Flowers In Bloom & Frozen Supers

Hello everyone. I thought we’d give you an update on things that are going on daily now. Mark has been checking on bees, making sure they have what they need in order to build themselves up strongly for the honey flow, which has started in some of the bee yards. He took honey supers out to some of them already – such a great change from last year. We got another 2.5-3 inches of rain last night, all between about 10pm to about 6am. There was a huge storm cell that blew through all of Texas and along with it came some hail, three tornadoes in our local news station’s viewing area, a LOT of rain, lightning and thunder. Very loud thunder. Poor Mark. I know I was pretty startled at least two or three times as a very loud clap of thunder sounded right over us. I love storms – just don’t love the uncertainty of if/when the loud thunder follows the lightning. Between all of that and the power outage, we didn’t get much sleep so I didn’t even hear my alarm go off. Sigh. Good thing my sister sent me a text. The trilling of her text tone was my alarm at 7:22am. Thanks Thuy! 🙂

We are so thrilled with the bees’ progress in the yards. There is plenty of nectar and pollen out there right now and it appears they have their pick of what to bring back to the hives. The Huisache is gorgeous – prettier than I’ve ever noticed before but for some funny reason, the bees are not on it as much as we thought they’d be. Perhaps due to the other food sources available right now. They continue to go to the wild mustard and we see them in the wildflowers, especially the Bluebonnets. There are wild raspberries along the tanks at the Farm Yard and they really like that as well. Mark says it looks like a great year for Horsemint – I love that. It’s a lovely flower to look at and to smell. Last year it was quite pitiful – they blooms very sparingly and what we did see was puny and somewhat dull, almost brownish. I hope to snap some lovely, lush blooms this year for you to see. The above shot of the beautiful pompoms on the Huishache is one that I love looking at. Mark shot it while at the Big Oaks bee yard.

Before saying goodnight, I wanted to share two pictures I snapped last night while making gift baskets out in the honey house. Mark pulled these two honey supers out of the freezer we have out there. To help with any issues of wax moth or hive beetle larvae, you can freeze the frames and super and it takes care of the problem. These have been in there for months and they are ready to be used this year.

I was next to the supers and could feel the cold air – like a little air conditioner which was nice as it was a bit humid last night. 🙂 I pulled some frames out to look at the honeycomb (I just love doing that, it’s so lovely.) and at first I missed them. Do you see them? I put the frame back and then thought, “Wait. Was that what I think it was.”

Did you see the two bees emerging from their cells? Only to be caught frozen forever? Or until the 2012 bees pull them out to prep the cells for pollen, nectar, honey or another little bee. Fascinating isn’t it? Or is it just me? I have never seen a sight such as this and I wanted to share it with you. It’s pretty cool. [No pun intended.]

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