Blog - BeePeeking

Solstice 2022

12/21/2022

This morning it was 28 F, bright and sunny! Our backyard was atwitter with so many birds.
let me begin with a rare treat: a pileated woodpecker=woo hoo! the largest woodpecker in North America. We had our usual chickadees, finches, sparrows, and bushtits; also the Stellar jay, starlings, robins, and flickers; then, we noticed that our spotted towhees were traveling with a pair of Varied Thrushes! Oh joy, and they were having fun scattering the leaves along the edges of the path and in the garden boxes. The male is much brighter than the demurely colored female.

Backyard birding is one of the benefits of being homebound on our hill on an icy day. Cheers!

December snow

12/5/2022

Um, OK--I get that the weather is weird, but snow already?
It is definitely winter here in Seattle!

November=wet & Cold

10/31/2022

A Year Unfolding-Angela Harding

Overnight, literally; no slow transition for the Pacific NW this year; we went straight from smokey, stagnant, 80 F weather, on top of a drought--to an inch of rain overnight, blustery winds, blue skies, and a backyard full of hungry birds.

So happy for sweater weather, saunas, and sitting by the hearth with hot drinks.

Smokey skies continue...

10/19/2022

We have only had two days (since my last post) where the air quality levels were below 50.

Even in the house, with air purifiers running, my throat is raw and my nose feels gummy. To add insult to injury, TPTB made the decision early on that there would not be an effort to put the fire out, just contain it, as it was mostly burning in wilderness areas; if businesses, homes, and people were going to be displaced then the effort to put it out would commence.

I miss playing outside and having my windows open. Thank goodness that rain is finally coming to Seattle this weekend!

Smokey Start to October

10/7/2022

Flying over the North Cascades, I snapped this photo of the mountains appearing so serene and beautiful...but on land the air was smokey, hot, and stagnant. Checking the Washington Smoke blog:

Our yard and garden is covered with grit and it's weirdly dusky outdoors. Looks like a fine weekend to knit and bake bread.

Excellent Reads

8/22/2022

Nature Photo Book pick: WILD HONEY BEES by Ingo Arndt and Jurgen Tautz. Dive into the biodiversity of a healthy forest hive. The images are absolutely breath-taking. For beekeepers and beepeekers alike.

Scientific Inquiry: If you ever wondered about the honeybee "dance language" hypothesis, you need to read this wonderfully readable and thoroughly researched book.

Sometimes

7/24/2022

another from Suellen Saidee Cook

Celebrating Summer

7/18/2022

Mid-summer notes:
We've got chickadees nesting in our nest box. Chickadees only have one brood per year, so a second family made use of our bird box :^) They have been keeping their parents busy and we have enjoyed the peeping.

Our garden thrived throughout our cool wet spring and we've been enjoying daily salad greens with lettuces, arugula, sorrel, kale, and chard. We are planting seeds and starts this week for our fall salad munching.

Our wild backyard featured volunteer poppies, borage, and glorious 10' tall foxgloves this year.
Loving the lavender...mmmmmmm

People...

4/8/2022

bird & bee from Katie Daisy's With Love, Adventure, and Wildflowers Notes

I have had this quote pinned to my bulletin board for over 20 years...and it has never seemed truer.

Spring Solstice Bee Report

3/15/2022

To feed or not to feed? That is the question... our bees were flying on a sunny day in the first week of February; I opened our Sweinty hive and looked through the handy acrylic cover and saw that it looked like our bees had made it through the winter and they appeared to be strong and active. The trouble is--how to keep them that way through our wet and cold Seattle spring weather?

This year I decided to try the dry sugar feeding method and followed Michael Bush's advice.
On Feb 8, I placed newspaper on top of the frames and covered it with dry white sugar. The moisture from the hive quickly saturated the sugar and the bees began to use it.

Twenty days later, on February 26, most of the sugar had disappeared=another dose of dry sugar.

Twelve days later, on March 9 the bees had moved all the sugar! Another cup of sugar...

Just one week later, March 15, that sugar was gone--today I replaced the newspaper and gave them another large dose. Michael Bush says that they'll use it if they need it, otherwise ignore it.

In addition to the sugar, the bees are bringing in boatloads of pollen which means that they are busy making bee bread and feeding the new bees. We have seen several sunny morning orientation flights, so that's promising.