Another nasty winter storm hits my area!

The same nasty winter storm that has crawled across the southeast for days finally made it to my area of North Carolina on Monday.  The same winter storm that drove major cities like Atlanta into a frenzy this past Sunday, complete with snow and sleet and freezing rain, arrived here like a lamb on Monday afternoon.  But as soon as night fell, that gentle lamb turned into a ferocious lion and brought my area to a virtual standstill.  Hour by hour, the storm grew heavier with snow that was topped by sleet.  All of this while the temperature hovered around 27, 28 degrees.

Here's one of the pictures I made of the snow while it was pouring down later in the evening.  I just had to share it since it looked so cool.  Check out the streaks from the snow during the photo exposure.  Impressive I think.

Winter drags on.

SNOW! My area gets the first snowfall for the fall/winter season of 2010-2011!

Its the beginning of December, but Santa Claus would be proud of the first snowfall for the fall and winter of 2010-2011. And hey, according to the calendar, its not officially winter yet!  The snow started around 2 o'clock on Saturday afternoon with huge flakes falling, then light snow, and then back to huge flakes.  Throw in a light sprinkling of some sleet too and we got a nice wintry mix.  As you can see though, the concrete and asphalt were warm enough to not cause problems until night fell, but the roads started getting slushy late in the evening.

North Carolina is the home to the University of North Carolina Tarheels, the North Carolina State University Wolfpack, the Wake Forest University Demon Deacons and the Duke University Blue Devils.  Since this bird house is Duke blue, it would only be appropriate that a blue jay reside there in the warm summer months!




A sleeping Dogwood tree.  This is a beautiful tree that borders my property and is covered with dark pink flowers in the late spring in time for Easter.  Snow flakes covered every limb!







One of several camellia bushes in my yard.  Mind you, they're all covered by snow now, but they're loaded with buds for the spring of 2011!  I don't think that bees are attracted to camellia flowers because I've never noticed them on mine.  But my neighbors keep beautifully landscaped yards so they have plenty of other flowers to choose from!    




No album of a snowfall would be complete without a snapshot of my bee hives.  Yes the girls are all snug as bugs inside their hives.  But as you can see, the snow covered up the entrances to all three.  While it sometimes acts as an insulation barrier to keep those icy winter winds out, it also keeps the bees from going out when temperatures rise.



To help the ladies, I opened up their entrances so they wouldn't have to wait for Mother Nature to do it for them.  Now they can quickly and discreetly go outside to do their business when nature calls.  By the way, the bees in the yellow hive are still taking 2:2 syrup from the Boardman feeder.




The snowfall of December 4th covered everything.  It was truly beautiful.  And thank goodness it happened early enough in the day that everyone could enjoy it.  With the Sunday temperatures forecast to be sunny and in the 40s range, you will never know that a snow event even happened here.  But with photos, we'll always have our memories.  Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

The clean-up begins after the ice storm...

I feel so much more fortunate than the folks in the northeastern United States who are digging out from under the massive amounts of snow they've received for the last couple of days. While I can empathize, we still have our problems here in my area of North Carolina.

Around 20,000 people in my area are without power, and my own power has gone out twice already this morning. Its all because of a steady rain for two days straight, mixed in with some sleet and spitting snow flurries. Of course, with the ice accumulations comes downed trees and powers lines. Police, EMS, highway crews and power officials are running emergency calls everywhere -- prioritizing the calls by importance. 

The ground here is saturated because of two big snow storms, a rain storm with flooding, and now an ice storm. The wind just has to blow a little bit and down come the trees. And then the ice makes the trees brittle and the ones that don't fall just snap. Same thing with utility poles. They're snapping like twigs. 

Here's some of what I found this morning near my house.

I just happened to ride up on this while running errands. This pole was lying across a very busy residential street near the citys high school, Elk's Lodge and a swim club. An elderly man had his vehicle parked to keep people from running through the power lines in the street. He told me he had been blocking traffic for 30-minutes and no one had showed up to take care of it.

Same pole, different angle. By the time I got home to get my camera and return, city crews had blocked the street with cones. While I was talking to the elderly man blocking the street, he told me that all the utility poles on the street were cracked, but they were still standing for some reason. Whether he knew what he was talking about, I don't know.    

I'm surprised that more of these pine trees didn't fall. This is the entrance to one of the city's more popular summer attractions, the Reidsville Swim Club, and as you can see these trees blocked up the entrance. There may have been more below them, I just didn't want to walk down there to see. The club is directly across the street from the Elk's Lodge where the utility pole snapped in half.

A little closer shot with a better view of the trees at the Swim Club. The county Sheriff, who is a good friend and former co-worker, told me that between 1 o'clock and 5 o'clock on Friday afternoon, they had over 100 trees down across the area, many of them across highways and power lines. That didn't even include what was happening in the cities and towns. And there's no telling how many more there's been since in the last 24-hours, It looks like the clean-up could take weeks instead of days.

So there you have it. That's just a taste of the ice storm that followed on the heels of all the snow and rain we've had here lately. I'm trying to stay positive about all this precipitation and hope that it will make the plant life stronger in the spring and summer. But I have to admit that it is trying my patience. 

Bring on the spring!

The third winter storm looms. I am sick of snow!

Yes, friends, I am sick of snow. No, make it that I'm sick of winter.

This has been the craziest winter I can remember in a long time. Usually the winters here are so mild that people can sometimes walk around in shorts, and that doesn't even include the college kids in flip-flops year-round. But oh no, not this winter. No, this winter has to make up for all of the other mild winters we've had in the past. And with it came frigid temperatures along with the craziest snow and ice storms in memory. As I sit here, the third major snow and ice event looms on the horizon. With it supposedly comes anywhere from 4 to 8 inches of snow, but it looks like a generous amount of sleet and heavy ice may join in. No doubt its going to be a winter weather mess.

In mid December we had 8 inches of snow here. Then the first week of January we had frigid temperatures in the teens. Then a couple of weeks ago we had torrential rains complete with flooding all around my area. Then this past weekend, beginning on Friday the 29th of January, we got another 9 inches of snow and temperatures back down in the teens. And now we're facing our third major frozen weather event this winter. I just saw on the news that the power companies are on high alert now since the ground is already saturated from all the previous wet weather, and if ice comes, that means that trees can topple over and take down power lines.

So anyway, I made pictures of the snow event last weekend but just didn't have time to post them. Frankly they depress me. But I figured since I made them I would share them with you and you can see our very own version of a winter wonderland. 

By the way, have I mentioned that I am sick of winter?

On a side note, my bees are doing fine. I checked them again a couple times this week, just an outside the hive inspection, and on the warmer and sunny days they're out and about flying around. But like me I'm sure they're sick of all this snowy, wet weather. For them I hope we have a warm and dry spring filled with blossoms and blooms. They'll probably be glad to get back into a routine and do what comes natural.

Check out my pictures and click on them for a larger view.

Here's the night view of the snow falling on Friday night. It was a mixture of all sizes of snow, but it was falling so fast, it made streaks in the photograph. I have to admit it was beautiful.

Here's the street in front of my house on Saturday morning, the snow untouched by vehicles. It was late that afternoon before plows came by and barely made a dent in the snow.

Here's my house. In case you can't tell, that's a Nissan Xterra buried under all that snow.

As you can see, the snow is deep in the back yard. The snow depth at the base of my hive was 9 inches, just almost reaching the top of the hive stand on the side. And of course it completely covered the entrance.

A little better look at the snow amount at the hive. You can get an idea of the depth of the snow from the side view. I cleaned off the snow from the entrance and the top so the girls could get out once the temperatures warmed up some.

The creek behind my house which is just below my bee hive. This is their primary water source. It is amazing that with all this water just a few yards from them, at one point this past summer, they decided to get water from the rain spouts behind my house. Go figure. Bees can be remarkable, but odd too.

This is a wooded area across from my house. What you can't tell is that it is an old cemetary. Some of the graves here date back to the 1850s. There are two really nice homes on the side of this plot, at one time they belonged to one of my city's wealthiest families. Maybe one of these days I'll have bee hives there too if my neighbor (who owns it) doesn't mind. Who knows..maybe my bees could keep the residents of this property company?

So there you have it. More evidence of the crazy weather of the winter of 2009-2010 here in my neck of the woods. While all of this craziness is going on, I'm getting everything prepared for the weather to break and to get my bees going for another year exciting year. Hopefully sooner than later. Real soon. Like now would be fine with me.

Stay well and bee vigilant!

Just when things settle down...more snow is on the way!

As most of you know, the weather here in my area over the last month has been totally rotten. In mid-December we had an unusually heavy snow (8 inches here) and then the first week of this month it was brutally cold for this region. Earlier this week we had flooding all around my area. It even washed part of the creek bank away from behind my house.

And now...we're expecting another torrential snow event within the next 24-48 hours. As I write this, we're under a winter storm warning for around 8+ inches of snow. One local weather forecaster said he was being conservative in his estimate. Oh, and nighttime lows are supposed to be back in the mid-teens this weekend too. When it rains (or snows)...it pours!

Old man winter is just determined to stick around it seems. Over the last few days the weather was really nice. Even today I noticed people out in shorts and tee shirts as they try to absorb some warmth and put some color to their pasty appearances. But just as things settle down and looks as if we might start down the path to springtime, old man winter taps us on the shoulder and reminds us that he is still here and going nowhere soon.

I figured it was warm enough to get inside my hive and see how the girls were doing with the 2:1 sugar syrup I made for them this week. It was 61 degrees when I looked out the kitchen window at lunch time, and the front of the hive was abuzz with activity so I knew now was the time to check. So I grabbed up my overalls and headed for the hive.

I'm yet to use smoke on my bees when I've checked them lately. I think the last time I used it was October. So far they've been extremely gentle...so gentle I wish I could manipulate them all year without smoke. I got inside the top of the hive and checked the sugar syrup and was pleasantly surprised that about 3/4 of an inch of syrup was gone. My guess would be about a quart, maybe less. So that indicated to me that they're taking the syrup, plus I could see some of the bees peeking at me through the vent on top of the feeder. Evidently on warmer days, they're able to climb to the top and use the feeder which is great. I definitely felt better knowing that they're doing as I hoped they would.

You can see in the picture to the right (click and it opens in a new window) that my foragers were finding pollen again. Some of it was a really bright orange and some was a light gray color. It seemed that they were bringing in more pollen a couple weeks ago when I checked them, but I didn't watch them all day, so maybe they had started early and continued past the time I went inside the house. 

I decided to experiment and see if my bees would take some moist cane sugar or some Mega Bee if I placed it just outside the hive. Since they really take the Mega Bee when I spread it across the frames, I figured they may take it here too.

Guess what? Not one single bee took the bait. Not one bee tried the sugar...and only one walked through the Mega Bee (she actually landed in it) and it looked like she was irritated because she got dusty. But I left it there and will check it again to see if I can determine if any is missing. And I'll definitely get it up before the snow storm sets in. Maybe I should try it again when spring comes and stays. 

I'll make more pictures when the storm gets here so you can share in the glory we call an unusual Piedmont-Triad area, North Carolina, winter. Hopefully a very short winter.

Bee safe!

House cleaning in the sun...and my honey supers are on the way!

So I decided to trek out to see how my bees are faring after Friday night's snow storm that blanketed my area with 8-inches of snow. Even though we're slowly but surely thawing out...it looks like this snow isn't going anywhere anytime soon. And the weather forecasters are calling for the possibility of more snow on Thursday night (Christmas Eve) -- so one way or another, old snow or new snow, we'll have a white Christmas...the first here since 1999.

The closer I got to the hive today, I noticed little dark dots on top of the hard, crunchy snow. They were little dead bee bodies. And the bee bodies were not the ones I scraped out of the hive entrance on Saturday. No, they were some that the housekeepers had brought out of the hive themselves. Some were about six feet from the hive entrance, others a little closer. Obviously the full sun against the hive had warmed the girls enough to where they wanted to do something, to stretch their wings, so house cleaning was the order of the day. I snapped this picture as the bees would come out, check what was going on, then fly off. Obviously they had been working some on Sunday too, removing the dead bees from the hive, because the dead bee bodies were scattered about the yard. I can't wait for the temperature to warm up into the 50s and they can get out and take a break from being stuck inside the hive. 

Great News from Brushy Mountain Bee Farm! My shallow supers and frames are on the way. They're coming by UPS, and the representative told me that she thought they would get here by Wednesday. Brushy Mountain Bee Farm is just on the western side of Winston Salem in Moravian Falls, North Carolina, but I don't have the time to drive there like I can with Dadant and Sons in Chatham, Virginia.

As I've admitted here before, my carpentry skills are horrible. I know it costs more, but I'd rather order some things made and ready to go. So when my package arrives, I'll have six assembled and painted shallow supers. All I'll have to do is put them on the hive and let the girls go to work.

  
What good are the shallows without frames? So I have 60 already assembled frames coming too. These are what they call the "Super White" frames. The frames are wooden, the foundation is plastic and beeswax coated. Many beekeepers (old school beekeepers) say that plastic foundation frames are worthless and that bees don't like them. I beg to differ. My colony took to plastic foundation frames just fine and drew comb on them in days. So I know they'll do fine with the shallow plastic frames too.

I've heard from a lot of beekeepers that when you set up your honey supers, don't forget the frame spacers -- otherwise you'll end up with a total mess. So I bought a box of 10 spacers. For the life of me, I don't know why I had it in my head that you just space the frames with one spacer. But Brushy Mountain tells me that you put these spacers in the supers after the bees draw out all 10 frames - then you remove one frame - leaving nine - and these spacers will make the distance exact. I learn something new all the time. Anyway, once I figure it all out, I'll get more if needed.

One thing that I plan to do is get another hive body set up (two deeps and a bottom board) in the next few months. I have one in the garage now, but I plan to split my one hive this coming spring, so I want another on stand-by in case I find a swarm somewhere -- or mine decides to it the road. Maybe I'll get the extra hive in February or March.

Just as I said recently, I was hoping that Santa would bring me some beekeeping supplies. And sure enough its going to happen! It has put me in a jolly mood for sure! Ho, ho, ho!

December snow! And yes, you can tick off guard bees...even in the snow!

Greetings everyone! As promised, I made pictures of the snow storm we had here in the Piedmont Triad area of North Carolina. Not just here mind you...I see Lynn at Walter Bee (who is in the mountains of North Carolina..to the west of me) had a doozy of a snow fall there too. Parts of our state definitely became a winter wonderland overnight -- and weather forecasters are saying that we might, just might, have another system moving in on Christmas Eve!

I decided to make pictures of all sorts of things, including my bee hive, and of course, each picture has a story. You can click on the picture and it will open up in a new browser in a larger size. So here we go...

This one really doesn't need a description. He's everywhere...

Thank goodness that the hummingbirds are farther south for the winter. If they were here now to see this, they would be totally irritated with me. I just have a feeling that I'll need to buy a new feeder before the spring comes.

Fritz, my 13-year-old Dachshund. He is almost totally blind now. He was extremely reluctant to "do his business" in the yard with all the snow, but after a little coaxing, he finally did it. When he was a pup, he loved the snow and would run like a rabbit through it. But today, after being outside for a new minutes and completing the task at hand, he let me know he was ready to go back inside and get under the blanket with Klaus, my 5-year-old Dachshund. By the way, Fritz was a shelter dog and just a baby when I got him. Animal control officers picked him up wandering and he was scheduled to be put down when I rescued him. He's the best dog I've ever had and there will never be another like him.

My snow covered bee hive! When I got to the hive, a bee, who was dying, crawled out and fell on the ground. I figured that others had to be dead inside, probably from the cold, so I decided to take a closer look while I cleaned the snow away from the entrance hole. It was a sad sight to watch her dying, but I suppose it is a part of nature.

As you can see, I was right. There were casualties of the cold lying inside the entrance reducer..all dead. Not wanting the dead bodies to pile up and trap the living bees inside, I cleaned it out as best I could. But here is where it gets interesting. Pay attention to the upper part of the entrance. See it? That's the cluster of bees. While I was raking out the bodies of the dead bees, I heard them tune up a little -- the buzzing started -- and out comes a frisky guard bee. Oh yeah, I had to dodge that one..and she flew within inches of my head. I have no clue where she went, but I hope she got back okay. She still had plenty of light to guide her back to the colony.

This is a sad picture. This is what I raked away from the entrance -- all dead. I know it only seems like a few bees...less that fifty, but it still bothers me. And yes, I know its nature...like all living creatures, bees are going to die. But something gnaws at me and I always wonder if I did something wrong. The hive is still bustling with bees on warmer days, so I think they'll do okay for the rest of this winter. But whenever I see dead ones, I tend to think the worst. Maybe its because I struggled with this colony when they first arrived in June. I just don't know. Paging Dr. Freud!

Not wanting to let it get cold inside the hive, I hurried myself and put the entrance reducer back in place, then I cleaned off the snow from the top. Now when the temperature warms up and the girls decide to make their cleansing flights, there won't have anything to stand in their way. Plus the mortician bees can clean the rest of the dead bees out of the hive.

I just had to snap this picture of the creek below the house. This is the same creek that sits just feet from my hive and where my girls get their water supply. The picture would be a lot better if it didn't have that pipe that runs across the creek, but I can't help that...it is part of the city's water system. I understand that several years ago, before I moved here, a tree fell across it and when it cracked the pipe, around 400 people lost water until it was repaired. For the sake of the beauty of the creek, you'll just have to pretend it isn't there.

So there you have it. Some of the pictures I made of the great December snowfall of 2009. I hope you enjoyed seeing them as much as I enjoyed making them!

And now, its off to make some hot chocolate!

Hunkered down honey bees! We're ready for a significant snow event...

Welcome to winter everyone! Okay, I should clarify and say that winter is here in my area now. The first official day of winter on the calendar is three days from now, but that makes no difference to old man winter who has a mind of his own. While other areas of the country have already had a taste of winter weather, my area of North Carolina is currently experiencing the first significant winter event in years. Sure its been cold, but this is the first time that wintry precipitation has hit my area of the state this year. 

Right now, the snowfall amounts vary. Some places are reporting 6 to 8, even 10 inches of snow in my area, and to the west of me in the mountains, they're reporting up to 12+ inches of snow right now. And the wintry weather is not expected to end for another 10 or so hours. The last time we has a simular snow event was back in 2002. 

People from other areas of the country always laugh that Southerners in the United States make a big deal of winter weather...that's because around here...as soon as the forecasters call for snow or ice...people rush out and buy milk and bread like they'll be stuck inside for weeks. What can I say? Its a southern thing! Plus you can always make French toast with all that left-over milk and bread. 

When I checked my hive this week, I noticed that my bees had stopped taking their winter syrup. Even though the weather has been fairly mild up until now, it is evident that my girls have all the winter feed they need, so they stopped taking the syrup. I took the feeder off, dumped the excess syrup, and shut the hive up for the rest of the winter. I looked down into the hive which is completely packed with capped honey, a dark gold color, so they have what they need for now. I'll keep a check on the hive through the rest of the winter to see how their food store is doing, and if needed, I'll start the syrup feeding again. But for now, I'm sure they're all warm and snuggly in their winter cluster deep inside the hive. When I tapped the side and listened with my ear against the lower deep, I heard the steady buzz, so I know they're doing okay.

The picture above, showing my hunkered down hive, was made just after the snow began. The picture to the right was made from my office in downtown Reidsville. As soon as I can get out later, in the daylight, I'll make some more pictures of the area, including of how my bee hive fared in this pretty significant winter weather event for this area.

Oh, and for the first time in forever, the weather forecasters are calling for another snow event here...on Christmas Eve! Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and he may find snow when he comes to the Triad area for Christmas! Gosh..I'm so excited!

More later!