Country Mouse Monday: the dearth

Spend enough time watching bees, and I swear, it changes what you see. It changes how you see.

You don’t have to keep bees to do this. All you have to do is stand around, observing the action flower-to-flower in some green place. Where are they landing? What are they gathering?

What I see right now? The dearth is upon us.

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Country Mouse Monday: Spring Cleaning

It's springtime here at the farmlet and we and the bees are getting busy with cleaning.

Springtime is bee-ventory time!

That is, time for cleaning and tallying up our stock of hive parts, all the boxes, all the frames, all the fragrant, pleasing bits and bobs of this "work," the entrance-reducers and screened bottom-boards, oh all the sweet accoutrements.

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Country Mouse Monday: welcome back, girls!!

Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, I want to shout it from the rooftops:

It's Spring! It's Spring!  

And to celebrate, we spent a few hours at Rebecca's apiary on Saturday, splitting hives, and bringing some new girls home to our house.

Welcome home, girls!

May you be happy here long time.

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Country Mouse Monday: bees are just yoga, man

This was one of those weekends that was all bees, bees, bees from beginning to end, a blissful playing with and talking about them, first on Saturday at Glide, where I think we taught about 30 interested strangers, to yesterday when my friend Fredo came over for lunch and hive inspection.  Super-duper fun.

Somewhere along the line on Saturday afternoon, standing on the roof at Glide Memorial in the Tenderloin in San Francisco, one of the students, all geared up in her full-body bee suit turned to me and said,

"It really helps if you stay calm, right?"

Yup. Exactly.

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Taking the time it takes

It's Week One, Day Three of my six-week disability leave and I'm standing here at the kitchen counter, eating toast, drinking coffee and thinking and enjoying.  I could sleep all day if I wanted, but instead I'm trying to keep to a schedule, getting up at around 6, later than Joe but while the coffee is still hot.

Standing and typing is a habit I developed when I was too uncomfortable to sit.  The kitchen counter is just the right height, and honestly it offers everything I could ask for.  Enough room for all my tools, not least of which are coffee in my favorite mug, toasted Dave's Killer Bread (also favorite), space for phone, notebook, calculator, books, pencil, etc.  And the light's just right.

I was just reviewing a list I made yesterday, a shopping list for our bees, and realized suddenly how much things have changed.  We started keeping bees in 2009, so now we're starting our fourth season as beekeepers.  It's the fulfillment of a long-time dream and I love it, but that's not to say it's been without challenges.  Or without expense. Or that I almost quit.

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