Sunday, May 25, 2008

A Bee in His Bonnet

As proof that my husband is either a future visionary or has totally lost his mind, we now have bees. Approximately 15,000 bees. Saturday, Bruce and his friend Jack drove to New Paltz to pick up Bruce's nuc from Chris Harp, bee master extraordinaire.

Here Bruce is transferring the frames (full of bees) from the nuc to the hive. He has dosed them with what I would consider a minuscule amount of smoke but both he and Jack assured me that it was sufficient. Need I say I took this with a telephoto lens?

Meanwhile back in #32 I was inoculating my Cabernet Sauvignon grape juice that I had picked up that morning. So as the bees buzz happily about the yard we have 6 gallons of fermenting juice in our kitchen. This is thanks to the inspiration (although unwitting inspiration) of my brother-in-law Greg, who recently has been producing his own, rather good, beer. While I may not be a microbiologist like Greg, I can follow directions. And the gentleman at the store assured me that it is actually rather difficult to produce wine vinegar. (Of course, that doesn't explain why he was giggling as I walked out).

The bees are buzzing, the yeast is bubbling and it was a gorgeous Sunday. Ahh.