Pollen Chasing

-Posted by Isaac

I put the pollen traps back on a few days ago, and took M and M out for the first "pollen run."

The goldenrod is yet to bloom (orange), so I was curious as to what the pollen would look like. As you can see, it's mostly a bright yellow.

Someone in the bee club said this is coming from rag weed.

Pretty stuff. It doesn't taste bad either, although I can't detect the faint sweetness that the goldenrod pollen has.

As part of this pollen run we made a detour to check out a hive. A renegade hive. A friend of a friend had called me about getting some old hives out of his horse pasture.  It turned out there was only one hive and some old hive-body boxes. He said it had been there for years and didn't know or care who's it was. I guess it's mine now.

You can see the previous beekeeper did a tar paper wrap for winter protection. I don't do this. Don't think it helps... but maybe it's just laziness.

As so often happens chasing bees on unknown properties, you find some misadventure. This day, it involved big birds.

I think these things are ostriches. Or maybe some cousin of the ostrich. Either way, pretty scary up close and personal. They showed no fear of the skinny guy and two small kids on their turf.

My conversation with Maizy went like this:

"Daddy, can we pet them!"

"I don't want to go to the hospital today, Maizy."

Pausing...   

"No... I said, can we pet them?"

Mason, thankfully, was a little more tentative.

The summer is winding down, the kids are back in school. (Well, most kids anyway.) Come out and get your honey fix (and honey stix!) at a farmers market before it's too late. Or better yet, come enjoy the Lithopolis Honeyfest on September 8th. It's a great educational and tasty experience.

My sister Molly who lives in Iowa and reads this blog said she thought it sounded like we had a bad honey season. Not true! Sorry I haven't posted about this incredible summer honey that just keeps coming in. I've got two more bee yards to hit this week, and we'll finally have a tally on the summer crop. It's big!
The bees are doing great and it's time to think about getting them ready for winter. We'll keep our fingers crossed for a good goldenrod flow.