Hey all, hope your week went well! Mine went pretty well, but an unfortunate thing has happened with my bees. I honestly don't know what actually happened, but the package of bees I bought in the Spring are gone. :( Before we left for vacation, I checked on them and gave them fresh sugar water. They weren't a robust hive, but seemed healthy and growing. Two weeks later, I checked again and there were no live bees. There was some debris and a few dead bees in the box and on the frames. The comb seemed to be eaten or crumbling, and there were maggots crawling around. Ugh, gross.

I was shaken by the experience, so I felt I better check the box with the swarm that I caught. It was sitting right next to the other hive box, and to my surprise they were doing great! They had about 60% of the frames drawn out and were busily working. The population was huge compared to the package bees before I left for vacation, probably four times as many. I don't know why that hive is doing so well and the other died, but it gave me hope. I ordered more frames to add a second brooder box because I'm afraid to use the frames from the box with the package bees since I don't know what happened to them. As I learn more about beekeeping, I hope to figure it out.

I showed some pictures of the frames from the dead/abandoned hive to a more experienced friend of mine, but he couldn't determine what happened without inspecting the box in person. I had a strip in the package bee box that another friend gave to me to control varroa mites. I'm not sure if I put it in too late and mites had already infested the hive, or if something happened to the queen that destroyed the hive, or something else. If I didn't have the big healthy swarm that's doing so well, I would have been completely disheartened and might have given up beekeeping altogether. Thank God for healthy, local bees! We may still have honey yet! Here's a picture of those beautiful creatures.

On another note, my son, Jacob, and I baked homemade crusty bread this week and it was delicious! We used this recipe and will be using it a lot more in the future! Once we get a good feel for it, we'll try variations, and I'd really like to make sourdough bread soon. I'll let you know how that goes!

Tomorrow we'll be at the Orleans Farmers Market. We're delivering our very first CSA shares this week! We're really excited about that. It feels so good to share the delicious, nutritious meat we raise with all of you. Thanks so much for supporting our little business and joining us on our farmstead adventures. I hope you have a great weekend!

~Sandi