Pizza Pan Re-do!

Aaaahhhhhhh..........Just wait until you see my next re-do!!!!

How to move a beehive

 As most of you know, all but one hive died this past winter.  They were good, strong hives, but the winter was too rough.

 In May, I tore down all of the non-surviving hives and put them away.

 

  That left this hive......

and the swarm I retrieved, also in May.

which I put in this hive.  They were tall, heavy hives, and would be hard to move.  But move them is exactly what I had to do.  Because after pondering for a year or longer, and moving pole barn locations, in our minds at least seven times, we decided the best location for the pole barn would be right where my beehives are located. (sigh)

 So here is how you move a strong, big, heavy, live, hive. First of all, you set up some 4x4's on cement blocks, about two feet from the hive.  On that 4x4 you set up one hive body with five empty frames,

 

 and you pull five full frames from the hive you are moving.  The full frames should have brood, larvae, honey and nurse bees on them. (not the queen, which you can see in this picture)

 

You now have reduced the big hive, to a small hive, but you still have the big hive!

So, you tear the big hive down into movable pieces....I had a friend help me, and my Shug drove the tractor.  A truck would have worked just fine too.  So, this is one big hive that we moved to a new location.

 

and we set it back up in it's new location.

One down, one to go.

 Now this part is important.  See how the hive is moved from the end about two feet?  That's all you can move a hive....two feet a day, at dusk.  You see, we moved the biggest part of the hive to another area in the yard, but some of the bees from that hive were out foraging.  If we wouldn't have left them something, a part of that hive to come back to, they would have come back to the same location with no hive. When a honeybee leaves a hive, it circles the location a couple of times, and when it's finished foraging, it comes back to that same location. So, we left a small piece of the hive for those bees.  We took the queen, with the bigger part of the hive, to the new location.
 

and every night at dusk, for about six weeks, I suited up and moved each hive two feet.  (we put the hive on the left on the 4x4's as well)

Eventually the hives were out of the way....

 so the guys could clear the ground for the pole barn.

 And now, the hives are away from the pole barn.  They have made new queens and are  strong, new hives.  And the old hives are in their new location doing well also. 

 The three on the left are the new hives that I purchased in June.
And that folks, is part of the life of being a beekeeper.

Cindy Bee

The third and final full day in Kentucky and a re-make of the Abbey Road Album Cover!

Hi Peeps...it's been awhile I know.  I've had this post almost ready to go for quite some time, when I was in a better mood. I've had a sucky week.  I'm not even going to talk about it!  Here's the post.

On day three in Kentucky, it rained some more, off and on.  I decided I was going to do what I planned on doing all along on this trip.  So, I got my crocheting out, sat down by the pool, chatted and crocheted.  

When you hear  me talk about "the building", see the glimpse of that big screened in room in the woods down there (above pic), that's "the building."  We spend most of our time in "the building." 

And since our last visit, they have built a "new" building.  

 

   this is inside the new building.

My Shug sees how important it is to have a long counter top.  I kept trying to tell him but he wasn't getting it, until he actually used it.

 

 My Shug cooked the hamburgers, Justin cooked the fries,

 

 and Trent....well, he salted the fries!

 

 Jeff 's job for the weekend was to keep the kids happy with milk shakes!

I know...it's tough work making milkshakes.....

But look at these Happy faces!

(see our bedroom in the background of the "new" building)

 Liz and Theresa and I were busy taking selfies for Facebook!

 

(Susie from She Junks.....I did not bring my whole family!  Lol!  But the thing is, these people are FRIENDS with My Shug and I, but they are FAMILY to my Sister.  They are her cousin-in-laws!  So my sis, her husband, and his Mom were there.  My Sis's MIL and Liz are cousins.  Got it?  We all met when my Sis and Trent got married... and we became friends.)

Back to the story....

Truth is....the hamburgers and fries were made the second night we were there.  The third night we had leftovers because we were drinking Sunset martinis! 

The reason we had leftovers is because we spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get a good picture of the sunset martinis for Instagram. 

Good grief...move the water bottle (I hear Downton Abbey did the same thing...a photo shoot with a water bottle left in the picture!)....ok lets try again....

Let's try without our hands in the picture...maybe just one....

Maybe from the top....noooooo....you can't see the sunset.....

And the winner is!!!!!!!

Then while sitting there drinking our sunset martinis (pineapple, vodka, grenadine, and an orange slice) somehow, my Sister and Jeff got into a discussion about how we should re-make the Abbey Road album cover!

As I sat there listening I realized this was a serious conversation and they decided we needed to practice.

We all lined up and marched around the entire building practicing.  Liz was recording....

Then we got to the pool gate.....Jeff was leading at the time and didn't get the gate opened and we all started bunching up behind him laughing.  

We turned around, and how we ended up with this photo shoot is beyond me.

 But we took as many pictures of this as we did the martinis!

 

 

 It's very difficult to get nine people to balance on one leg all at the same time.

 

 

 

So much for that idea, I think we finally gave up!

 After the photo shoot....this little guy wanted us to play Arizona Rummy with him.  Only he calls it Mississippi Rummy!  And he keeps score in his head!  So we had to ask him who was winning. He couldn't hold all of his cards in his hands so he put them on the chair and would go through them when it was his turn to play. 

Next on the agenda...walking the plank. 

and this was serious business as well!

 I made it without falling off one time.  That's it.  Once.

Look how long it was though....we had to cross this bridge....

 Anyway, after staying up late, playing games, singing off key and loud, dancing, and visiting, we went to bed, got up the next morning, ate breakfast and headed home.

Bye Bye Kentucky!

I'm ready to go back.

Cindy Bee