First signs of Spring

I noticed two little crocuses blooming next to our driveway yesterday and today there were several more.  The temperature today got up to 70 degrees so it really felt like Spring.  Several flocks of geese flew over headed north, and there were robins and bluebirds singing in the garden.

I also saw the first butterfly of Spring.  This is a "Mourning Cloak" butterfly.  This is the second one that I saw -- I didn't have my camera when I saw the first one yesterday.

I've actually been pruning my fruit trees this year and as it has been a couple of years since I have done so, I find that I am taking quite a bit off of some of them.  These are red delicious apple trees after pruning.   I know they aren't shaped right but after several years of poor pruning, this is the best I could do this year.

These are my two larger pear trees, in the middle and to the right.  I cut these down quite a bit taking a lot off of the top.  There are still some long awkward branches, but I felt like I had taken as much off as I could this year without hurting the trees.

Naturally, I checked my bees too.  This is the bottom entrance of the North hive with lots of activity.

This is the top entrance of the middle hive -- the entrance that they seem to be using most.  This is not quite as active as the other two hives, but still quite active.

Here is the bottom entrance of the South hive with quite a bit of activity coming and going.

The top entrance of the South hive was also quite active.

I also checked the sugar boxes on each of the hives.  I had put a box with 16 pounds of sugar in each hive in November to provide additional emergency food for the bees during the winter.  You can see here that the North hive has consumed most of the sugar though there is some left.  They are favoring the South side of the hive which is also the part of the entrance that they use mostly, if not exclusively.  This hive has always, for some reason, been lopsided that way.  The "quilt box" containing cedar chips in this hive was quite damp for some reason.  This have must not have had as good ventilation, or perhaps its in part related to larger numbers of bees that this hive seems to have.

This is the sugar box in the middle hive.  The bees have eaten completely through the sugar in one spot and you can see that the sugar is very thin in the dark places where bees have almost eaten it through.

I broke through the thin parts of the sugar in this hive to see how many bees were down there.  They don't cover the top bars as completely as the North hive but there are still healthy numbers here, I think.

The South have had eaten more of the sugar than the middle hive, but not as much as the North hive.  There are a lot of bees visible here too.  All three hives seem to have good numbers and can be expected to make it through the rest of the Winter.

Honeybees and sapsuckers

The winter weather has finally broken and we have had some temperatures at the usual average levels around 50 or a little above.  I took some pictures at the hives yesterday as the bees were active.  Bees were flying and greeting me on the lane as I walked to get the mail and even were busing around me at the house 3/8 miles from the hive.

The north hive was very active at the bottom entrance with lots of bees in the air and on the bottom board trying to get in and out of the holes in the mouse guards.

The bottom entrance on the middle hive was also busy.

The bees were also using the top entrance to that hive.

The bottom entrance to the south hive was also very busy.

The top entrance on that hive was also jammed.  Perhaps this hive was busiest because it got more of the sun on its south wall.

I started pruning my fruit trees this weekend and in the process of inspecting them for that purpose noticed lots of holes in straight lines on my older Enterprise Apple tree.  From what I see on line, this damage was probably done by yellow bellied sapsuckers passing through on migration.

I took pictures from three sides of the trees and the holes seem to go all the way around.

I hope that this many holes doesn't girdle the tree and cause it to die.  I could not tell this early in the season how healthy it was but I should soon be able to tell as Spring doesn't seem far off.  We started daylight savings time today so I hope to do some work on pruning in the evenings.

March 1 Snowfall

March came in like a lion I guess, or maybe more like a snow leopard.  We got five or six inches of snow overnight.  There was no wind involved as can bee seen by the neat little piles on top of each fence post on the east fence of the garden.

The grapevines and supports are covered in snow as are the trees in teh forest behind.

Here is my classic "tractor in the snow" shot.  I tried to start it later to try to plow out the lane but wouldn't fire.

The west garden fence and snow covered field with woods behind.

We did manage to make a track to get in and out with the truck, so didn't have to call someone to plow it out.  This is the lane beside the garden.

The lane going on out to the road.

The beehives covered in snow.  The bottom entrances are all covered up here.  I went out on Monday to clear these off and they were already melted off as it got up in the 40s that day.  There were a few bees moving around in front of each hive then.

The bluebird house along the lane covered with snow.  The transmitter on the other side of the pole is for my driveway alarm.

I saw this large bird flying across the field just west of our property and land in a tree.  This is taken with a long telephoto lens so isn't very clear, but I am pretty sure this is an immature bald eagle with the head just starting to turn white.

Here's another shot with a little better view of the head.

Here a crow sits in the top of a soft maple tree on the west edge of our property.  The large buds on the tree promise that Spring isn't far off.  I'm ready.

Birds at the bird feeder

It has remained bitterly cold through the middle part of February this year with a few dustings of snow.  Its been too cold for any beehive activity, but my bird feeder has been very busy. Here a male cardinal picks up seeds dropped from the feeder.  A female purple finch is in front of him.

Here he shares his profile.

A female cardinal sits in a young dogwood tree near the base of the feeder.

A goldfinch in his winter plumage sits on the dogwood waiting for his turn at the feeder.

A flock of goldfinches works the ground under the feeders with a few juncos mixed in.  At times, the feeders seemed mobbed with these little finches with more than 50 at a time.

A male purple finch sits in the dogwood.

Another male purple finch sits on the feeder, with a female behind him.

A downy woodpecker checks out some suet on the end of the feeder.

A little warm-up

The temperature warmed up to 50 this weekend which allowed the snow to melt quite a bit and made our lane a slushy mess.  Saturday and Sunday have been very sunny and feeling almost Spring-like.

I took the opportunity to check my bees.  It was too cold still to open the hives but all three hives were active with lots of bees making orientation and cleansing flights.  All three hives seemed to be equally active.  Here are bees hovering in front of the two south-most hives, using both bottom and top entrances.

The bees seemed to somewhat prefer the top entrance on these two hives, though.  Here are bees at the top entrance of the south hive.

Here are bees at the top entrances of both hives.  I am anxious to get a chance to see how much sugar they have taken but need temperatures over 60 to safely take a peek, I think.

These are bees at the bottom entrance of the south hive, with a lot of them hovering in the air in front.  Bees were flying all around the area, with very few dead bees observed.  They seem pretty healthy from what little I can see of them from the outside of the hive.

Here is the bottom entrance of the middle hive, also showing lots of activity.

The north hive was also as active as the others but all of the activity was at the bottom entrance.  The bees in that have don't seem to have found the top entrance yet, or perhaps had enough honey stores that they didn't need to push their way up through the sugar box to get to the top entrance.  I look forward to an opportunity to look into the top of that hive to see if they are on the sugar.

A Heavy Wet Snow

We finally had a significant snow fall overnight last night.  I measured about 7 inches in our lane.  Here is the snow looking toward the garden gate.

It was a wet heavy snow that stuck to the trees.  Here the snow lingers on some of my fruit trees.  The temperature rose a little above freezing so the snow was starting to drop off of the trees by the time I took these pictures.

Here is snow among my grape vines.

This is a view of the west end of the garden with snow stacked on top of the posts holding the wires for my grape trellises.

Outside the west garden fence, the snow covers the field and the trees in the forest beyond.

The trees in the forest were quite pretty this morning with the snow on each branch.

Our lane going west covered with snow.

This is the path going back to my bee hives next to the pond.

The hives are covered in snow but protected from the west and north winds by bales of straw.  All of the hives are wrapped in roofing felt to give them further insulation from wind.  They have top entrances so I did not bother to clear the snow that was blocking the bottom entrances.

Looking from the other side.  Obviously, it was too cold for any activity today.  The bees were all snug in their clusters deep in the hives.

The bales do not rest right up against the hives.  I left a gap of about a foot.
The bales are held up with steel fence posts driven into the ground to keep them from toppling over onto the hives.

The bird feeder in my back yard was busy today, though I didn't catch any birds in this picture.  A new addition is the black baffle that, so far, has been successful in keeping squirrels and raccoons from raiding the feeders.  I find that the seed now lasts much longer.  The squirrels have been quite determined to find a way onto the feeders, climbing around on the screens on the windows of the house and attempting to jump off of the porch roof to reach the feeders.  However, they have had no success to date.