This week we harvested some honey! Helped by a friend as we had never done it before and do not yet have the equipment. We took 4 1/2 jars of beautiful golden honey made by our own bees. A truly wonderful experience. I have left the used frames near the hive and the bees are busy cleaning them up. They will take any remaining honey back to the brood box and are cleaning off the bits of wax. Once done I will bring them in to store for next year when we start again. As this is a new hive I will today put the feed box on with some sugar syrup. This is to ensure they have enough to store for winter. When we opened the hive I found the queen which was great. The brood box had some honey stored and was very busy.
We will need to invest in another hive ready for next year when my bees will swarm. I hope to catch the swarm to start another hive. I plan to keep it at two hives and hope that by the following year I will have more knowledge and experience to deal with excess queens and swarming!
I am now looking at replacing sugar with honey! I cannot go all out with that just now but want to be ready when the honey really flows! Our honey has come mostly from red clover and lavender so is rather yummy. I have given a jar to each of my daughters.
This week I have had a very dear friend staying. She has been interested in all my green initiatives and is taking home several ideas.
My other bit of news is my youngest daughter is having another baby, due in April. Very exciting stuff!
Weather has turned much colder now, won't be long until the wood burner is blazing again! I love cold winter evenings with the fire burning.
Harvesting has just about finished and the pantry is filled with jam, chutney and bottled fruits. There are a few more apples to process.
My mission over winter is to ditch the plastic...I am already freezing in glass jars!
Always another thing to change.
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