Bless the Bee Smoker!

Spring is out in full force here: flowers on the ground and in the trees, as we drive and as we walk. Amazing how the world is touched with color; not much green yet, though.

Wednesday I tried something new in my beekeeping. I had dried stalks of basil left over from last year, so I put them in my yet-unused smoker. Before my first bees arrived, I had read that smoking the bees makes them panic, as they think their hive is about to burn down. This never seemed like a caring thing to do, so I never tried smoking. My mentor, though, uses smoke as a greeting, like a knock on a door.

What a difference the smoke made! I felt a bit ridiculous in the amount of protective gear I was wearing. No bees buzzed my eyes; no bees even paid any attention to me at all. The 80 degree weather also meant that I could pull out the frames more easily. No honeycomb broke, either, so that helped keep the bees and me calm.

They still have capped honey, and the queen looks to be laying both workers and drones in a good proportion. I don't have full frames of bee brood yet; I expect that will happen later in the season.

Calm bees and happy hive: I like beekeeping again.

Since the ducks were attacked and killed, the chickens have been very spotty with their laying. We went from a good ten dozen eggs to, sometimes, as little as three. But I have other things going on, and missing eggs was a minor annoyance, but not worth the trouble to locate.

Isaiah spotted them, though: a huge collection of eggs, somehow secreted away in the chicken house tarp. I don't know how they got into that space, nor why a blue tarp enclosure was attractive, but I pulled out six dozen eggs or so, all of dubious age. They aren't salable; I'll crack them each very carefully over a small plate before adding them to anything. Bitsy will probably get some.

A while ago I put about 40 osage orange seeds in a jar with some worm castings and sand from the creek. I forgot to water the little jar often, and it was in the motor home (and, thus, subject to freezing), so I was quite surprised yesterday to find some sprouts. I potted the sprouts on to their own soil blocks—37 of the seeds had sprouted!

I look at my yet-unsprouted medlar, cherry, olive, neem, raisin tree, and kiwi seeds, and think maybe I should have tried the jar with worm castings method.

The greenhouse is my tinkering spot. I'll keep tinkering.