Preparing for Spring and bees

The hives are ready to go and rumor is that bees arrive on Friday.  I put the initial hive configuration together just to see how it looks.  The bottom box will hold frames where the bees are to start building honeycomb and the top box conceals a a feeder.  There are so few flowers out yet with the late Spring that the bees will need to be fed sugar water for a while.  I bought a big bag of sugar this weekend.

This is the spot where I plan to set the hives, after I cleared out some multiflora roses and a little brush.  I plan to set the hives on landscape timbers on top of concrete blocks to get them off of the ground.  There is a pond about 80 feet to the right and our lane is about 80 feet to the left.  I plan to clear some more so I can drive closer to the site.  I will spray and mulch to keep grass and weeds from coming up among the hives.

These crocuses are up as the first flowers of spring.  These have come up for several years.

These are newer crocuses that I planted last fall coming up against a backdrop of some the the lingering snow from last weekend's snowfall.  That heavy wet snow broke several old branches in our lilac bushes that I trimmed out this afternoon.  Those bushes need some pruning of the old wood anyway.

These tulips are coming up in a corner of the garden where I planted them a few years ago.

The setting sun shines through the orchard with grape vines behind.  The days are finally warming and growing longer and I'm looking forward to getting busy in the garden.  I cleared some of the stuff off of last year's garden plots -- something I should have done last Fall -- but there's more of that to do as well as pruning and, if I get ambitious, dormant oil spraying of the fruit trees.