Hats and Hair in the News.

Enlarge picture. Check out the headline next to Trump's picture.

I didn't say it.

Not a clue about what's going on inside there.

Top picture taken after my 10:30 AM hive inspection. Bottom picture taken just before inspection.

What did I find? Well, I found a lot of bees, moderately upset at my invasion but not overly so. I found a lot of either honey or syrup. I found some weirdo hard black capped something: dead brood? honey gone bad? dunno. I didn't see queen cups, and I didn't even look for the queen. Am I going to pull out 40 frames and look at each one carefully to see if there's one there? No way. It's all I can do to keep the damn smoker smoking. I saw a little pollen. All 40 frames in the bottom 4 boxes were filled. Five box, on top, had some nice comb but just a tiny bit. No sign of hive beetles, no bad smell. Swarm was now 5 days ago. Could a queen-less colony stay this populated for 5 days without a queen? dunno. Will the existing workers make a new queen? dunno. If they don't have brood they won't.

Am I discouraged? you betcha. Did I get a sting on my big toe? you betcha. Was I wearing socks and sandals instead of socks and shoes? you betcha.

Next step: take a shower, go work at the library for my volunteer day, and forget about the damn bees for 4 or 5 hours.

These sweet little heuchera (coral bells) have a strong will to live.

These coral bells are in their third home, at least, in the 4 years I've had them. They were much bigger when I bought them but each year the deer eventually break through my deer fencing (or storms knock it down) and they nibble these babies back to the ground. And yet every year they arrive with the spring. Just after I took this picture I moved the plants to pots, which I'll keep on a porch away from the deer.

I want my girls to come home. At about 6 PM they were settling in for the evening.

I know they won't come home. I hope they find a nice hollow in a tree nearby and stay in the neighborhood. And I guess this is goodbye to my original queen, who had a nice blue spot on her back so I could find her. If there's a new queen she'll be unmarked of course. I doubt if I'll ever see her.

Swarming is natural. But beekeepers try to avoid swarms in order to keep the hive strong so it will produce more honey (I guess that's the primary reason). Swarms are said to occur in the spring, often when the hive is crowded, but I just read an article in the April 2011 issue of the American Bee Journal in which the author, Peter Loring Borst (isn't that a great name for a bee expert?), said:
"...given all the 'right conditions,' some colonies swarm and some don't. Beyond that, some honey bee colonies swarm under circumstances that to their owners seem downright foolish. What it boils down to is this: the most you can say is that there are times when bees are more liable to swarm than others."

Little movie about my little swarm.

Go to about 55 minutes on this video to see the swarming action. I wasn't sure what exactly I was focusing on so it's not a great video, but you can hear them buzzing like crazy.

7:30 PM and the swarm still sits there high in a maple tree. The temperature is supposed to go down only to about 60 tonight so I guess they'll survive.

Swarm? I guess so.

It happened at about 2:30. Actually, it's still happening because the small swarm cluster is out there (4 PM) and who knows how long it will be there or where it will eventually go.

I'm going to build some more frames to put in a box in the very unlikely event they decide to live there -- something I procrastinated on all winter and now regret.

Things I don't about this swarm but am not going to worry about:
1. Is the queen with them?
2. Is a new queen installed in the hive? Or are a couple of them battling it out? (I DID see queen cups when I inspected the hive last Monday.)
3. Will the cluster get any larger? It seems so small compared to pictures I've seen.
4. Will it come home? Two beekeepers in my local association report that bees will sometimes do that.


Things I DO know: I'm not getting on any ladders to save swarms. And this one is way, way the hell up over the center of my small back yard lawn area so there's no way anyone could safely get it.

It was exciting. The sound of it was wonderful! But I have no idea what's going on and I'm sorry but that still gets under my skin.

Video coming in next post I hope.

Lucy likes to show her tummy. Georgette is inscrutable. They are one year old this week. But still my babies.

Good advice for all humans and some dogs.

From HuffingtonPost: "Here Is Your First Electoral College Projection Map Of 2012, So Go Nuts, Nerds!"

I won't get fooled again.

Last year this boneset wildflower -- the big white-blooming behemoth at the top -- did very, very well. Too well, since it cast a large afternoon shadow that denied sun to a big chunk of my veggie garden. So I vowed to never let it grow that big again. I think I'll let it get to about 8 inches, prune it continuously, and see if it blooms.

Hard to believe that this huge shrub would grow again from this single little rootlet (not the right noun...stump? trunk?)
September 2010 (top), April 2011 (bottom).

My daughter captured this shot on her cell phone when she was in DC a week or so ago.

Yesterday we saw this bunny in the back yard and assumed the worst-- bunny injured, had a stroke, maybe dying. Later I read a much nicer explanation.

Information from here, a book called "Rabbit Language or Are you going to eat that?" by Carolyn R. Crampton.


BEHAVIOR: Bunny lying completely stretched out. Ears back flat against body. Eyes partly closed.
WHAT IT MEANS: Supreme happiness.
WHAT YOU SHOULD DO: Leave your bunny alone but prepare snacks for when bunny wakes.

Not sure what this is other than a pretty red-budded tree about to bloom. I know it's not redbud.

From the park next door.

If I ever plant more daffodils I want them to look like these peachy-buttery ones. Most daffs look sort of dayglow to me, but not these.

In downtown Silver Spring.

I was driving north on Georgia Avenue -- in an especially unpretentious part of a very unpretentious city -- near the intersection of Georgia Ave and Bonifant St, when on the left my eye caught a small sign in a window: Meditation Museum. I drove back to look at the sign and then just a few yards away I came to this beautiful red building. I wish I had taken closer pictures of the hand-painted quotations on the wooden plaques, but the big curved doorway sign is carved -- or painted or both -- with a quotation from Mother Teresa: "If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other." The building houses something called the Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, and I think I'll go back sometime and explore both the museum and the art center.

First bee sting of 2011. On the ankle.

She got me through a pair of thin Hello Kitty socks -- hand-me-ups from my daughter. Next time I crack open the hive I'm wearing my daughter's hand-me-up high-top boots.

The stings never hurt that much. Just a quick sharp pain at the site and then I ignore it and don't think about it much. Until about 24 hours later, when it starts to itch. So then I scratch it, and it swells and gets red and itches all the more. I've read that some beekeepers get more, not less, sensitive to the venom the longer they keep hives. (I don't necessarily believe it, but I did read it somewhere. You read a whole lot of sh*t about a whole lot of everything these days and I'm getting more and more skeptical about all of it. Sorry for the sidebar rant.)

So since I'm still a bit conflicted about this bee business, maybe I'll have to give it up because my body will rebel. Speaking of conflicted, here's a comment about bees that appeared recently on Garden Rant. It expresses so well why I'm conflicted about this wonderful, fascinating, life-enhancing hobby I've chosen:

I hate to be a pooh bear, but I hate my neighbors bees. I live in typical urban southern city with small residential lots. My neighbor has 6 active hives in his backyard. We have bees everywhere! My kids are constantly getting stung to the point they are afraid to go out. If the door is left open, bees swarm inside looking for water. I thought I would love them but, I now I just want his hives gone.

Excellent news!

Whew!
“Mad Men” lives! And it’s going to keep on living for at least two more seasons and possibly three under a new multi-year deal announced Thursday night by AMC and parent company Lionsgate along with Matthew Weiner, the show’s creator and executive producer.

I don't drink alcohol and I don't smoke cigarettes but I used to do both, so I've really missed Mad Men over the past, what ... year? Less than a year? More than a year?

I've been living vicariously through all that smoke and booze, without the liver and lung damage.

What's he drinking? Is that a whiskey sour? And that cig looks unfiltered too. Hard core! Although I know the actors are only smoking clove cigarettes (or so they say), I've never heard what they put in those glasses.