Hive check

I am a little behind in posting, but a couple weekends ago I went out to check the bees. All in all, a bit of an odd situation. There is an very nice sized colony. Bees covering the frames, a large brood section. The honey super, however, has not even a drop of honey. The bees never even made wax this year, the slackers. Odd. I emailed my bee mentor (who rocks) who did not comment on why my bees may have decided not to fill a super this summer despite a record breaking honey year for most beekeepers. He did address my thought that perhaps my bees didn't like the foundation I had provided for them. He said it was unlikely the cause. Anywhoo. I am going into winter with significantly more bees than last year and am hoping like hell they don't eat themselves out of house and home. I still need to do another check and make sure the brood is in the bottom box with some nice honey stores on top. That'll probably be the first weekend in October. Good thing I still have honey from last year. It would really be a bite to have to buy bees AND honey this year....

I got three eggs this morning which became the SB's breakfast. I haven't heard yet how he liked them. The ducks seem to be eating more, I don't know if it is because they are beginning to lay eggs or because they haven't been out as much lately. I really wish I had a video of the "incident" the other day when the cat was very casually walking down the driveway, playing it totally cool and the ducks noticed him. The ducks, being both quite curious and impressively dumb, took off after him, en masse, to investigate this new animal. The cat, upon noticing the interest of the ducks, took off like a rocket. I think the ducks were somewhat disappointed. The SB reported they were trying to have a conversation with our resident groundhog the other day. The groundhog was more interested in lunching.

The fall garden is coming along, some things better than others, but one really exciting thing... I saved seed from my lettuce plants this spring and planted them among the cabbage seedlings and what do you know, they came up and are now sprouting like gangbusters! With luck, there is going to be some serious lettuce in a few more weeks....