Sad Cindy Bee

I am late with this post. And before I even begin with the Farm Friend Friday post, I want to let you all know I am NOT ignoring your comments. I had them all answered, and blogger failed. I typed for about 20 minutes answering comments from the last post, and zip, zilch, zero. Very disappointing. So, I will attempt to answer all comments...again....tomorrow. Check back in the comment section. I am too tired right now to do anything else, but get this post done. I have had a busy day.

I also want to share with you something I'm doing to help with some allergy problems I'm having. I am taking a teaspoon of honey every single day. They say a teaspoon of honey daily will help you build up an immunity to allergans. But it HAS TO BE HONEY THAT IS FROM YOUR AREA. The reason is by consuming raw honey from your area, you are ingesting those pollens that the bees collected. Little by little your body is building immunity against those pollens. I'll let you know if it works. The inhalers are supposed to get me over the hump. Have I said before that it has been a long winter? OK - Spring - GET BACK HERE NOW!

After all that....I'm hooking up with Verde Farms for another Farm Friend Friday. And I am in love with Burdock, from their farm. I want some of that wool!

This is one of the guys I've watched since he was a baby. I decided when he was potty trained, he was old enough to light a smoker!

OK he wasn't quite that young, but he has been lighting smokers and both boys have helped me with my hives, for quite a few years.

One down, one to go. That's some pretty good smoke.

This is Vinh helping me last Fall, prepare the hives in my back yard for winter.

SO, I got into my hives on our land the other day. I have eight hives on our land in the country, and three in our backyard in town. I have NOT been in the ones in the back yard yet.

This hive is alive,

but I have no idea what all of that black stuff is. It looks like a mold of some sort.

It's on the comb too, so I don't want to reuse the comb.

It does not have an odor so I'm pretty sure it's not American Foul Brood. I'm going to have to do some research.

It's hard to take pictures with bee gloves on, and the bees were a little feisty so I didn't want to take the gloves off. I was trying to see if the white stuff is larvae or sugar from the sugar patty. I THINK it's larvae, and I actually saw the queen. But that isn't a very good laying pattern. We'll talk about laying patterns another time. The bees are bringing pollen in.

Sorry for the blurry picture. This is the frame the queen was on and I was trying to get a picture of her for you, but I didn't want to agitate her. Nothing worse than an agitated hive. When Momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!

And I'm very disappointed. The rest of my hives are dead.

Dead bees....

even though there is a lot of food, I'm thinking they starved to death. They will not break their cluster when it's freezing cold out, even if it means starving to death.

I'm hoping to do some splits with a friend, and get some swarms. It's a lot of work, but I'm sure you will find it interesting blog posts.

Sad Cindy Bee