…..*sigh*.

    After I rescued one baby (weeks old) kitten* I discovered why. Here’s my neighbor’s alcove on the side of her house (taken over the fence) Serious cat-lady syndrome. And no concept of breeding and overrunning the neighborhood with cats.

    cat_platter

    Lastly, I ran into someone recently who did their damndest to be an asshole. I approach most people with an open mind, but I’ve decided it’s okay to not like some people.

    Actively not like.

     

     

    * I’ve now rescued all four baby kittens twice – aside from the one that was randomly left outside the front of my house.


  • Bee Log: Stardate 44

    It seems like all I do right now is update my bee log – but I’m really busy with work right now with pretty much zero down time.

    Partial Inspection: Day 44

    Time: 11:30 am

    Weather: 80

    Blooming: Roses, Dewberry, miscellaneous bushes in backyard

    Combs: Wow! Oops! All 10 bars are full of comb! Added two bars, you can see where the original was built, and then they added on because they were running out of room. ……ended up adding another bar on Sunday (Day 45) because by Sunday morning they were building on the two bars I added on day 44. Bad beekeeper!

    daywhatever2

    Swarming: N/A

    Queen Issues: None, she’s out and laying.

    Celebratory Beer: N/A – do that later.

    daywhatever1

     


  • bee log: stardate 30

    day30hive

    Inspection: Day 30

    Time: 1:30 PM

    Weather: 81

    Blooming: Yellow Clover, some pink bush in my front yard has blossoms.

    yellowclover

    Combs: Comb on Bars 1, 2, 3, 4,5, 6 small comb on 7 and all straight. After being stung last week, didn’t feel up to a full inspection, just tilted bars. Bees were not exceptionally angry. Need the smoker first (in the mail) before really pulling out comb.

    Swarming: N/A

    Queen Issues: None, she’s out and laying.

    Celebratory Beer: None. I’ve got a cold and don’t feel great.

     

    Notes: After being stung last week, I made sure that my suit was tucked into my shoes. I was wearing black socks last time, which also may have contributed to being a target (white suit with black socks = contrast). I also marked each bar with a number so that it’s easy to count/keep track of the comb. Comb on #1 and #2 is now getting super wide. Since I haven’t been feeling well, I haven’t been refilling the sugar syrup every day. Some days they go through 14oz, some days they don’t even go through half of it, so I leave it there. I had kind of expected that they would continue on this fantastic pace of building comb but they’re still chugging away, and haven’t really filled any more bars. But judging that they’re on track, I’ll continue to feed.

    The bee stings on my foot (actually three of them) I had rubbed while I was sleeping and the absentmindedly scratched while I was waking up and my foot puffed up *yesterday*. It’s back to normal today – note to self, don’t do that.

    Planted some white clover in my front yard as ground cover. Just planted and watered so it will be a while.