It's been a busy year in the apiary!  We've done some splits and I caught a swarm all by myself. [Exciting!]  I now have 8 coloni...

It's the time of year when I need to do one last big inspection on the bees so I can combine hives, treat, think, evaluate, etc. befor...

I have gotten more than 50 little figs off my Chicago Hardy fig tree so far this year.   They're a little smaller than a golf ball, bu...

I have figs! Two years ago I planted a Chicago Hardy fig tree.   In November.   Right before that nuclear winter we had that lasted fore...

It's Februrary and that means it's marmalade season.   I love marmalade.  Nothing is as beautiful this time of year as a jar...

Confession.   I think kumquats are adorable. A. Dor. A. Ble. So I've been wanting to preserve some for a long time.   Just ...

Turns out we love the honey lemon tea concentrate that we made in the fall .    Especially with slices of fresh ginger dropped in the jars...

We harvested some honey from our deadouts in January and tucked it away in the pantry. Now it looks like this.  This is creamed ho...

The arctic vortex killed the last 2 of our hives.  Eric had skirted the bottoms and put up extra wind and weather protection, but those ...

We lost one of our hives early in December and since there's really nothing to do with it until things get warmer, I just covered the ...

I like the look of the beehives surrounded by some of our goldenrod.  You can't tell from the pic, but there's a nicely mowe...

I saved a few peaches back to try a  new recipe and was very happy with how it turned out. This glaze is sweetened with honey instead of w...

I love all sorts of lemon pickles and preserves .   The top shelf of the fridge and sometimes the window sills are crowded with lemon pick...

Last year I made some fabulous Onion Garlic Jam.    I added bacon to it and had some super fabulous Bacon Onion Garlic Jam .   It was to ...

I had a lot of frames with a bit of honey from the hive that died, so I saved three of them to put in a swarm trap.    I'm using a nu...

Here's another great recipe using honey instead of sugar.  It's a classic peanut butter cookie recipe only made with almond butte...

Our deadout had a lot of honey still in it and even though we opened up the hive for the bees from the lang to rob it out, the weather was w...

A couple of days ago I told you how I made mustard this year.    I took that mustard and decided it needed some honey.   Lots of honey.  ...

We got a bit of honey from our bees last year and I thought it would be nice to pair it up with some orange marmalade.   And then I thou...

I told you before that it's common for bees to rob other hives during this time of year . Given the prevalence of Pirate Bees around ...