I find it hard to believe it's been a month or more since my last post. It's been a very busy fall! The vegetable garden produced a lot of tomatoes even though I didn't think it would. So a lot of tomato sauce was made and frozen. I frenched a lot of beans and froze them too. I believe I mentioned the peaches from the Maine house and they are in my freezer. Blueberries too. Now I need to begin using up the wonderful produce I foraged or grew this season. I realized I had a lot of ramps in the freezer that I'll begin eating soon. I've had too many other fresh vegetables on hand so the ramps will wait until the fresh items are gone.
I picked another half dozen cucumbers just a week ago...almost unheard of in October without a hoop house. I think they are finally done producing but what a long time I've had fresh cukes this year. I hope that the late season will make the upcoming winter feel shorter. One can always hope.
Then I went away on a trip for a week.
Then it took me a week to catch up on household chores as well as staining the deck.
The deck was yesterday. But before I started that project, I visited the beehive and added a triangle board which stays on for 24 hours. The purpose of the triangle board, if you recall, is to remove the bees from the super that will be extracted. So today I will go back to the beehive and remove that super and bring it into the basement where I will extract the honey. I'm not sure if I'll be able to complete the extraction today given there's a football game at 1PM that I can't miss so I will fit it into breaks from work over the next few days.
Once extracted, the honey will sit in the house for a period of time to let the bubbles settle down before bottling. I'm happy to get some honey this year since the spring troubles slowed down the bees progress in terms of making brood and then honey. But I think the longer season has helped. The second super I added has not been drawn out much at all. I'll probably just remove that super too because for the next several months, the bees will be just clustered in the deeps to survive.
I'll begin giving them fondant after today, to give them some extra to nibble on in addition to the honey stored in the second deep.
I added the bales of hay to the other side of the hive yesterday as well. Once I take off the two supers and the top hive feeder, the hive will be much shorter to a few bales of hay will go to the back of the hive and I'll, at some point, add my piece of plywood over the top for some extra protection this winter. I will then keep my fingers crossed that they survive the winter. In the spring, I want to divide this hive into two.
