Friday Night Fox

What a beautiful night we are having.  The sky is clear, the stars are twinkling, and the air is alive with noise.  Earlier tonight Max started barking at something outside.  This wasn't his normal barking at the neighbor's coming home barking, but a more urgent, something's out there, and I don't know what it is barking.  I went outside and heard another short bark off in the distance.  It was a fox.  I read online that they bark like this for either mating or marking territory; sounds like a typical Friday night, sans the bar. Anyways, I got the fox's bark on video (although the screen is black as I was sitting on our porch in the dark recording the noise).  After I came in to download the video to our computer, I could hear the boom of fireworks in the distance.  It sounded like a pretty big show, although I could not find anything online that would have had a fireworks show for this evening.  Guess it was a private soiree.  After I finished downloading the video, I stepped outside again and heard a great horned owl hooting quite close to the house.  Like I said earlier, the air tonight is alive with noise!

The Roar of the Crowd (Of Bees) Part 2

We lucked out as the swarm of bees decided to move into our empty hive! We went out to run some errands.  When we got back, the cluster was gone, and the bees were swarming around the empty hive body.  We were lucky we got back when we did because all the action was over within a half hour.

The best part was getting to see the bees scent-fanning.  There were bees all around the entrance pulsing a scent with their wings that allowed the rest of the bees to know where the entrance to their new home was.  I had read about this but have never seen it.  It was really exciting.   The other best part is that I got video.  I could hear Ross talking to our friend Lizzie (letting her know that the bees took our hive), and he told her exactly how close I was to the hive.  Let's just say that I had bees flying all around me.  The video is below.

The Roar of the Crowd (Of Bees)

The swarm's cluster.

Yesterday, our friend Lizzie came over for some artistic inspiration. She was interested in bees and who else does she know with an active beehive in their backyard! Well Lizzie came on a great day as our beehive swarmed.

Swarming is a natural process that bees usually perform in the Spring (it can also occur later, but Spring is the optimal time as it allows both the new and old colonies to strengthen before winter).  The old queen will lay some queen cups and then at some point later will leave the hive with about 60% of the worker bees and some drones.  They will form a cluster nearby the original hive and wait while scout bees go out and look for a suitable new home.  They can wait for a couple of hours or a couple of days.  Once a new home is found the cluster will move right in.

Just a note that swarms are usually not dangerous to humans as the bees have no stores or brood to protect as long as they remain unprovoked.  If you should happen to get a swarm on your property, call your local agriculture or state's environmental protection agency to get a list of beekeepers in your area.  Many beekeepers will happily come get your swarm and take it away if they can reach it.

Swarm in flight.

Beekeepers do not usually encourage swarming behavior of their existing hives, and take steps to keep it from occurring.  The loss of 60% of the hive can be devastating to honey production.  We were hoping for a swarm this year though as we lost our other bee colony late last year.  We cleaned up the empty hive and then patiently waited.  Well, Lizzie came on a great day to look at the bees as we got our swarm.

As we walked out into the orchard I noticed honey bees flying in and out of the dead hive.  This was a sure sign that the hive was swarming and the bees were looking for a new home.  We looked up and lo and behold, the swarm was hanging on a tree limb of the large oak the sits right at the entrance to the orchard.  This sort of stinks though because they are out of our reach.  Had they been closer to the ground we could have captured the swarm and placed them in the dead hive ourselves, but now we have to wait and see if fate will bring them to the hive on their own.  They did overnight as a cluster in the tree, and there still is a bevy of activity happening at the dead hive today so things are looking good.  We have our fingers crossed that soon we will once again have two hives to manage!

At one point while Lizzie was here the cluster dispersed and all the bees were flying around.  It was so loud and all you could see were all these black dots whizzing through the air in a frenzy.  Below is video that I took of the cluster reforming on the oak branch. (Sorry that the video is a bit shaky as I was holding the camera up as high as I could to get the best shot of the bees).

Messes and Memories

On Sunday, Ross and I had some friends over for dinner.  It was the culmination of a heavily loaded weekend, and it was much needed.

When I was in eighth grade my mother and I visited Washington D.C.  As part of our sight seeing, we went to Mount Vernon-home of George and Martha Washington.  I don't remember much about the tour, but I do remember the guide mentioning, I believe, Martha Washington's diary.  In it she had chronicled the day to day visitors to their home.  The reason why this stuck with me is that there was an entry in the diary that mentioned they had no visitors on a particular day.  It was the first day in many years that that had happened!  Oh, to be so loved...

This memory came back to me as I stood there looking at the aftermath of our dinner.  I had had such a delightful evening, and the conversation was so buoyant and easy.  The food was tasty-Ross had made the Lebanese food of his childhood.  Overall, it was just one of those great moments that you wish could go on and on.  As I looked at the mess, I mused that there had to be some correlation between how great the dinner party was in comparison to the disarray that was left when it was over. As I started to wash the dishes I thought back to our conversation with a smile on my face.  I don't know if Martha Washington ever chronicled those many delightful conversations she had, but I thought I just might this one time...

Here's just a snippet of where our conversation rambled:

-Ross' Grandmother and food.
-the personification of animals.
-do people today live in reality?
-the life of a milk cow in Litchfield, CT.
-reference to the book Everybody Poops.
-Baba Yaga (Google it).
-things that make Target sales associates go hmmmm.
-table runners vs. drapes. vs. tea towels.
-Polecats.  Stinky Polecats...
-the whispered utterance of the question, "may I please see the knives?"
-peeing outdoors.
-and finally, the story about cat milk and milking a cat (which continues to bring laughter  and tears of joy to the eyes).

It was a great evening!