Back to the hives

After a couple of days in Tuscaloosa -- where Sally and I lived for a long time and where we still have many good friends -- I was able to get back to hive assembly yesterday. The result: three complete hive boxes with 30 frames. In other words, one hive put together, one to go.

After last week's beekeepers workshop, I realized that my carpentry was not as bad as I had thought and that I could use a couple of the frames I thought I had messed up.

I also got a little more confident about putting together several frames at a time. Howard Kerr had let me borrow a jig that would allow for this, so things went much more efficiently yesterday. Still, it was a lot of work, and I was pretty worn out when I was done.

And, I'm sure Dolly was glad to see me leave.

Dolly is the cat who lives down at the farm. She is a sweet cat, but she's used to being by herself most of the time. I was assembling the hives in the kitchen (it's too nippy these days to work outside), and I am sure she did not appreciate the banging that interrupted her afternoon nap.

Dolly is an interesting cat -- actually a bit amazing. She is totally blind. Yet, she roams in and out of the house and all over the 13 acres of the farm without much of a problem.

One thing about Dolly is that she is very careful. She doesn't mind going places, but she takes her time, sniffs a lot and remembers where she has been. Dolly followed me out to the ends of the property last year when I was picking blackberries, and she always made her way back on her own.

You'll be hearing more about Dolly in the coming days. I wonder how she'll feel about an invasion of bees.

Weather note: We woke up with less than an inch of snow on the ground yesterday morning. It was the first significant snow of the season, and it wasn't all that significant. Most of it had melted by noon.