Spring is coming!

I feel so invigorated after my vacation. Almost 2 weeks of not having to do my regular things! We mostly spent time with family and some old friends. We went out occasionally, but really it was just a visiting vacation. My Mom and I talked a lot about homesteading stuff and both of us bought a copy of a book that mother earth put out called 'Self-reliance and country skills.' There are quite a few cool articles in there and I'm really excited for spring now. 

While I was in SC it was like spring to me. The daffodils were blooming and things were starting to bud out. As we drove back up the MN it got colder (also, because it was getting dark because it was turning into night.) and it felt more and more like winter. 

We woke up the next day and it is now 57 degrees and sunny outside. I decided to get into my bees and make sure they were doing well. I am a really successful beekeeper so far! I bought 2 packages of bees and caught a swarm on my first year! The ones I caught did not make it through the winter  because they didn't have enough food to make it and one of my packages didn't make it because the hive was tilted backwards and I think they got too much water inside. There were puddles of water on the bottom and there was a bit of mold on the top cover. So, it could have been mold that did it too from the water, but I'm not sure. Cleaning them all out was sure a job! 

But I feel better knowing that one of my hives has made it through a whole year and we are going to get more delicious honey. Even though I made my husband ration it all out because I planned on feeding the bees their honey back in the spring if they were still alive. I actually just moved the frames with honey still in them to the hive that was alive. 

All in all I learned a lot about bees this year. And I'm really eager to see what this new year brings.  I like to celebrate the new year 3 times a year. January 1st, Chinese new year, and (my favorite) the dawning of spring. 

Cleaning beeswax

 I LOVE having bees on site. They are amazing creatures. They pollenate my vegetables, fruits, and flowers. All for the sake of making beautiful amber honey for themselves- that I steal. HA! You can see some of my butternut squash that I've over wintered here in this first photo as well. So yummy.

So what do you do with the weird over growths of burr comb? I had to scrape a lot off when I put my packages in and they went crazy before I got another box on. I used quite a lot of it when I caught a swarm this summer. I rub the beeswax on empty frames so that the bees can get going faster and just move the wax around. It's worth it. 

I put a folded over piece of (market) cheesecloth into my double boiler. All the junk stays in the cheese cloth and most* of the wax will leak through. I think I will try another method for getting the beeswax next year though. This works, but it takes awhile.

When I poured the liquid in the silicone trays I noticed it was an odd color. I let them cool and it separated the wax to the top and the pollen on the bottom. So, now I have a bit of pollen in this as well. I poured the pollen into an old salsa jar and froze it to use in the spring for the bees to get started into brooding faster.

I'm going to use this to make some cosmetics later, so look for those posts at a later date. Zero Waste cosmetics, well as close as I can get to it anyways. One step at a time towards a better life!