I went down Monday while it was sunny and checked on the bees and the veggies that are under row cover in the field.
First, take a look at the chard! I am amazed. After the snow melted and we had those cold temps I thought the chard would be dead. If this keeps up we will have new chard in early May, maybe earlier!
I took a jar of honey down for the bees a couple weeks ago and wanted to see how quickly they were depleting it. They probably still have honey in combs in the hive, but they don’t move sideways much, mostly going up and down. They can starve because they don’t move over a couple combs to where there is still honey. A new set of bees costs $70 to $85. So, I put an empty hive box on, some hay for insulation, and put a wide-mouthed quart of honey (which was fairly well crystallized so wouldn’t drip) in with the mouth of the jar near a purposeful hole in the top inner cover. Here is a photo of the jar, the bees who are a bit perturbed at my taking the cover off, some hay, and some plastic that I put over the jar and hole so the bees wouldn’t have to wander through hay to get to the honey.
