The saying goes:

“A Swarm in May is worth a load of hay
A Swarm in June is worth a silver spoon
A Swarm in July ain’t worth a fly.”

Well, guess what month it is? It ain’t worth a fly! That’s what month! And we are having swarms upon swarms. In fact, Marc just called me less than 2 minutes ago and said “Guess what?” and I said “NO!”

-Yup, another swarm! I’m running out of equipment! I picked up $1800 worth of used equipment in the Spring and I’m down to my second to last bottom board, and my last outer cover. Just to clarify,

You have a bottom board, a super (at least one, perhaps several) with 10 frames each, then an inner cover and an outer cover.

Alright, so the bees and I are going to have a little pep talk. Bees, it’s time to settle into your homes and enjoy. You have plenty of room, you have food. You are happy, I promise! With all this swarming, you are going to make your keeper go out of business buying sugar, off her rocker trying to assemble new equipment until well after her bedtime! Besides that, you’re going to break the bank buying all this equipment to house you!

The reason they say that a Swarm in July ain’t worth a fly is because the hive has to have enough food and enough bees to get them through the Winter. You need -they say- 100 lbs of honey in the hive so that the bees survive the Winter. Now that’s a lot of honey. Anything in excess of that is mine as the Greedy Beekeeper!

To be honest, we had such a mild Winter last Winter, and our weather is not as extreme that I am not as worried about a swarm’s survival here as I would be in oh, say, Saskatchewan. I mean, heck, my bees were flying all through January and February last year which is a bit ridiculous.

Speaking of ridiculous, we have been trying very hard this year to grow cabbages. We planted the seedlings when it says on the package (March 1st), we tried to provide them with a warm environment and lots of water and they are seriously 1 inch tall. Perhaps it wasn’t warm enough.

But then we have this cabbage bit of root that we pulled off our old cabbages from last year’s garden. It was forgotten about in a bucket of weeds all Winter. It had no love, no nurturing, I did not once sing over this cabbage to encourage growth.

And we were told it won’t make a cabbage ball this year, they do not form “fruit” two years in a row. But it was sprouting leaves so I stuck ‘er in the ground and thought we could collect seeds off of it or something.

This is the cabbage that could not be. The unlikely cabbage, the inadvertent cabbage. The miracle cabbage. I think it’ll make a fine cole-slaw, don’t you?

Alright bees, wave good bye to the dear readers!

… now if you’d just behave, I’m sure we’d all get along beautifully… this means no more stinging me in the back of the head….

Just wanted to draw your attention to a wonderful post done by Backyard Feast on a journey into Self-Sufficiency.

Her and her husband live in the Cowichan Valley, which is on Vancouver Island, (often referred to as “The Big Island” when we feign attempts to imitate Hawaii…..) and they are successfully gardening and growing their own veggies!

It’s encouraging when you find people in your area doing similar things to what you’re doing. But I find in general, the blog-o-sphere wonderfully encouraging at attempts to grow your own veggies, take advantage of the land and really connect with nature.

Dear readers, your enthusiasm you share with me as I learn how to catch swarms or have garden failures keeps me going! I am so grateful for your comments and enjoy sharing your worlds as Marc and I bumble along here on Tiny Pender Island.

I said to him the other day, “We are trying so many new things. Gardening, Sailing, Beekeeping. And we don’t know anything about any of them. It’s amazing we have an success at all!”

Oh and to give you a taste of what is to come, Sunday morning found us catching yet Another Swarm! This one even bigger than Miss Marilyn!

Photos to follow…

So I get this call yesterday morning from my Mother-In-law who is generously hosting a hive a bees at her place. We just put the hive there a month ago from a nuc -which is four frames of bees in a box with a laying Queen, and workers. She said these ominous words “What does a swarm look like?”

We hopped in our mini truck for a peek ourselves. Whenever someone says to me “Oh I saw the bees really swarming the other day?” I say cautiously, “like there was a lot of traffic in front of the hive? Or a big whirling cloud in the air of bees that is loud enough you have to shout to be heard?” Yeah there’s a difference for me between happy busy bees and a Swarm!

After grabbing our bee suits, an extra hive, a cardboard box and my bee brush, we headed to investigate this “Swarm.”

In this picture, it’s a little hard to see from the patchy light, but that shadow in the grass are bees. A great clump of bees on the side of a hill. At least this time they were not 75 ft up the tree! We went in to have lunch. (Being pregnant, the need for food overrules the need to catch a swarm of bees… I know, what’s that for dedication!)

In the meantime, the bees decided they didn’t like ground-clumping and they began whirling in the air and making for a very very high tree branch. We watched in dismay! Not again, another one… Lost! There was still a residue of bees clumping on the ground. I slipped on my suit and went to investigate.

Now just for some background info on swarms. The bees, with the old queen, leave the hive to the younger bees and the new Queen. They fly up in the air in great swirls, then settle in a clump, with the Queen at the centre of the clump, and then scout bees go off looking for a new home. This searching can last for up to a week. Then when the find a new home, they all take off flying in a big swirl to their chosen location. Because the bees clump around the Queen for the most part, you usually do not see her when dealing with the swarm. But wherever the Queen goes, they go. Plus, picture this, we are talking thousands of bees in the air, clumping wherever they choose and basically flying about, being difficult to identify.

Imagine my surprise when I’m looking at a few bees still clumped on the grass and realize I am nose to nose with the Swarm Queen herself! I cupped my hand around her, careful not to squish her (as it would be the end of the swarm for sure) and I try to lure her into a cardboard box. She takes of flying. Of course. So now we’ve had two chances to catch the swarm. 1. when it was on the ground and we chose lunch instead. 2. when I had the Queen in my sticky little hands and in my caution not to squish her, I let her slip between my fingers, literally.

So we have a bait hive set up and I start trying to brush bees into the bait hive, with no luck. And to my great amazement, I find the Queen for the second time. Miracles upon Miracles! I am prepared this time and catch her in a small tupperware container smeared with honey. I give her a snack and then dump her into the bait hive.

Then I begin scooping up whatever bees I can grab and dumping them into the bait hive, hoping that they will reliquish themselves to their new home gracefully!

I place a cardboard box on the ground, rather forgotten and the bees magically start pouring themselves into the cardboard box. It has the Queen’s scent from our first attempt at imprisoning her.

As you can see from the photo above, the bees are marching into the box, flying into the bait hive, as co-operative as a communist country!

Yes, Bees understand “For the Greater Good!”

After dumping the contents of the cardboard box onto the top of the bait hive, the bees funnelled in like the top hole was made of quick-sand. It was remarkable. And the whole time, the sound of thousands of bees around us was incredible.

I said to Gail, after the bees were settling into their new home and tidying up the drawn frames (literally, spitting out the junk they didn’t want out the front entrance. –Better housekeepers than me!) “Where do you want your second hive?”

Gail dubbed the hive after the illustrious women, Marilyn Munroe, because of the Queen’s willingness and aptitude for knowing exactly what was best for her!

As Miss Munroe once said:

“I am not interested in money. I just want to be wonderful.”

Marilyn, you are indeed wonderful! Welcome to the apiary!

There is a giveaway from a very talented Megan at The Art of Homemaking. It is her first giveaway and they look beautiful.

Check it out at:

http://hiphome.blogspot.com/

I am so in awe of anyone who can actually sew. Because really, I’ve made the ugliest stuff I think has ever been sewn in my last year attempting to learn this lost art.

So have fun entering her contest. It closes on Sunday evening. Good luck!

If all of you have been on the edge of your seats for the last week wondering what happened to my elusive swarm, wonder no longer. Or keep wondering… They are gone. They have flown from their very high perch and found another home. And it is not the home we designated for them. I suppose they wanted to make their own realty choice and did not appreciate our promise of coziness and ample food. If someone promised you milk and honey (sans the milk) wouldn’t you take them up on the offer? I suppose it was just too good to be true. So Gertrudabelle is carrying on, hatching and mating a new queen, Gerty the Second, and the bees are concentrating their power on the blackberries which are in full bloom.

The blueberry watch is on now. We have 500 blueberry plants that Marc tends faithfully, weeding, scything, fertilizing. And they have a great set on them this year. They are hanging in luscious green clumps right now so we keep checking the weather, hoping for some heat to turn them blue. Rather ironic when you think about it that blueberries turn blue because of heat. I turn blue because of cold. Or because I’ve eaten too many blueberries! These are our big farm crop for the Farmer’s Market.

Speaking of Farmer’s Market, I was asked to give a beekeeping workshop this Saturday so off I trotted. I was fortunate enough to snag an observation 1-frame case from someone getting out of beekeeping, and I put a frame from Cleo Hive and took them for show-and-tell at the Market. I think the talk went well and I was encouraged to have people asking really intelligent questions. The children there even seemed quite informed about the honeybee’s life cycle. Except one well-meaning child asked me if I had bees in the case, or wasps. Marc and I giggled about it afterwards, the thought of farming wasps was quite amusing. It ranks up there with farming mosquitos. I think perhaps if I were to be a super-hero villain, I would choose something so insidious.

I had my first ultrasound on Wednesday to see how “Womb-eo” is progressing. Thankfully, he/she has two arms, two legs and a head. And apparently the technician could see the cerebellum (how you would know in a squirming blob of a tiny sea monkey, I have no idea.) and the kidneys, bladder and spine. It was good to see that the squirt was very active and fiesty. Perhaps 5 months squished in utero will calm that down so that the baby will be nothing but a cooing joy when he/she emerges… Well, we can all cling to our delusions!

And I did want to share with you my successes. Since being pregnant, my baking and cooking skills have completely disintegrated. I have burned more things than ever in my life! And I completely blame the cocktail of hormones coursing through my veins, but a couple of the burning incidences have reduced me to tears and hopelessness. But last night, I had a first ever success!

I attempted yorkshire pudding in muffin cups. I have done this before and they have ended up the consistency of hockey pucks, with the potential of seriously cracking drywall. Well, behold these puffy beauties!

I hope your Canada Day was splendid!