Wow! It’s been a busy Spring!
We decided to put up our first Farmer’s Market stand on April 5th. We were super busy trying to prepare all the signs, label all the plants we wanted to sell, etc. We’d ordered our Square readers to swipe cards and just stayed super busy. George decided to pull up his carrots the night before the big day to have something to sell besides seed starts. His tomato plants were not to his liking, so he opted to only sell pepper plants, of which he had seven varieties.
We had a great time. We sold all the carrots in 1.5 hours and most of the peppers by the end of the day. We got to meet all sorts of people, and I even sold a couple of my art prints, which made me so happy.
When we got home, George checked on his three beehives, and could hear them buzzing through each hive. Then he found a swarm of wild honeybees in one of our little Plum trees!
Never having this happen before, George called his mentor, and together they scooped the bees into a small hive box called a NUC (nucleus colony). Now George had a total of four hives and was over the moon.
The next day was Sunday, and we celebrated Easter early because some of us would be out of town on Easter weekend. George got up early because our temperature dropped much lower than expected, and he needed to check that the plant coverings were all good over the tomatoes.
Dang if there was not ANOTHER wild swarm of honeybees in our other Plum tree. He checked all the other hives, and they were still buzzing. He knew how to move them this time, so he suited up and, before the Easter get-together, he began scooping bees again! Now he has five beehives!
Upon further inspection, George believes the first swarm had swarmed again, leaving a plethora of bees behind. He could tell the numbers had decreased from initially scooping them into the NUC box, but there was still plenty for their hive… This meant they didn’t have a queen. When bees swarm, the queen goes with them. If a hive is about to swarm, they will place their baby queen cups along the outer sides of the frame in preparation for swarming and taking the new queen, but this group was still swarming with their young queen.
So, George got busy swapping out brood frames from one oversized hive that needed space anyway and placing some babies in the queenless hive. He now has all the hives settled, and we are praying the one queenless hive will make some queens from the frames with eggs.
He wanted six hives by next year, and since one original hive is about ready to be split, he will have his six hives way earlier than expected.
Nature is incredible!
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