That means it is time to open the hives and see which are still alive and kicking and which need boxes swapped.
I am very happy to say that my dad's hives were fantastic looking and I even made two nucs (small splits) from 2 of his hives. The bees were completely filled out in 2 hive bodies and they all had some drone brood capped, so I am confident that my nucs will raise a queen successfully. I am crossing my fingers that we do not get a late freeze and also that most of the nuc bees do not fly out and back to their original hives. *sigh*
I have 2 hives still here that mad it through winter and although one looked great, the other was weak. It had a queen and brood and eggs but only a cluster of about 100 or so bees. I put them all in a nuc so they would have less area to keep warm, etc. I am sure they will make it if the weather stays warm and we keep some nectar flow going.
Today I finished spring cleaning minus my porches and the yard. rain is moving in so it will not be finished until next week some time.
Today the young ones helped me make yogurt, actually it is making as I type. I bought a 2 qt yogurt maker with some swag bucks and am so excited to see how it turns out. We also decided to make granola, although I am not sure how it turned out. I only had quick oats and the granola is kind of soft. It baked for 20 minutes. Any suggestions?
It smells like french toast and tastes yummy!...just softer than I would like.
Now, on to other news. Tomorrow Devin and I are attending an orientation at the Human Resource Department here in our county. We are hoping to foster adopt. I will keep you all posted on how that goes. We originally looked into an African adoption and that is not totally ruled out, but Devin has his heart into domestic so we are checking it all out. The social worker we are dealing with is very nice and was quite happy when I told her we have 7 children already. I was shocked to see her excitement. Most people gawk in amazement and think we are crazy. Well, Devin is a little crazy but I am sure I am perfectly sane...most days:-)
Adoption is something we have had on our hearts for at least a couple of years now and tomorrow we will take some steps in that direction, God willing.
I have NO pictures to post........
Ah...here is a glorious sunrise Journee snapped a picture of this morning! Spring is almost here to stay.
I couldn't post without a picture and that Georgia sunrise is a beauty!
Adoption is wonderful. My husband and I have 3 adopted boys who are now already 11, 10 and 6. I can't believe we started this journey with them 12 years ago. We adopted domestically through a private agency minority children who all happened to be infants when they joined our family. It has been our overwhelming joy to be their parents, no matter how crazy they can be sometimes (they are boys after all). I've found a lot of homeschool encouragement from your blog and wanted to throw back a little encouragement in your adoption process.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the encouragement! It has been over a year and nothing! The social worker tells us that there are no kids under age 6 (even with special needs) for adoption or needing to be fostered in the entire state!!!! She is pushing for us to adopt a teen. My heart aches, but I don't feel like we can take a teen right now. We have discussed looking into a private agency to see if we would have more luck. It has been rather frustrating, but I blame part of that on working with the DFCS system:-)
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