Tuesday, February 20, 2007

BeeKeeping Adventures



My dad came up Monday for the monthly Central MN Beekeepers Association Meeting. It is a good group a lot of helpful people. There is always lots of interesting stuff to talk about; they have a presentation each month, treats, and door prizes too. I brought eggs since the prizes are usually a tool and some beekeeper magazines most of the members but us beginners get them. Maybe I will have to bring some every month until I get more buyers rounded up for my eggs or sell my extra hens. Laughs The members seemed to really like that as a door prize and good advertising for me.

The group is great for helping out new members provided they come to meetings and help with the demonstration hives at the Paul Bunyan Nature Learning Center. I have been to three meetings and dad two meetings so far. He finally joined last night and met another beekeeper over by him. They had a professor from the U of MN come to speak about bees it was interesting. Last month a couple of the members did a presentation on beeswax candle making that was great. I even got two candles no one wanted them as door prizes so the secretary gave them to me. He was one of the presenters and I gave him a dozen eggs in return.

I had ordered my bees at the last meeting with queens from Don just in time too. Dad didn’t get his ordered he wasn’t sure if he was going to get bees this year or not. But he got lucky though. There is a member who has two established hives with bees provided they survive the cold snaps here we had. I called her today when dad was still here and told her we had heard she had two and wanted to sell them. She was happy and said she was going to check on the bees to see how they were doing today. Linda seems like a really nice person and we will get the bees in late march. Yea!! So we will be sharing I think one new colony and one established each. I will keep positive thoughts so all our bees and hives are here and ready to go in April.

Yesterday dad did some bobcat work for me. He hauled my chickie poo pile to a new spot to compost and piled up some dead trees. Today we burned 6 brush piles and just hung out. It has been really nice out the past two days so it made the work more enjoyable anyways. We did lots of talking about ideas with the bees, selling eggs, extra herb and veggie plants, etc. I mentioned maybe we should sell at the local flea market and see how we do selling stuff. Mom and him are having a garage sale I may take some things there and help them out with it.

Dad is good mechanic and electronic guy so he could sell some of his handy work there too. One way for us to make a little cash, while I go to school and him do lots of work around home on their place and he likes to help me too. I have to admit I need. Laughs

Love and Light
Liana

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