Swarm!

Yesterday we got the call that every beekeeper hates to hear.  "I'm here near the bees and there's a tornado of bees going around."  The hive was swarming!  

Sometimes the hive gets too full, sometimes it gets too hot in the hive, sometimes they just decide it's time to go.  It's hard to always no why bees swarm, but it's natures way of dividing and expanding the hive.  Swarming is the process by which a new honey bee colony is formed when the queen bee leaves the colony with a large group of worker bees. In the prime swarm, about 60% of the worker bees leave the original hive location with the old queen. This swarm can contain thousands to tens of thousands of bees. (from Wikipedia).  You can usually tell when bees are going to swarm when you start seeing elongated queen cells at the bottoms of your brood frames.  

Our friend, Alvie, from Wooleylot Farm, has allowed us to set up a bee yard near his farm in Odin He was working his fields when he observed the tornado of bees phenomenon.  After his call, I thought, "Well, I'll go down and take a look."  Sometimes you can find the swarm in its clump and start a new hive with it.  I didn't have a lot of hope because often the swarm goes deep into the forests or it can be up in a tree where I can't reach it.  

I got to the bee yard and after some looking around what did I see?  

An almost textbook perfect swarm for catching!  

They were in a solid clump, they were low enough to reach, they weren't intertwined into a bunch of tree branches, and it was a branch from which I could easily shake them off.  

I set my box under the swarm and give the branch a good solid shake.  Then I put the lid on the box with a small gap.  It was awesome to see the bees start calling each other by "fanning".  This is where they stand outside the entrance of the box or hive and fan their wings to send out the queen's scent and tell the other bees, "Here we are, come here!"  I smoked the tree branch well to get the hive and queen scent from it and watched until almost all the bees were either in the box or on the outside of the box.  Then, using puffs of smoke, I encouraged them all to enter the box and sealed it shut.  

I set up the bees in a hive in the bee yard by my house and when I looked at them today, they were hard at work making it their home.   Success! 

Markets And A Visit to Amsterdam, Netherlands

Amsterdam - a city of bicyclists

In our trip around Europe, we made use of the lodging site, Airbnb.  The apartment we stayed in in Amsterdam was located one street behind the iconic Albert Cuypmarkt.  Buildings in Amsterdam tend to be quite tall and narrow.  My Dutch guide on the free walking tour said this was because the Dutch homes were taxed for the amount of square footage on the ground.  Because the Dutch were quite thrifty, they built up instead of out.  Our lovely apartment was three flights up and the stairs are literally almost as steep as a ladder!

Not quite this narrow, but you get the idea. 

My daughter, Heather, climbing stairs. 

There’s no better place to learn about Amsterdam than at the Albert Cuypmarkt. This is the biggest and most popular outdoor market in the Netherlands, with 260 stands set up down one very long street. The Albert Cuypmarkt has been open since 1905, and attracts all sorts of people, from locals to home cooks and tourists. Its diverse stands sell everything from shoes to sex toys to fresh foods such as the typical Dutch raw herring or freshly pressed stroopwafels. Source: http://www.eatingamsterdamtours.com/blog/5-best-amsterdam-food-markets/

This market opens Monday through Saturday from 9-5 with a dizzying array of items.  

Assorted Fish

(Something I loved about the fish market.  At the end of the day, as the market was packing up, herons would start to show up.  They would stand on the sidewalks and watch from the buildings.  I can only assume they were waiting for scraps!) 

Fruits and Vegetables

(I'm pretty sure that many of the fruits and vegetables are imported and probably not organic, but it was a beautiful display!)

Olives and a kind of sandwich from freshly baked pitas.

More fruits and vegetables

Cheeses and eggs

Vinegars, breads, meats, really yummy looking sandwiches

Fur items can be found at this slightly disturbing shop.

Eggs and cheese

(and *gasp* the eggs aren't refrigerated! - sorry, my sarcasm is showing.  In America eggs must be refrigerated below 40-degrees.  In Europe, you'll find fresh eggs on supermarket shelves.)

The variety and number of booths goes on and on.  Many of the booths are extensions of the stores behind them and you can find clothing and even pharmacy items on sale!

A second market I visited was the Amsterdam Bloemenmarkt.  Founded in 1862, the Bloemenmarkt is the world's only floating flower market.

Beautiful, but sadly, I found it to be quite touristy with all of the shops selling pretty much the same things.  

While sitting in a cafe and enjoying a latte, imagine my surprise and delight to look out and find these sidewalk maintenance workers wearing wooden shoes! 

(Don't you just love cobblestone sidewalks?)

And, finally, a trip to Amsterdam would not be complete without a photo of Gouda cheese!  

Vaarwel!

(Good bye! = Dutch)

Where I Have Been

Hello all!

You may have been wondering why I haven't blogged in so long.  On May 10th, I left for my daughters High School graduation - in Valencia, Spain!

After her graduation, we left for a grand tour of Europe.  We traveled by train to Barcelona, Spain; Nimes, France; Paris, France; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Neustadt, German; Berlin, Germany; Prague, Czech Republic; and Vienna, Austria before flying back to Valencia, and then, on June 8th, we came back to the United States. 

I'm spending a week in recuperation/catch up on the farm mode, but I have amazing photos of Farmer's Markets and Food Halls in many of the countries we visited and I can't wait to share them with you! 

I'll be posting lots and lots of photos very soon!  

Happy Summer!