The bee farmers are busy.
Allow me to take you on a pictorial tour covering the last seven exciting days and (dreamy?) nights.
We start with two days of hiking and camping in Shawnee State Forest down by the Ohio River.
Great Fun
Soccer, marshmallows and evening movies. We really got back to nature.
Then it was time for two days in Amish country.
(Young Daniel Mast hones the very skills he will someday use to navigate the competitive and increasingly tech reliant global marketplace.)
We were the featured speakers at an Amish beekeeping meeting.
Leave hats at the door, please...
Had to rush home for the first day of school!
Actually, I had to rush home for some pumpkin pollination... the night before school.
Circle S Farms called while we were camping. Desperate for bees... The pumpkins were starting to bloom!
Tuesday night I delivered 30 strong hives.
(Here I come to save the day!)
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| Daybreak in the Pumpkins |
(Now get out that checkbook.)
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| And a sore back to show for it. |
I made it home to see our boy genius on the bus.
Then went out to to pull honey.
Then took a nice long nap.
The nap was required because that night a semi-famous beekeeper was giving a talk.
Randy Oliver was in town!
I annoyed him with questions about neonics and CCD.
The Next Day...
The comb honey yard needed attention.
We gleaned several Ross-Rounds supers,
And a few cut-comb boxes.
That night, more Randy Oliver!
This was at the Dawes Arboretum in Newark. He talked right up until 9 pm, and took no questions. I had a ton of them... he got lucky!
The Newark thing worked out nicely because I finished the night off by driving back up to Amish country. I was late with the mite treatment for the thirty five hives we have up there. (Beekeeping from a hundred miles away sometimes poses problems.)
Look at what is starting to bloom up there:
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| Goldenrod! |
More summer honey to pull.
In this batch I looked for a nice full frame to enter at the upcoming Lithopolis Honeyfest.
Is there a winner in there?
Saturday, after the markets, it was time for another hiking / camping trip.
This time in beautiful Athens County.
We made a visit to the very cool Moonville abandoned train tunnel.
And noticed the bees really working the joe pye weed.
That's good, because there was a lot of it down there!
Just beautiful.
I love "the sticks."
Our friends, Mike and Angie, recently moved to the "sticks" of Athens County.
Bought themselves some acreage, and promptly began restoring this old barn.
It was Mike's 40th birthday.
An old barn given new life. A milestone birthday. Such momentous events called for a fantastic party.
And they threw one.
A real "barn burner."
I actually turned in at 11:00. Just couldn't hang with those 40 year old whippersnappers.
But our kids came ready to party.
First they did a lot of drinking.
Then got totally sloshed.
And reckless.
And belligerent...
...but they seemed to sleep it off all right.
Smiles and Mama.
By morning it was all just a hazy dream.
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