I have a big old rotty stump in the yard that I use as a wood cutting platform. I was planning on drilling holes in it so the native bees could nest in it. I was working in the yard last weekend and noticed that bees have already taken advantage of the beetle/woodpecker holes in it.
Huzzah! We had a low bee year despite my neighbor having many hives on his property. We lost our bees two winters ago, and he lost 4 or 5 hives in total (of 20 or so scattered over the county). He is pretty sure it was not sudden bee death syndrome, but maybe just a long cold winter.
The good news is that our apricots bloomed too early again (early april I think) but they got two weeks of warmth before we hit a cold snap for 3 weeks. As such we are looking to be up to our armpits in apricots for the first time in three years.
Despite tiny armies of juniper pollen infesting my entire respitory system, I have still been busy. Here is a brief update of recent activities:
1. I have been doing a fair bit of ski racing. I am three race reports behind. If I don't get on it, I will be 4 race reports behind by saturday night.
2. In betwixt ski waxing I have been desperately trying to get more than one bike running simultaneously. I think I had 6 or 7 down with flats or mechanicals as of last saturday. I am a lazy mechanic of late, but it is hard to predict things like oddly broken chains and bizarrely defective tubes: There is a leak in that tube somewhere, but only that one bulbous section will pressurize, so I can't find it.
3. I have put about 50 miles on the 24" Hunter BMX bike this week in commuting and messing around. This is mostly due to the fact that is was my only functioning bike without studded tires. I suck at jumping still, but it is fun to ride. Cats are nonplussed:
4. I have discovered new ways of working out using only body weight resistance. Aida loves it:
5. Team baby blue bicycle dropped in for a visit as I was waylaid by the persistent pollens. They seemed to want practice babyholding, chad photographs as oddly as usual:
6. Between this and all the damn unicycle kids in town, I have some hope for the future:
7. Patch kits are confounding. I don't think I have ever had one that was useful at the time I needed it on the road. This was a new and unique failure, usually the glue just deliquesces, leaving behind a useless tube carcass:
8. The bees, they are kaput. I will report back with details, but they did not come out when the neighbor bees did, and they did not seem to be cleaning their stoop as they usually do. Our bee keepers took the hive away today, hopefully I will get some answers tomorrow. Our neighbors bees are going gangbusters, maybe a interbee war, or maybe just bad luck...
Local neighborhood bees are repairing a Ducati as well as making honey. Good little bees.
We have a small hive on the backside of our property as of late last night. I hope that they yield honey, are good neighbors and quickly learn to build up schwinn cruisers for me. We are excited about the new residents and hope they live long and prosper. Bees for change!
Elena and I have talked about doing this for a long time but we probably never would have gotten around actually keeping them. Our neighbor was perturbed about the dearth of pollinators for her apple trees this year. It turns out that said neigbor works with a keeper who wanted a hive up here on the mesa and she volunteered us to host them as we have a couple of bee friendly spots in the back corner of our property adjacent to hers, so Win-win. Hopefully I can learn a thing or two without being responsible for the little fellers. The Bees seem really mellow as advertised and did not seemed perturbed by the initial onslaught of curious cats.
