It's Spring!

OK, so today's high is forecast to be 38 degrees Fahrenheit, with snow, and the current precipitation consists of ice pellets.  And yes, it's February.

But for the bees, and therefore beekeepers, it's early spring!  The girls are starting now to build their populations up, the queen is ramping up her laying of brood, and they're preparing for the inevitable arrival of dandelions, their first food of the year aside from what we feed them.

As an aside, we don't touch our dandelions until they've bloomed and gone to seed.  And then we make sure to kick and blow the seeds around the yard so there'll be even more later in the summer and next year!  Yes, that's the exact opposite of what my mom told me as a kid, when she classified dandelions as "weeds" and freaked out that there'd be too many when we blew the seeds.  But that's because now that I'm an adult, with my own yard, I know their value and I want them!

At any rate, it's definitely time for us as beekeepers to start thinking spring, and this time we're expanding from 10 hives to nearly 30 (yes, you read that right!), so on Saturday we went to the bee supply store and picked up a bunch of woodenware for some of our new hives.

Photo:  Carol Peterson

Part of the fun was also bringing two friends who've just ordered their first two nucs, and getting them set up with everything they'll need as well!  Eric and I are both so excited to be mentoring new beekeepers, you have no idea.

And then on Sunday when it was nice and warm, I visited the hives to see how they're doing, give them some more food of protein filled "winter patties" to keep them going until the nectar and pollen arrive, and treat them with a bit of Apivar.  Now's the time for "spring" mite treatments, since varroa mites attack the larvae, and the queen is ramping up her brood production, the mites'll be ramping up too.  Yuck.  There's no sadder sight to me than seeing honey bees with varroa mites clinging onto them, sucking them dry like a plate-sized tick on a human.  (shudder)

Spring feels so, so close now.

In the meantime, we console ourselves with our tapped maple trees, which are producing nicely.  I have to say, I understand why maple syrup is so expensive now!  Boiling it down is a long, long, long process, and when 10 gallons of sap yields just 1.5 pints of syrup... well, you get the picture.  But it's such a pretty picture!

And what to do with your maple syrup?  Well, I personally highly recommend this recipe for maple-buttermilk pudding cake that I tried Sunday night.

Whoa!