Berries and Bees

My mother and father in law are the best!  They are always helping us
out around here.  This past week, they just showed up and started pruning
the grapevines and berries.  I'd been trying to get to that....

Jantzen was here that day and jumped in to help.  What a guy!  I appreciate
his willingness to help out wherever it's needed and Grandma and Grandpa
enjoyed spending some time with their grandson.  The grapevines were in
serious need of pruning.  They've grown so much.

Once they were finished, we tackled the raspberries and blackberries.

Even though this should have been done months ago, I'm hoping

they will be forgiving of our negligence.  Guess we'll see.

I'm already thinking of how nice those raspberries and blackberries

will taste in so many things.  Maybe putting those positive affirmations

out there will help them grow better.

We should have taken a picture before the pruning commenced, but this is
how they looked when we were finished.  So much better!

It was such a nice day, I let the chickens out to scratch around and get
their fill of green grass.  Oh man, were they ever happy about that.

We decided to take a peek in the bee hive.  Dad had seen some bees going in
and out of it a few days earlier.

We were sure they had all died, but it seems there are a few stragglers

still hanging on.  We filled the top feeder with sugar water.  They might

make it through the rest of the winter, but we are definitely going to have

to order new bees.

My head is being stuffed with all kinds of bee information,  'cause I've been

taking a bee keeping class with mom and dad Wray.  This is a doozy of a class -

sixteen hours of more things than you could ever imagine about bees.  Who

would have thought there was so much to learn about bees?  Things like: bee

anatomy and biology, history of beekeeping, different types of bees, stages of

development, starting a colony, honey bee "seasons", how to feed bees,

thinking like a bee, honey flows, a schedule of blooming plants, etc.....

Did you know bees are not attracted to red flowers, because they can't see

the color red?  To them, it looks black.  But they can see ultraviolet colors

on flowers that we can't see.  That is so cool.  And here in the mountains, the

first blooming plant that will provide nectar and pollen for the bees is the red

maple, which should begin blooming in the next week or so.  I'm learning so

many things and we're just half way through the class.

As you can see, my head's just "buzzing" with information.

(Sorry, couldn't  help myself :)

Sure love these guys and all the support they give to our family.  Thanks

to their help, we should have a good berry crop this summer and hopefully

get a few colonies of bees thriving on the farm. 

*MYOF Goal #5 - Learn to prune berries and fruit trees.

                        #34 - Start beekeeping.