As you may know, my smaller bee hive didn’t make it through the winter.  I did some research on dividing a hive, and it all sounded kind of complicated.  One needs to find frames with brood and nurse bees and then somehow acquire a queen.  I thought it seemed awfully complicated an antithetical to bees in the wild.

My old hive is going great guns, and constantly makes queen cells just because they always want to swarm.  It’s a very full hive, so I went down the other day and decided to reverse the frames, and see if I could start a new hive using queen cells.

This hive is mean and aggressive, and I had to suit up entirely.  I went down with my smoker lit, took off the lid, and began to remove the frames.  Many were coated in capped brood and bees, and I placed them down on the ground.

I got an empty box and returned all of the frames, then got the other hive box and placed it on top.  To my annoyance and dismay, I noticed I had forgotten one frame, and it was filled with brood and bees.

So I thought oh why not, and got a new hive box, put in the frame of brood, and then added some frames for them to fill.  The lid from the old hive box contained a queen cell, so I stuck it on top, thinking good luck, bees.

I don’t know what’s going to happen, and so it’s kind of exciting.  Will there be another airplane engine noise in my yard, signalling another swarm?  Will they actually make a queen in my new hive?  To be continued.

I transplanted my fig, which has been in the greenhouse for about a month and already has pea-sized baby figs.  It’s now so heavy I had to go and buy a dolly as there’s no way I can lift it into the wheel barrow.  But it’s worth it as I’m crazy over that tree.

My niece Julie and her family came to Osoyoos to visit mom, so I arrived on Friday with a cooler filled with food for the event.  They have a 4 year old girl and 18 month old boy who are both adorable, so I tried to think of kid-friendly food.

On Friday I made lasagne, and Saturday chicken with vegetables in a white sauce over spaghetti.  I’d made a chocolate zucchini and a banana loaf, so we had that on had for dessert, though on Saturday I made bread pudding which everyone loved.

Let’s just say it wasn’t a weekend suitable for celiacs.  We had friends Stu and Martha for lunch on Saturday and I made a potato salad, devilled eggs, ham, salami, homemade chicken pate and sliced bread.  A lot of carbs were consumed over the nearly 48 hours.

Back to a tiny steak and a large amount of vegetables for dinner in the hopes of undoing some of the caloric ravages.  My stomach once again resembles that of the American president.

And tomorrow Beverly, my friend of 40 years, is coming with her pug for a couple of days of R and R, which will involve thrift store shopping.  I very much doubt I’ll be on any kind of a restricted food program, so I remain fascinated at where all this will end.