The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Bee eggs

Bee egg on new combSee that tiny grain of rice on the left?  That's a bee egg --- proof positive that our queen is still in business.

On Monday morning, I walked Lucy, then carried that calm to the bee hive for our second hive check.  The bees were a bit chilly (55 F outside), so I kept the visit quick, sliding each frame up for a look before letting it drop gently back into place.

This time, I felt like I was dancing with the bees.  I didn't squash anybody, and I felt like I could have left all of the protective equipment in the trailer.  I was proud of their hard work --- eight frames were being built on, all straight down despite our lack of full frame foundation.  Pictures after the cut...

Foundationless frame being built on


Here's one of the frames being built on.  The bees seem inclined to start from the corner where the queen was hanging in her little box.

Bee smoker


And a gratuitous smoker photo.



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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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