Tax Season and Cherry Blossoms

View from the upstairs window last week

Today was a full day of tax submission and garden work, and as I sit here typing, Adrian is being wonderful and making a scratch dinner for us.  He and I muddled through our returns until the sun was a little more bearable this afternoon (and I do apologize to those of you who are frowning at my complaint of too much sun), clicked on the scary "are you sure everything is correct and you really want to file this?" button, and then we escaped outside to a sunny day.  While Adrian caught up on rabbitry cleaning with his headphones in, I listened to the birds, weeded, and then seeded some lettuce, cilantro, and bronze fennel to the beds from seeds saved last year.  I also checked over my potted plants to see what continued to show signs of growth, and saw that our original planting of saved seed potatoes are starting to poke their heads out, the snap peas we planted (3+ weeks?) ago are about an inch and a half high, and volunteer strawberry plants are coming up strong along the edge of the raised beds.  Throughout our chores, the evergreen clematis scented the back yard. 

The currants and the blueberries are close to bloom, but I'm leery of setting out the mason bees yet, as our temperatures have not yet stabilized above 14.  Not ready for full-time outdoor residency either, the tomatoes and a few other starts planted to flats are hardening off out on the deck during the day, learning how to cope with the big bad world. 

Black Currant bush with blossoms forming and a few already opened

The Asian pear is just about finished flowering, while the Bing and Ranier cherries are opening blossoms in a lazy progression and the apple tree blossoms are still tightly-furled promises of pink flowers. The bees were buzzing around my head (and occasionally bouncing off it) working on collecting pollen for the now-expanding hive. This past Tuesday's inspection showed considerable pollen stores and honey prior to capping.  Workers were hauling out debris and dead bees, and working on building comb as well.  There was brood in various stages, including an almost full comb of drone cells, which I believe is in the expectation of mating flights soon.  There was no evidence of a queen cell, and I will check again in the next few days.

Ranier Cherry

The perennials have gone from a slow start to a lush growth, and the mulch we used to top up the beds after a heavy weeding make everything green really pop. We've eaten kale sprouts and stinging nettle over the past two weeks, and today it was time to harvest some of the overwintering parsley which has started to put forth some growth.  Tabouleh for dinner!

 Sprouts and Stingers

 

Pretty green parsley

Stung, But Not By A Bee

This past weekend we finally had a warm, clear day on which we could do a hive inspection.  I had quickly slipped a couple of empty bars in earlier, worrying that the girls might have been responding to the warmer weather with thoughts of expanding, but I was nervous about opening things up in the cool evenings......

My trusty co-beekeeper....

We opened the hive, not knowing what we might find.  There was some wax debris, a small bit of mold, and dead bodies on the hive floor needing to be cleaned out, but minimal insect damage or visible mite issues.  The colony had smaller numbers than I would like, and we had no visual on the queen - but everyone was calm and occupied with work implying that a good queen remains in control....

Some of the girls were busy cleaning and building a bit of new comb, others with the very minimal pollen and nectar stores in last year's storage.  I put out some of their honey, directly in their flight path, to give them a boost.  They've ignored it for 2 days.

We took the bottom board off the hive, to allow for better air flow now that the nights aren't getting too cold. The ventilation should help to help clear up the small amount of moisture that is causing some edges of comb to mold, and I will examine the comb in a week or two to judge the hive's process on their cleanup.  We're keeping 2 of the 3 access holes blocked, until the hive builds its numbers and has adequate guards for the entrances.

Then I got stung.  We had received 5 yards of mulch to pretty up the pathways and top off the perennial beds, and were moving some of that to the garden.  Having picked nettles the day before for our first serving of stir-fried greens, I guess I got  a bit thoughtless around the prickly plants. I put my hand down on a root, and came away with a mildly throbbing finger for my trouble.