I’m a Slacker

It has been a while since my last entry. I was on vacation for several weeks, dealing with Tropical Storm Fay effects and aftermaths, and weeks of sad heart breaks when it came to coverage of the hives.

First the Top Bar Hive – I installed a split from my hive with an Australian queen. Talk about docile bees, they were a joy to work with, but way too docile for my local environment. These ladies worked extremely hard and fast, but would never hurt a fly. Eventually they could not outwork the damage created by the Small hive beetle and ants.

Then there are the two packages I ordered at the beginning of the season. I believe they sat at the post office for one day too many. My guess is that ½ of the bees in the packages had perished by the time I got them home. The bees released the queens, but they never laid a single egg. Both packages collapsed.

Soon after, I purchased two Nucs from a local beekeeper. Both Nucs collapsed or absconded ……. I’m not sure why. Harassed by ants and small hive beetle is my best guess.

With my evil beekeeping streak, I decided to leave alone my last and only remaining original hive.

Soon after, we had Tropical Storm/Hurricane Fay which hung around for about five days, dumping over two feet in my area. That is correct ……… 25.8 inches of rain in 3 days.

Below are pictures of what happens when you get tons of rain. Water level on my yard rose about 14 inches on this side of the lot. Thank God for the new stand, six more inches and everyone would had gone for a swim.


Below is my chicken coup. (note: chicken poop marinating in water for a few days is really stinky)

My shed, it was close, but it never made it in,1/4 of an inch and it would have


Path of Fay. Arrow indicates my location


Can someone please remove my area from the drought list ...............