Updates

I finally got a decent photo of the crocuses that have begun to bloom. They weren't very cooperative on Bloom Day.








Artemis was posing nicely with the bonsais a couple of weeks ago.

I finally got in to quickly inspect and sugar-dust the bees yesterday. The Russians are doing best of all; they still have plenty of food, brood is doing pretty well, and they even have a bit of drone brood and one hatched drone. Isolde, my home-grown swarm queen, is doing poorly. There were some abandoned brood cells in the bottom box, so I opened them up for clean-up. She's essentially down to two occupied boxes. Boudicca & Freyja are doing pretty well, though all hives are suffering from the mites. For about 10 feet in front of the hives, there are many dead and dying bees. Many have poorly formed wings, an obvious sign of mite damage. Poor things; I really should squish them to hasten their deaths, but feel ghoulish about it. Today I should make up some syrup for all but the Russians. Food supplies are getting a bit low, despite the plum trees blooming furiously throughout town. I suppose I should also stage a coup, and combine Isolde's queendom with Freyja's. Maybe on the next good day.

A couple of weeks ago I was working to expand a planting bed so that I could move the hazel tree. I'd originally planted it far too close to the house after reading that they grew to only 6 or 8 feet high. That should have been in excess of 8 feet in radius. The job of digging up the hazel was the worst of it. I was working in close quarters, and trying to avoid puncturing our gas line. After a couple of days of digging and hacking roots, and pulling a back muscle, I got the blessed thing loose. Here's hoping it survives my efforts.