I walk home at lunch because I just can’t get enough of my husband, my kittens and I get to eat leftovers for lunch instead of grocery store concoctions. Well, I was walking back to work, and I heard this roaring buzz. I ran back up to the house, breathless as my tummy is growing, and asked Marc to come help me spot a suspected swarm.

And there it was, 75 ft up a tree, the size of a beach ball. *sigh* It was a primary swarm and after checking all the hives, the only hive that could spare that many bees without emptying the hive completely would be good ol’ Gertrudabelle, my oldest hive. She’s 5 supers (boxes) high and was the most productive, my biggest promise of honey supplies. She’ll still be a source of honey, but not as much as I was hoping. Unless we can catch these bees.

My very helpful co workers suggested phoning the fire department for the longest ladder on island. Yeah, not even the most esteemed fire fighters have a ladder that would have to reach 100 ft. And then you’ve got 30 lbs of bees to haul down a ladder. What misadventure that would be! So instead we went to plan B (or Bee, if you prefer. ha ha)

We made a nice little home for them. A hive box, with honey smeared around the entrance and inside. A bedsheet spread out beneath it with sugar syrup, and a welcome home mat at the front door. Think it’ll work?

And I phoned the neighbours to ask them to check their eaves periodically in the next few days just in case they decide on a different home.

I’ve dealt with swarms quite a few times before but they were never mine, this is the first swarm I’ve personally had and keeping bees for 3 years, it’s surprising that it took this long.

In other news, the strawberries are ripe and selling like hot cakes at the Farmer’s Market. (Not ours, we are the blueberry people…) So my pregnant belly is really enjoying these red explosions of flavour. And, yesterday I ate the first ripe-ish blueberry! *key the ominous music*

Blueberries would usually be greeted with nothing but thrilled excitement, and yes they still are, but they are also greeted with loads of long days picking. When you have 500 bushes to rake through, it means rising at 6am and picking well into the evening. Good thing blueberry bushes are not the prickly type! And selling at the market is ever-so fun!

Hope the emergence of Summer is finding you well, swarm-free, and floating in your favourite berries!

1. Put an inch of sugar syrup in a bucket and put it out for the bees thinking that they will clean it Right Up! (and find them dead and coated in sugar a few days later- an instant dessert and delicacy in some parts of the world…)

2. Put a water dish out for the bees without rocks or sticks so that they drown.

3. Squish them as you put the lid down and hear the crunch.

4. Do not treat them for mites and other diseases hoping that they will miraculously find a cure on their own.

5. Leaving the gate open so that the sneaky deer get in and eat all your lovely blooming radishes and arugula that the bees were enjoying so much!

And Other Unfortunate Adventures:

-Forgetting about an acorn squash you worked so hard to grow for months, and leaving it on the dryer which then the kittens (ahem) roll behind the dryer, thinking it’s a game.

-Letting your radishes get tall and mighty, go to seed and forget the juicy roots that you could have harvested for a nip in your salad.

-Plant lettuce while it is hot and watch it bolt right before your eyes, with ne’er a taste of it’s sweet leaf.

-Plant carrots 4 times in different places around the garden only to watch the ever-present kittens dig new potties for themselves on the freshly disturbed soil.

*sigh* often I found that farming and beekeeping is one step forward and several steps back as the learning curve is steeeeep!

Tonight I harvested more garlic scapes with a passing fancy of trying to make some pesto. Also, I found a couple of black currant bushes and picked them clean, only to realize that these were the foul tasting black currant bushes that tricked me last year too into eating them right off the bush. (very sour face followed.) So I have bested them this year and am turning them into sauce.

*and then got distracted blogging, which Marc is finishing- (ahem) perfecting the sauce for me.* (what a man!)

Some days I’m a better insurance agent than a gardener or beekeeper… I think it may be about time management…

Ice Cream and black currant sauce anyone?

We’ve picked our first handful of strawberries, hot from the tardy June sun. We’ve picked our first bowl full of peas, and our first meal of scapes. This feels like bounty after not planting a proper Winter garden and buying our produce from the store for many months.

But this is not overwhelming though I feel overwhelmed by the bounty my life is giving me right now. I’m so appreciative of this moment. I can look back and how I got where I am.  I’m living on 160 acres of beautiful farmland, keeping bees, growing veggies, expecting my first child, I can look back and take credit for some of the decision-making that brought us here. But a lot of it was very good timing and a faith that everything would work out.

Moving to a Gulf Island was a fancy of mine for a while. I loved the slower pace of life here, the lean towards artistic visions, the small-island community. I was thrilled with Marc agreed to moving to Pender. (It wasn’t a hard sell.) By picking up and moving away from the city, the conveniences, we moved a step in the right direction, but it was a small step. We dreamed of growing our own food, we dreamed of a slower and simpler life. Our first year on Pender, we lived in a house that made no provisions for the frequent power outages. So when the lights were taken away, so was our heat, our means of cooking, making our little house an ice box. There was no sun there and I kept a hive of bees in the shady flowerless backyard, hoping for a better place. We and the bees  survived but we did not thrive. When we had the opportunity to caretake such a large and beautiful chunk of land, we jumped on it with one swift “YES!” We knew we would never be able to afford buying such a huge amount of land so it was like aiming for the stars and then finding one within reach, lassooing it and holding on!

Despite all of this sentimentality, things are not always perfect here, but they are pretty close. I remember a month after moving to Pender Island, I realized the cramps in my stomach were gone. These cramps from a job I hated, the stress of city life, the demand to have more stuff, to earn more, to spend more. When I was living in the city, I didn’t even notice the cramps because I thought they were part of daily life. It was a miracle to realize life without this!

I look back on some of the photos of our first couple years here and I am in awe of the beauty here, of our little lives. We’ve done a lot, yes, but we’ve been given more. I am very grateful.

I was sitting one morning, patting my growing belly, and I was thinking about the next stage of this pregnancy. When will I feel the baby kick, I have an ultrasound coming up. Then I stopped myself. I knew right then, that I needed to appreciate every fleeting moment, because it will be so soon when my child is ready for kingergarden, then high school, then graduation. This is my very first baby, at 17 weeks old. I will never be here again. So I stopped, I breathed and I sent my thanks upwards. These are incredible moments and I am here, now. Thank you.

The blackberries are starting to hold out their flowers like presents and the bees are gulping it up. They are on the blackberry bushes on the entire walk to work, just over 1 km. It’s like having friends to walk home with.

We ate our first small handful of strawberries from our own garden yesterday. Our garden is in shambles this year. The upper garden, right in front of our house, is green and growing with inadvertent things. Potatoes that we did not get out last year in time. They are over-running the celeriac, the peas, the strawberries, the spinach and the beets. We have another fragrant invasion. The oregano. What I thought were weeds, and I was pulling up with fury, then wondering why I kept thinking of spaghetti. I put it down to a weird pregnancy craving, until I realized the little fuzzy stems were babies of our oregano monster.

Our lower garden needs constant love and weeding or the horse-tail takes over. We’ve tried mulching (which helps a little) weeding, though not as often as required. And we’ve got strawberries, asparagus, beans and garlic down there. The garlic is growing tasty scapes which we harvested for dinner last night.

Scapes are the Dr Seuss looking curls atop the plant that are where the garlic makes it’s flowers. Garlic has been sterile for many years and can only make clones of itself. There is research into putting the umph! back into garlic’s genetic pool but what we’ve got right now are clones of different varieties.

If you ever see garlic scapes at a farmer’s market or in the grocery store, snatch ‘em up! They are such a treat. They can be eaten raw but they have quite the bite to them. If you toss them in olive oil and put them right on the barbecue, sear them a little on both sides, it takes the sharpness out of the taste and you get such a tasty treat. They made the perfect compliment to our kale and potatoes last night.

They are also great for freezing and putting into soup, stock or stews in the Winter.

Have you discovered any amazing foods lately? I’ve been really interested in using more beans in our diet. Does anyone have good recipes for different kinds of legumes?

And since it’s strawberry season, don’t forget to pop a few of these drops of sunshine in your mouth!

I got a call on Saturday night saying my bees are ready. 22 hives to be precise. 5 of these are for other beekeepers on Pender that did not have good luck in the Winter. 16 are in my humble care. Can I do this??

So we went into high gear, we are picking them up on Friday morning if all goes according to plan. With bees, it’s hard to know. I have 7 outyards and we’re going to do 9 of them on the farm. This is when I particularly appreciate Marc and his heroism. First he calmed me down, then he went out to move the cinder blocks to where he thought the bees should go. He began levelling their spots.

Today I phoned our animal feed store on island and asked them to bring me in 40 kg of white sugar. The nucs, when they arrive, will need to be fed while they are adjusting to their new home and sourcing out the flowers. 20 hives in total is not a lot when it comes to commercial beekeeping. The guy I’m getting the hives from currently has 300 hives. I figured out that I’d probably need more than 100 if I was to do bees as a viable commercial operations. So 20 is a small step towards this goal. But, going from 4 hives to 20 hives, suddenly I am no longer a hobbiest. Suddenly I am moving to being the big fish in the small pond of beekeepers on Pender Island. Building up slowly like this allows us to swallow these expenses in gulps. It enables us to keep our head above water and not go into debt over this dream. It also helps me learn gradually how much time and effort beekeeping takes.

In the midst of this, I am trying to figure out how to dress myself as my pants become tighter and tighter. I am trying to figure out how much “stuff” do we actually need with this baby coming? Do you need a nursing pillow? A jolly jumper? A jungle gym? Or will a basket, some receiving blankets, some diapers and lots of love be enough?

Oh and the garden. Abysmal! Last year I had green tomatoes forming on the bushes, this year there is nothing of the sort. It’s been a terrible Spring for the garden and I’ve been less than motivated to get out there and tend to it. So I mourn and complain and watch the bees pollinate all the arugula, spinach and radishes that have bolted. But as the optimistic gardener, next year will always be better! I’ll have so much more time. (with a new baby, laughable perhaps.)

Anyway, a garden, bees, a baby, I had a chest-high wave of doubt bearing down on me. Good thing I have such a great cheerleader in my husband. What do you do when your waves of doubt come crashing down?

I say, surf  ‘em to the shore!