The beekeepers

Well it's that time of the year again.

Well really it's our first time.

Time to check to see if the bees made it 

through the winter.

First of all we took off the insulation from the outside

It's not really necessary to cover your beehive.

But we would rather be safe than sorry.

In our area it's not really the cold that 

will kill the bees because it honestly

doesn't get all that cold here.

It's also very windy here. But like the cold that's not a killer either.

The killer in these parts in the winter is the lack of snow 

for insulation.

So we make sure that we insulate the hives so it'll

act like the snow would have done in

normal parts of the world. 

We have strong winds here in Nova Scotia and it burns plants in the 

winter and can make the temperature feel like it's a lot colder 

than what it really is because we also have the humidity.

But if we had some snow for insulation it wouldn't kill 

the plants with the wind.

A friend of mine used to live in Nanuvut where it gets f-f-f-freezing.

Yet he said here in Southwest NS it feels  a lot colder 

than it did in Nanuvut.  Go figure!

The humid cold goes right through your bones. You can't warm up.

It's strange.  It rarely gets colder than -15 Celsius  here.  I mean hardly

ever.  But it feels a heck of a lot colder than that.

Brrrrrr

So anyway, enough with the weather forecasting. 

We took the insulation off, 

cleaned out the wet straw and started taking apart

the frames, one by one.

We had never seen the queen.  So that was our mission.

I took pictures of every frame Dave took out for closer 

inspection later.

This frame still had capped  honey on it!

We were very happy to see this.  That meant they could

have handled a longer winter.

Very proud of our girls!

And there she is!  Right in the middle, circled.

The Queen bee!

We both had on our full suits.  When you do an inspection 

like this you need full protection.

And you can see why from this picture.

We were halfway through the inspection when I asked Dave,

" We forgot the smoker, didn't we?"

Whoops.

Well if we can do a full inspection without smoking the bees

I guess we are either pretty good, stupid or very docile bees.

The jury is still out on that one. 

We are waiting for another nuc to come in.

But with the coronavirus and the travel restrictions

we're not sure if they will come in or not.

They come from New Zealand.

And no planes are coming in and out yet.

I'm hoping that they will let them come into the country soon!

So here's to hoping we'll have a fruitful honey season!

This girl was already coming in with pollen on her legs!

Have a Blessed Day!
Lisa

oh and btw...

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