It seems like all I go on and on about is beekeeping, gardening and celebrating the joyous little life on Pender. This is what my evening was about tonight.

Daisy Bugg (nearly her real name) came into the office this afternoon and said “The red ants are into my beehive! The bees are fighting for their lives! I don’t know what to do.”

I met Daisy at a beekeeper’s meeting in Victoria. She is an inch shorter than me (which is impressive) and she has lived between Pender and Salt Spring most of her life. She is hilarious. She is wreckless. She is also 80 years old.

Last fall, I went to the beekeeper’s potluck in Victoria and Daisy was there. She was happy on mead that Bob Liptrot brought from Tugwell Creek Meadery. It was very fine mead. She declared that I had to take her dancing that night. I don’t know how I weasled my way out of that one. She said, “Manda, I have to go dancing before I’m 80! Do you think they have line-dancing joints around here?” Keep in mind it was a Thursday night at 7:30. Do they have line dancing in Victoria, early evening on a Thursday? I have no idea. Luckily I didn’t have to find out.

We rearranged her bees, moved them over a little bit to a stand that the red ants couldn’t climb up. (hopefully.) Ants are very vicious to honeybees. They spray formic acid in the bee’s face and then they go in and steal their honey and their larva. Daisy hopes that by moving her bees to a stand that has sticky tape on the legs of the stand, it will eliminate the ant problem.

It’s tricky to move bees. They need to be moved less than 3 feet or more than 3 miles. Beekeeping is full of these funny little phrases that sound like old wives’ tales but they work miraculously well. We had to make sure we didn’t move Daisy’s bees more than 3 feet so that the bees could find the hive again when they return from foraging. I’ll wait to hear how the small move worked.

Can you see in this picture (above) you can see that I’m wearing running shoes and I have blue socks poking out. This was a cause of much anxiety for me today. Usually I wear gum boots so that the bees cannot crawl up my pant-legs or sting my ankles. While I was looking at the frames of bees, I could feel the bees crawling on my ankles, my bare skin. I tried very hard to focus on what I was doing, trusting in the geniality of the bee. If I don’t squish it, it will not sting me. I managed to avoid stings but I don’t wish to do that again. It was a little nerve-wracking.

Good news on the tomato front! These are roma tomatoes that until tonight, were in the greenhouse at Clam Bay. My plants are the first one out of the 15 or so varieties that have fruit on them!

This tomato is a Scarlet Heirloom also from Salt Spring Seeds. We think that because the seeds are a local variety, they are so early to fruit. But we are guessing. I’ve never grown tomatoes. I don’t know what I’m doing!!

But I know how to fake it. *grin*

Thanks for reading!