August 2, 2013

when the fruit gets ripe, we pick and freeze it....then we set a weekend

aside to turn it into jelly.....this past weekend was a rainy one so we played

in the kitchen...

here are the freezer bags of strawberries, black raspberries,

cherries (tart and sweet) and blackberries

Strawberries: 6 pints

Black Raspberries: 12 pints & 10 half pints

Blackberries: 9 pints & 11 half pints

Cherry (we mix the tart and sweet together) : 15 pints & 11 half pints

one of the plum trees in the orchard, that has never given fruit before...gave us a whole basket of plums

from this......

to this...... Plum Jelly: 17 pints & 12 half pints

so.......103 jars total.....not bad considering that we haven't

started doing anything with the apples, pears or peaches yet!!!

Pleasant Dreams!!!

August 1, 2013

Week 12 - BEE Inspection

we are 3 months in and having a blast!!!!

here is my new frame holder...it is very helpful

here is one of Ross' frame...it has capped honey, bee larva that are capped

and eggs...so we know that his queen is alive and active!!!

we were really pleased with Ross' hive this week....we found both

Queens...and both hives were very busy....still no honey in the honey

supers on either hive......we have decided that we wont be doing

such an in depth look at the BEEs every week...we love to see the

progress weekly, but we also know that we can cause damage each

time we do the inspections.

just gotta LOVE all the Bee's...there are upwards to 80 thousand

 between the 2 hives.....INCREDIBLE!!!!

AMAZING...how there is so much work going on in these

2 small boxes!!!

Pleasant Dreams!!!