A busy night of watering. I went and added rain water to the very popular little plastic tub next to the hive. It was full of little bathing beauties, there to gather for the family.
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Then back to the house for an evening of sugar water preparation. Two quart mason jars of sugar water in a 1:1 ratio. (Boiled first, then sugar added. Stirred, not shaken.)
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Medicine in one quart for the senior hive's last round of medication of the spring.
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No medicine in the other quart. That food will go on the top of the NEW HIVE. We pick up five frames of bees in a cardboard box tomorrow, from the same nice fellow who trucked in our original two hives last year from Statesville. He told me last night that he only lost 5% of his hives over the winter. That may sound like a lot of losses, but many Asheville area folks had losses of around 50%. Makes me feel better about only making it through the year with one of the two hives with which I started.
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Also stuck a cup of water in the microwave for two minutes, added a quarter cup of sugar and dug out the hummingbird feeder. I'm a few days late, but hopefully my cute little bird friends won't begrudge me.
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Meanwhile, the two bushes on either side of the back door were abuzz with all sorts of bees, wasps and flies this afternoon. If you look at the earliest posts on this blog, you'll see that this bee buffet was blooming just prior to bee pickup last year as well.
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Thus we come full cycle and end year one. And it was good.
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