Time is like a Jet Plane

It moves too fast, or so says the Bard. That gets no arguement from me. It's mid-May.

Winter, or at least some variation of winter has come and gone and Spring is flying by. It's been a pretty good time to exist as a bee in the Willamette Valley the last couple of months it seems. Overall, the weather has been beautiful. Dry, but beautiful. The bees capitalized on the early Maple flow in April with a stretch of 70deg days and ample hanging flowers offering up an abundance of nectar and pollen.

The fields are blue with Camas, the highways in the area are lined with Meadowfoam, Hawthorn is in full flower and the Poison Oak is just starting to bloom on the valley floor which all makes for a beautiful sight.

A good chunk of April was spent splitting hives and making up nucs with newly grafted queen cells. All this nice weather has lent itself to good mating conditions for those new queens which is pleasing. Of course, with those new queens will come the seemingly unavoidable queen drama which can be frustrating, perplexing and just downright mysterious. It's one of the many aspects of beekeeping that continually delivers mystery along with a little magic. A good reminder that ultimately, we don't really know all that much about the inner workings of those bugs in a box that captivate us so. As much as we (at least myself) like to think that we know what will happen when we make a manipulation or observation in the hive, we're really just guessing. Making educated (hopefully) guesses as to what the outcome will be. Sometimes it works out how we expect, sometimes it doesn't. When it does work out as expected, was it why we thought it would or was it just coincidence? Can we replicate it with some degree of consistency? That's always the challenge.

Wagin' with a little Swagin'