Snow on The Hilltop
Beehives in snow 2/24/2010
Well folks, the sugaring season is fast approaching. Yesterday was spent plowing and shoveling the nearly two feet of snow that fell here is Fairfax. They say we only got 11 inches. They really need to put a weather station up on this here hill as the snow fell heavy all day long. In all the years we have here this was the heaviest snow we have ever had. The flakes were like snowballs. Thankfully we did not tap, as we have seen buckets/taps pulled from the tree with from the weight of the sap in the bucket and the sow on the cover.
We are planning on tapping the trees this weekend and we are reasonable certain that we should begin to boil soon. Two years ago, we had our best year, nearly 29 gallons of syrup. This year, we hope to top that.
Sap Bucket - Click to see tapping video
As for the bees, of the nine total colonies we managed last year, seven appear to be alive and kicking at the moment. We had a report from our farmer friend that, “the bees were helping themselves to the outdoors”, the other day and was this OK? We need to dig the hives here at the house out of the snow, but at last check all seemed to be going well. Soon, we can open them up and really take stock of how well they are in fact doing, adding sugar water and pollen if necessary. For now though, we are content to “leave them bee”, and concentrate on the tapping, boiling etc.
Snow 2/24/2010
