Paying it forward...

Since moving to New Hampshire we've experienced a lot of new things, one of which is growing roses. The folks who owned this house before us grew lovely red and reddish pink roses aplenty and now we do. I know little to nothing about growing roses but always game to learn new things, I was sad to find that Japanese Beetles like my roses even more than I do. I set out to get rid of them and my first thought was one of those bag traps.

Some of the chemicals lure are used to lure bees to traps used by bee researchers - thank goodness I did my research first. In this quest to learn more about all these essential oils and bee versus beetle lures, I reached out to a mentor of mine.

I LOVE having mentors. I was a very high maintenance newbee - I was always asking questions and visiting with ideas. That behavior slowed down a lot until this past year. I'm back asking a whole new level of question.

And I am on the other end of mentoring now. There are some newbees who need a mentor and I know a speck more than they do so I've been in hives, answering questions, and demonstrating techniques.

My mentees are the BEST!! They ask great questions, are willing to try new things, and don't mind me saying when I don't know the answer. We've dealt with queenlessness, honey extraction, and wood versus plastic issues.

I will ALWAY need my mentors - being a beekeeper means saying curious, learning new things, and being willing to try something new. Having other experienced beekeepers to talk out ideas with is a great resource.

And I love my new role too. It is my honor and privilege to be that mentor back to new beekeepers.

The bee inspector and a loss

When I arrived home today after meeting a client and having lunch, there was a white car in the driveway. As soon as I saw the state tags I knew - the bee inspector had arrived. This has been a challenging year for the state inspector's office. They did not hire the two part time inspectors so the state inspector has had to do all the inspections.

He's actually been to my hives before. A few years ago, he came out with our local inspector.

This inspection he was really pleased with the amount of bees and how I am managing the hives. The queens are doing well, still laying a few eggs and there are gobs, yes GOBS of larvae. Yay!! The more bees there are now that are larvae or newly emerged, the more bees to keep the queen warm over the winter.

While we were poking I got to actually see Magenta! She is soo much lighter than her daughters. I was really surprised to see such a difference. They must take after their dads.

Mind you, I've been helping them out with some extra pollen which can push out the date that the queen stops laying in the fall. What can I say - I am ever optimistic about fall and that there will be plenty of warm days like today.

On a sad note, yesterday when I was in the hives (and got stung!), it was clear that True was gone. Long gone too - her hive has nasty wax moths. Yuck!!! So I took down one box and will put the frames it the freezer to kill the moths. I will take the honey off in a few days and then I will let that hive die out.

In the spring, I will split our remaining hives - so that we can have a new hive and a daughter queen from one of these hives. In the spring we will determine which hive is strongest and if they can remain strong if we take some bees out.