Saturday afternoon was astonishingly beautiful.  The sun pounded down and melted the snow until I had to go outside.

I ended up cleaning up the bee box, scraping off old wax then scrubbing it down in a washtub of lightly bleachy water.  Many people recommend scorching the old boxes with a blow torch before reusing them, but I think I might stick to this simpler method and hope I'm not carrying over any diseases.

The old hive smelled of bee --- honey, beeswax, and sun-warmed wood.  I put the finished product (minus the exterior lid, which Mark will build later) on cinderblocks at the edge of the yard.  I figure we have a month or two before we can add bees, and I want to spend some time moving the box around to find the perfect spot --- not in any direct human paths, but not out of sight; catching the early morning sun, but a bit protected by late afternoon shade.  I also want to give us some time to get used to the idea of bees on the farm.  While I mused, I took my first outdoor bath of 2009 --- joy and rapture!

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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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