Saturday was a work day...

My order from Mann Lake arrived mid-week while I was away on a business trip. Saturday morning my good friend Ronnie Tindle (pictured at left) helped me assemble & paint the following:
4 -9 5/8" deep brood boxes
3 -Nuc's boxes
2 -honey supers
4 - outer covers

This only took us a couple of hours from start to finish and was a real efficient process thanks to Ronnie's assistance. I would have spent most of the day on this task if I didn't have his help! As a side note, Mann Lake did short my order by leaving out the 3 bottom boards for the Nuc boxes. I called and left a message with the after hours receptionist. Someone is supposed to call me on Monday. I hope they ship the missing parts without any hassle. I have ordered from them on several occasions and been very pleased.

Just after we finished the assemly/painting of the materials (timing is everything!) from Mann Lake my brother Brian showed up with his sidekick Jeff Harrington. Ronnie & Jeff stood at the fence while Brian and I inspected the 3 hives we currently have. Unfortunately, I believe we have 1 hive that is Queenless at the moment. Almost no brood, no eggs and a low population. I did find several capped Queen cells. We thought about combining this hive with one of the others but decided not to. I want to see if the Queen will emerge from her cell, mate and begin to lay eggs. This hive will be one to watch over the next several weeks. Stay tuned....The 2 other hives appear to be booming and I'm going to attempt a split around the first part of April. I have 6 Italian Queens coming from Rossman apiaries on April 10th.

I have had a Fire Dancer fire pit for quite some time. I wanted to make it a more permanent part of my deck and Jeff offered to help me out. We went to Lowe's and got some Liquid nails & concrete adhesive to use. We were able to assembly the stones around the fire pit and "glue" them together. It looks great! I'm really pleased with the work Jeff did!

Click here to see a group picture of all 4 of us. We are a Motley crew that's for sure. If you only knew the stories we were telling on Saturday!!! We've had some good times together that's for sure!

Brian got stung twice when a couple of bees went up his pants leg.
Ronnie got stung on the forehead while watching from the fenceline.
Somehow Jeff managed to escape sting free. If you knew Jeff you would understand how miraculous this is! Jeff is usually the 1st person to get hurt or get into trouble.

Sting Count:

Chris - 7
Brian -5
Ronnie - 1