Sweet Summertime

I think I’ve been shorting summer as a season. Fall usually gets my vote for favorite…the colors and cooler temps win my heart. Winter is always welcomed with hopes for a white Christmas. Although, winter often feels so long and when spring finally arrives it almost convinces me that it’s my new favorite. All the blooms and planting with the slowly warming temps make my heart happy. However, here we currently sit in summer…a time for swimming, road trips, watermelon, and sun tea. 

Many gardens are in full producing mode. There’s nothing better than a homegrown tomato from my Dad’s garden. The local produce stands are full of fresh fruits and vegetables.
🍎🌽🍊🍓🍇🍉🥕🥔🥬🥒🫐🍍🫑🍅

Even our own little container garden is producing lettuce – and we’re rooting for the little tomatoes on each end, too (we were a little late getting the seeds in the soil). 

My patio has all kinds of flowers in full bloom. Again, some seeds were later to the soil than others but we’ll appreciate the late bloomers on into August! 

Bees (of all sorts), butterflies and dragonflies frequent the flowers. Can you see the huge butterfly on the top of the butterfly bush?

Squirrels are constantly in the bird feeders. A deer with her two fawns were spotted in the apiary and the array of birds in the yard holds my attention all day long…hummingbirds, cardinals, blue jays, golden finches, blue buntings, woodpeckers, house finches, black capped chickadees…the list goes on and on! It’s so hard to catch bird pictures. No picture ever really does justice anyway. The chirps and songs could be called “music to my ears”. From my deck I can see a robin’s nest in the nearby tree and watching birds drink from bird baths that I try to keep clean, fresh, and cool makes the extra effort worth it. Although, sometimes I wonder if these birds I enjoy so much are predators to my bees?!?!? 🤔

Maybe I’ve not given summer enough credit?!?! The humidity is the biggest downfall with hot temperatures close behind but if I can look past those two big ones, there’s obviously a lot to be appreciated about the season of summer!  

With all the humidity and soaring temps we also find ourselves thinking of Christmas…”Christmas in July”…because we also have some down time right now to prep little festive gifts that we will enjoy sharing through the holiday season. Bees are always on our radar and this week we found cute little bee soap molds at the craft store. We’ve never done soap making and decided to give it a try. It was simple enough and we hope to improve our technique and colors but they didn’t turn out too bad for our first try…

We’re hoping honey will soon be in our future. The ideas are spinning on how to use it as festive holiday treats to share! In an attempt to not get the cart before the horse, we will hold off until that honey harvest is successful. 

I should probably confess that I have not been into the hives for weeks. To be exact I have not been in the hives since June 18th. Sigh. This might classify me as a “bad beekeeper”. I’m not sure. I’ve peeked on the hives. There are bees flying. From the outside there doesn’t look to be any reason for concern. I think I’m hesitant because it’s SO HOT – I don’t really want to suit up. I’m also hesitant because while I AM curious to see if I have capped honey in my supers, I would be smoking the bees and opening the hive just out of curiosity. I’m not in a position to pull the supers off just yet and even if I did notice an issue in the hive I’m not sure what I could do about it at this point. I’m also not sure how opening the hive in these extreme temperatures might adversely effect the work going on inside…so I’ve just tried to stay out of them. Time will tell if that ends up being a mistake somehow. In the mean time…I’m just hoping for the best! 

When I initially started the hobby of beekeeping I bought the full bee suit not too worried about it being hot. I thought to myself that I would just do my hive inspections during the early morning or late evening hours when temps were cooler. I quickly was informed that while that might seem ideal, all the bees would be home during those hours. The best time to do hive inspections is in the middle of warm days when many bees are out of the hive working! Makes sense now. It also makes beekeeping a very hot hobby at times. 

It’s summer – summer is hot. I hope you might grab a glass of sweet tea and enjoy summer for all that it is. We soon will be pulling honey supers for harvest. It’s a very exciting time assuming all has gone well in the hives. We’ve already decided that we will be adding two hives to the mix next year. It’s just too nerve wracking to only have two hives. If anything goes wrong, your honey supply is in real jeopardy. With a few additional hives we’ll hopefully be able to increase our honey supply and continue learning from both our mistakes and successes. 

Happy Summer.

-Worker Bee 2021