BUSY AS BEES

It's funny how sometimes when you have all kinds of plans to be extremely productive and "do" all things you think should be done, something comes along and throws a wrench into your plans. Sort of a tap on your shoulder to say; "excuse me but you are neglecting some important things, things that matter to you and to your mental health." That's what happened to me today.

I had plans to continue working on the "re-do" of my kitchen, get caught up on wash, cleaning and general work that falls behind during the week. It was pretty early and I was doing dishes, I happened to look out the window to my beehive to give a once over to see how things were. As I looked out I received my "tap", on the hive were a huge amount of bees, what we call "bearding".

Because it was very early in the morning and still cool I felt it could only mean one thing; the hive was ready to swarm. This isn't a good thing especially this late in the season, this would leave my hive weak because so many bees would leave. To catch the swarm and start a new hive would be difficult because again, being late in the season the bees would not have enough honey to make a new hive and survive the winter. All around, not a good scenario and I had only myself to blame, because I have been so caught up in the kitchen redo; painting, sanding, priming I had neglected to "work" my bees; to check on them and make sure the hive was not crowded and they had plenty of frames to build honeycomb on.

As I put my suit on and got my smoker going I could only hope that it was the heat and the bountiful crop of goldenrod we have this year that was exciting the bees to leave the hive and beard and not that they were going to swarm. After smoking them I opened the lid to peek inside the top "super" or box and the frames were not full, so this means the bees were NOT crowded and they were not finished filling up the frames with honey. Could they still swarm? Yes they could but they were probably outside the hive due to the conditions I mentioned. the entire day has been spent keeping a eye on them and making sure they didn't swarm so if they did I would be able to follow them and catch them and that would be an entirely different post. ;)

I was reminded today that make sure you take time to do the things that matter to you, that keep you sane, that keep you grounded. Maybe it's art, church, spending time with family or your bees but don't neglect those things. Being busy is good but being busy as bees isn't always productive.

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I am so blessed this week....Polly, over at Count Your Blessings has given me the Blog With A Heart award. I am so new to all this that I am very grateful I have people reading and even commenting here, not to mention getting an award! I see that it is my duty to pass on the award and since I received such good karma from Jennifer over at Pear Street Studios ,I am going to give this award to her.

*muah*