It is nice to have a day off when the sun is shining and it is warming up early.  With every upswing of the pendulum, there is a downswing though and it looks like a day to get out there an do some mowing.  We live on a little less than an acre and most of it is grass.  We do not have a goat or any other grass eater and the cats refuse to negotiate on this issue.   Robin has attempted to help by planting just about every type of plant, bush, tree, herb, and shrub that she finds that sounds the least bit exotic.  This does decrease my mowing swatches, but on the gripping hand it makes the place more of an obstacle course.  I think we have reached an understanding to at least make rows wide enough for the push mower to get through if not the riding lawn mower.

The bees are starting to get out too this morning.  It is always fun to mow near their hive.  Bees really don't care if you are about so long as you do not threaten the hive.  They have bounced off of me, landed on me, and generally avoided me when I am near their hive without leaving a sharp souvenir of our meeting.  I am still trying to resolve just what they consider a threat as I have gotten stung or had an aggressive bee come about just by approaching near the nest but this is rare.  I don't use much of any scents on my person and clean up regularly.  I don't have a bear-ish shape and do think pleasant bee thoughts about them.  It possibly has more to do with me just being a guy.  I may have mentioned how Robin gets a party greeting from the bees.  They practically invite her inside.  I would have Robin mow and she is game to ride the lawn mower and does it often enough just for the fun of riding about on it.  Her skills at mowing are pretty good, but you can see a few to several high spots when she has been enjoying herself with the scenery.

I did want to mention briefly on hygiene in your mead making sojourn.  Most periodicals on any type of brewing have a bit on rendering your operating zone pretty sterile.  It is a good idea to clean up your site before you begin, keep things clean while you are working, and clean up afterwards.  This is mom's old adage of washing behind the ears.  Folks have been brewing for centuries with little care to the washing up and it will probably not affect your efforts much if you are a dirty little monk during processing.  I, however, would abstain from your masterpieces as I prefer the taste of mead over the taste of homme.

When you do wash your equipment before and after, make sure you give everything a good rinse to get out any residue of your cleaning agents.  An off flavor of bleach is not very attractive, nor is a bit of suds on surface of your creation.  Carbonation good, detergent bad.

I need to run Robin off to an appointment and will continue on other topics shortly.

Good morning and don't forget to get some sun if you are able.  It is nature's vitamin D resource and is darn pleasant to hang out with whatever else is out there.

On our return from our foray, I stopped by the bee yard to check on how the girls are doing.  Out of syrup again and hungry.  I popped in side and made up a fresh batch of syrup which is about a half full container of sugar and then fill to the top with water.  I filled four pint feeder jars with the syrup and it will last the ladies about 2 1/2 days until the nectar flow really kicks off.

Since the weather was nice, I decided to look for the queen.  I spotted her right off and am including a shot of her.  Some people may not see the difference so I blocked her off in the picture.  Her abdomen is almost twice the length of the other bees:

The picture quality is not fine as I took it while holding the frame and snapping the picture with a gloved hand off of my camera phone.  The bees were interested in the phone technology, but soon went back to their chores.  These are gentle carniolan bees.  I peeked into the other frames and this queen has laid a great amount of eggs which are now good sized larva.  There are a good number of drones (males bees who do little more than sit around, eat, look for a breeding opportunity...sound familiar?) in the batch as well.  This is another good sign of a healthy colony.  I'll see if I can snap a few better pictures of these sections as well as any queen cells that may show up this year.

Today, I will see if I can finish off the next western box before I mow as the colony will need at least one more level pretty soon to handle their growing numbers.  A good thing to remember about sharing your property with bees is to be attentive to their needs.  They will leave or die out if they are not maintained.

Off I go--work calls and playtime draws to an end.  Sigh....