A lot of white, a little green
Last Saturday we went to check how the bees were doing after the big storm. The hives were barely visible under a huge blanket of snow! There are seven hives, so some of them as you can see from the photo were completely covered. We trudged back out again with shovels, and dug out the front of each hive so that the bees can get out and to ensure some air circulation…
Beehives in snow, mid March
It will likely be touch and go for the hives this year, because it was such a long winter. Jean-Pierre is anxiously awaiting the first warm day so that he can open the hives. That will allow him to feed the bees with some syrup to keep them going until the first blossoms.
Speaking of feeding the bees, it’s likely the last time we will be doing it using sugar syrup (the normal practice in North America). Jean-Pierre has spent the winter researching another approach to beekeeping, more common in Europe but just about unheard of here. It involves using beehives that are better suited to the bees’ behaviour, not using any chemical treatments, and supplementing the bees only with… honey! In other words, less is extracted from each hive to ensure a stronger and more resilient colony. This "natural" method is more in line with our own philosophy. The drawback is that the equipment for it is unavailable, so we’ve also been busy building the new supers:
On another front, the first seedlings are up, and it’s truly refreshing to see some green! Here are some little cabbage babies:
Aren’t they a sight for snow-weary eyes?
Stephanie
10 Comments on "A lot of white, a little green"
Trackbacks
Toplinksz2... Great blog post, saw on...
Looking around... I am really into looking quite much in many great locations on the really vast web, very much often ...
Interesting read... I have not checked in here for a while because I thought it was getting boring, but the last ...
Looking around... I love to browse in various places on the online world, regularly I will just go to Digg and ...
Good read... I've been absent for some time, but now I remember why I used to love this website. Thanks, I ...
Yahoo News... When reading a lot on Google and of course Bing for the latest news just right now I happily ...
Tumblr... Tumblr linked to this website...
Latest news in the industry... [...]Just saw this articles. And realize that it will be relevant to your interest. Follow the ...
Higly Recommended Blog.... [...]Follow this website to check some latest opinions on the theme[...]...
Strong Blog covering same topic... [...]Might be worth visiting[...]...