Winter, astronomical winter that is, arrived on December 22, 2011 at around 12:30 AM CST. Fast-forward a week, and we do have a tiny amount of snow and the ambient air temperature is often below +32 degrees F (0 C), but it honestly does not feel like winter. There are things such as snowshoeing, snowmobiling and ice fishing which northern minnesotans usually partake in during the winter that hasn't been possible thus far. For the Jokela household we do not snowmobiling (fumes & noise) or much ice fishing (not enough time and equipment) but we are fans of snowshoeing. Hopefully sometime in the next few weeks we will get enough snow to be able to enjoy this season called winter. The snowshoes, skijouring harness and dog booties are all ready to be used. The new dog-hauler is ready to rolls, as well.
Even with a tiny bit of snow here in Proctor, it feels more like late fall than actual winter. On Christmas day, however, headed up the shore of Lake Superior to Judge C. R. Magney State Park (see Devil's Kettle - Snowshoeing the North Shore for my last visit to this gem of Northern Minnesota). Along the way to the park, we made our traditional Christmas day stop in Grand Marais, MN. We had the hounds in tow with us this year as we now have a swanky hound-mobile with room for all four dogs. Windy and colder than at our southern end of the North Shore, but gorgeous none-the-less.
Right next to viewing the Devil's Kettle in Judge C. R. Magney Park, as far as my favorite sights of the North Shore, is being able to look down (south) from Grand Marais and see the Sawtooth Mountains cut across the horizon. It is particularly spectacular as sundown is nearing.
Even with the great sights of Grand Marais and the strangeness of being in a town on Christmas day that appears to be completely empty and the only things working are the one or two stop lights; the whole region - from Proctor in the south to Grand Marais in the north, does not feel like winter. Maybe by Valentine's Day we will winter, maybe?
Honey & Bee season has closed. The Ahrens' bee-yard was winterized a week or two ago, and the hive (yes, singular) here in Proctor was winterized yesterday. On the honey production curve, when looking at the number of hives that we had going into the summer versus the honey produced at the end, it would be seen as a terrible year. The caveats abound, however. We generally do not pull honey from new, first year hives; that would have ruled out eleven hives. We did have a bit of a swarming issue with our experimental Russian bees, and I hope to detail that in a separate post. In the end, we harvested sixty pounds (27.2 kg) of honey from our two hives at the Proctor bee-yard.
Prior to just a few days ago, winter was no where to be seen; the snow, frost and freezing daytime temperatures were stuck to the north of us in Canada. We had been taking advantage of the oddly nice (by our standards) weather. We were in a sort of weather purgatory; it was nice out, but it would have been great to be nicer but it is not going to stay this nice very long. By January-weather-standards, this sunny and 50 degrees F (10 degrees C) is fantastic, but the recent weather was much like April weather; while we are able to comfortably work outdoors with a light shirt, jeans and regular shoes (no boots), it was still dropping below freezing at night. I look at photos of the yards, and of the grass and foliage from June, and all are lush and deep green; a deep green color that only comes with countless "applications" of nitrogen rich urea from the hounds. With daylight each day, getting shorter by minutes, we leave for our day jobs in the dark, and arrive back home in the dark. This arrangement is not conducive for working outdoors and often results in worm tunneling around with a flashlight in the dark trailing hounds in an attempt to keep up with their "deposits". I have been tending to sit inside, with a hot cup of coffee and my laptop.
When the cold weather arrives, I tend to tinker with this or plan for spring about that. Spring seed catalogs have started arriving in the mail, as well. But, the recent nice weather did allow for a very strange sight: gardening, in northern Minnesota, in mid-November. We actually put in another garden.
There had been fencing around a row of grapevines, but having since removed a large, ramshackle compost bin from one end of the stretch, the hounds had found ways of getting into the vineyard area. This was unacceptable. Three feet (one meter) out from the wire fence, we sunk new fence posts into ground and secured them in concrete. We stretched new wire fencing, and fill the new enclosure with black dirt. With a couple hundred crocus and allium bulbs on hand, Melissa set to work making a nice flower-border that should look nice in the spring.
As the honey & bee season closed out, a new, hopefully continuous season started: eggs. The chickens started to lay last week, and are currently at a plateau of four eggs per day.
The weather in northern Minnesota continues to be, at best, cooler and wetter than normal. High winds have also accompanied the cold, wet weather. This has made for sporadic conditions for the bees to venture out from their homes to do their thing. It is not to say they have had zero opportunities; upon opening any of the hives - even ones that are perceived to be in a weakened state - the top bars of the frames are dusted with the bright yellow of dandelion pollen. The frames of nectar are stacking up, too, even with sporadic abilities to reach the nectar in the field.
Hive #10 has had a bit of a storied history. Started last with a package of bees originating from Chico, California, hive #10 had its first queen issue a month after installing the package. With no queen, a worker picked up the call to duty and started to lay eggs. That would be all well and good if workers could just take up the roll of a fertile queen and produce workers; instead, when a worker lays eggs, you will always get drones. Those lazy bugs that just take up space and look out of place with their enormous eyes.
A queen was ordered from Kentucky to replace the missing queen from California. The requeen on hive #10 went well, but we never did get any honey from it last season.
Hive #10 made it through winter and looked be a good candidate for being the source-hive for one or more splits (see my previous post on splits). Unknowingly, and being very new to the world of splits, the source-queen most likely made it into the new hive. This would explain why I had issues "requeening" - the new hive did not need a new queen because it had the original, older queen. On the note of having issues requeen - the new, Russian queen, was freed from her cage (this time). So, what happens with a hive with two queens? It will be a like cage fight; they will fight to the death and the stronger of the two will survive.
This leaves me with a currently strong hive in limbo because of a lack of a queen. There were numerous empty, partially constructed queen cells, but nothing that would suggest a the kingdom was about to throw off a new queen. Without a queen laying female eggs, and after sufficient time for all the existing female eggs to have gone from egg to larva to pupa to adult - there are no viable eggs to be turned into a queen. I did a bit of Internet searching and found several options for purchasing queens, but eventually wandered back to Kelley Bees (out of Kentucky). This is the same outfit that I have been getting my queens from for a while now; particularly this season.
In addition to all the queen drama, the apiary at the Ahrens is set to expand by two more hives. My beekeeping apprentice, Beth, is getting setup with her own hive. I am setting her up with a new Russian queen and several frames from a strong hive of mine. The other hive is getting bees from our neighbors to the north in Thunder Bay, Ontario. I am heading up there with a group from the Cook County (North Shore) Hobby Beekeepers on June 4, 2011. There has been considerable effort on the part of Thunder Bay Beekeepers' Association to keep their area free of mites. I hope to write more about their efforts and my adventure north of the border in another post.
I also received word from the land owners of the Ahrens yard that a neighboring farm had beef cattle and several sheep wander through the field in front of the hives; lets hope that the trail camera caught the beasts moseying along and perhaps the ensuing, Benny Hill-like persuit.
Including Jay Cooke State Park in the south, and Grand Portage State Park in the north, there are nine parks along (or very close to) the northern shore of Lake Superior. During the winter months, Lake Superior, the regions up and into its tributaries and its shore all have a certain elegance and harshness about them. While some folks try to escape the ice and snow of the region - heading to places where the sun shines during the month of December - I would rather take advantage of fewer people and a chance to see some of the North Shore's highlights in a different, physical state.
The winter solstice seems to have come and gone; I will admit, I missed the lunar eclipse on the solstice. I am somewhat disappointed in having missed something that last occurred in the year 1638. It is not like I had any pagan rituals planned, moreover, it is not like I had anything planned.
It has been a hectic month; and an event crazier week. On the 27th of July, the area was hit with heavy rain. As the evening rolled in, I was cooking dinner (sweet potatoes with quinoa and various vegetables; I have embraced being a mostly-vegetarian). Melissa was standing in the back entryway with the door open; she was watching the heavy rain come down in sheets. The back sidewalk was submerged as the water rolled down from the driveway. I continued to cut and clean vegetables. At about 5:30 PM, something hit the window above the sink; then again, and again - then a lot all at once. It was hail. Melissa watched the yard become littered with nickel-sized hail balls (15 millimetres for you metric people). Lightning flashed and without delay a tremendous crack of thunder sounded. Melissa shut the door. The storm was directly over our little town. Without warning, the wind picked up. The hail slammed against the house; more thunder and lightning.
March came and went, then April arrived. Very little rain in April, but things were greening up nicely. The willows flowered, and then the dandelions started their bloom. April left, and May arrived. There are a litany of various quaint and tired things people say about the weather in Duluth. I am a bit of a curmudgeon today, so I am not going to list these trite -isms. I bring this up, because, today, it snowed. I rather do not mind the snow; it is slightly annoying that I am not able to go out, dig in the dirt and the like.
I have been busier than usual with the-day-job. I was in Minneapolis yesterday; I headed out at 5:45 AM and returned home around 6:00 PM. Very long day, but the weather in Minneapolis was fantastic; it also happened to be Beautiful U Day at the University (not sure I have been clear - by day, I am employed by the University of Minnesota and work on the Duluth campus, but I frequently have meetings in Minneapolis, outside the day-job, I tinker with machines, tend hounds, tend bees, grow gardens and program esoteric computer things - like compostb.in - a compost-centric app for the iPhone). The non-day-job things ground me, and keep me relatively sane. Anyway, Beautiful U Day happened to have a really beautiful day. The tulips were blooming, the flowering crabtree in front of Morrill Hall and Northrup Auditorium was blooming (and smelled wonderful). With all the flowers in bloom, I kept an eye out for pollinators, but, unfortunately, I did not see any. Not even a bumblebee. Depending on your political leanings, you might blame Karl Rove, who happened to be visiting campus yesterday, or, you could blame the protesters who were protesting Karl Rove's visit. Either way, I was slightly saddened by the lack of visible insect life on such a great day.
The weather has certainly not been bee-friendly here in the Duluth area. However, we had a wonderful weekend for getting the two packages of bees + queens into their new homes. The weekdays have been overcast, cold and very windy. Today rain was added into that mix. We desperately needed the rain. The dirt driveway was starting to show signs of dry-cracking.
We awoke yesterday to a brisk morning; -13F (-25C). The car was stiff and air felt slightly damp. It was cold outside; it was 4:30 AM.
My wife had to be into work early and since we carpool and work at the same place, I was headed in with her.
My office has no windows and is technically underground (http://bit.ly/bbZlRx); a mid-morning meeting had me heading above ground to an office with windows; much to my surprise, the sun was out. The snow was also melting.
