This is going to be a photo intensive post folks. My brother Eric and I drove out to our friend Ron’s house to pick up a new nuc of bees for us and one for Dallas, the young man we are starting in beekeeping. These nucs consist of 5 frames of bees, brood, and a marked queen. I have had fun looking at other beekeepers this year using packaged bees, which come a bit differently. Here is a link for a photo album Dan has of him hiving his packaged bees, and also of a swarm he caught! But, back to our day. Here we are at Ron’s. These bees were raised up in a bee farm in Florida. One of the workers drives up a truck load and stops at various towns to deliver bees that have been ordered. Ron had to drive about 2 hours in the middle of the night to pick up our bees.
This is my brother removing the frames from the nuc box and putting them in our prepared hive.
Then we were off to deliver to Dallas his first hive of bees! Wow, was he excited:)
We left this cardboard nuc box just tipped there so any stragglers can go in.
We found our marked queens in both nucs before we hived them. That is always reassuring to find them.
Do you see her in the picture above?
This picture shows some eggs, larvae and glistening nectar. There were also frames of capped brood.
We finished up and I went to take a few pictures of how things are growing so far here at Comfrey Cottages. The violets, redbuds, lilacs and some others are past their prime beauty, but many others are just starting.
Comfrey (of course)
Bleeding Hearts
For get me nots
Sweet Woodruff
Johnny Jump Ups
Last year I started clary sage, marshmallow, skullcap, angelica, black cohosh, and valerian and they all are doing well
Skullcap
Black Cohosh and Angelica
Valerian
Marshmallow
Clary Sage
Transplanted blood root and toothwort are both taking off!
And this years additions of 2 elderberry saplings seem to be settling in
Hoping the little sassafras transplant gets going soon.
Well, I need to get off of here and get some chores caught up! big hugs to all of you who visit C0mfrey Cottages
6 comments:
Leslie, which species are your scullcap and marshmallow? They look totally different from mine. Love to see your bees!
Great pictures of your bees and garden! I really enjoyed the pictures of your herb garden. Black cohosh is something I will try and grow myself, glad I got to see what it looks like growing in your garden.
Thank you for this lovely post!
Good luck with the bees.
Must be exciting to see them buzzing around in your garden.
It is wonderful to see all your blooming herbs. The skullcap is pretty high! Mine is just a baby :-)
Herbal hugs!
Loved seeing you as busy as a bee.
Sharon Lovejoy Writes from Sunflower House and a Little Green Island
It's always interesting to see other peoples bees, and how they handle it. I saw the queen, but would have recognized her even without the dot as we rarely mark ours. I am so glad to see what everything looks like in your herb garden. I do have several of them growing, and the others are a little slow. I might have put them in to shady of a spot. However, the comfrey is definitely taking off!!
Take Care!
Ulrike
Very intresting post Leslie.
Thanks for sharing those nice pictures with us.
Big herbal hugs to you my friend xxx
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