Bees & Flowers

My life is all bees, honey, and tips at work right now so you're going to have to bear with bee-oriented shots, which I assure you is far more interesting than IT-oriented tips I'm working on in my day job. :) We're extracting honey - most honey we've ever had for two reasons. 1) At one hundred or so hives, we have more bees than we've ever had before. I think that's double what we had last year even after selling a number of nucleus hives (starter hives) in the spring. 2) We had a great raining winter and spring and it's keeping the flowers going and now the Mesquite is as well. Here it is early June and I'm still amazed at the flowers that are in bloom, fueling our bees. Awesome! Mark was particularly happy that the last bit of rain rejuvenated the Indian Blankets, as the bees love that and this kept them going with honey production. The first shot was at Rattlesnake bee yard near Marion (Tx). I was watching Mark, David and Ira pull the honey supers off the hives in order to begin extraction. I loved what was left on these frames when they pulled one of the supers off - looked like a skyline to me. And I wanted to eat it! lol. I shot the picture below at Deadman Creek bee yard at the Lazy U Ranch (a certified organic ranch).
 

A Flea, a Fire Ant, Thistle and Bees

One weekend, I accompanied Mark to our local Home Depot on Austin Street near Interstate 10. As we drove up, I exclaimed in frightful delight - what a great photo opportunity! I laughed and nearly jumped out of the truck to get a shot with the ginormous flea and fire ant. But then I spotted the Ortho salesman who had just spotted us. Probably my overly exuberant skip. Sigh...I really just wanted a picture standing near or under the blow-up critters but I didn't want to chat about insecticides so we snapped a quick shot and kept moving towards the opposite door. Now, besides this being a photo op I couldn't let pass, I think it's sort of an odd way to lull people over. How interesting to think a flea and a fire ant are appealing in that way. hmm.Now, to a more pleasant visual of the Seguin area, I'd like to share a lovely shot of the thistle that has bloomed nicely this year. I photographed it as I visited bee yards during our honey harvest. Lovely, lovely year for wildflowers. Here it is the beginning of June and we have tons of flowers everywhenuure!

Bee on Indian Blanket

Hello my friends - I'm on vacation while family is in town so I'm behind on all sorts of things including posting. Here's a shot I snapped last week when I visited the Lazy U Ranch where we have one of our bee yards. I love it out there - it's an organic ranch. Pretty cool concept in my opinion. I didn't even know there was such a program for ranches before we met the owner here.

Happy Fields of Flowers

Can't ask for a lovelier Seguin as of late. Y'all have a great weekend! And if you're going to Trade Days tomorrow, please come see me at our booth and say hi. We have a double booth behind the court house.

Oaks at Dusk

This is a shot I snap at the Farm bee yard along Highway 123 and Kingsbury. I roamed the hillside as we were "stuck" for a bit on the side of one of the lovely slopes. Note to you - do not attempt to turn your vehicle around and allow your tires to rest on any green. :-) Looks like the wet winter and spring has really soaked our grounds! It pretty much became ice under our tires and we managed to slide about eight feet down the hill. This is what the ground turned to after spinning tires for a bit and slip sliding around. Towards the tank.
 
Time to call for backup! Our friend David came to the rescue and brought along a very long cable and voila - we're pulled back up the hill. Thanks, David! It was still a lovely evening and I got some play time in while the beekeepers worked on getting us out of there. Here they are strategizing on the best way to proceed.

Luckily I had my boots on so I could explore all I wanted to without worry about bugs, bees and snakes. Poor Bluebonnets. Sorry we trampled you. We didn't mean to but you grab our tires and wouldn't let us go! Y'all have a great weekend!

Spring Breaks

Happy Spring Break, everyone! Seems like the whole state is on break this week. The work parking lot is mostly empty. Makes me just want to skip work and take pictures of all the blooming loveliness about town. I snapped this beauty out at the nearby My Father's Farm nursery on Highway 123 close to our house, which is very near the center of town. I always wonder if people realize there are over thirty bee hives on that nursery property. They are doing quite well out there between the abundant wild mustard blooms and now all sorts of different wildflowers are coming out. Very lovely to see.

Huisache in Bloom

Before I came to Texas and before Mark kept bees as more than just a hobby and way before we kept close track of what's blooming so that we know what our bees are feeding on...well, before all this, I never knew a thing about the Huisache. It, along with many other trees and low-to-the-ground plants, are in bloom right now and we couldn't be happier. Not only is the landscape taking on colors of the rainbow, but it means our bees are way happier this year than they were last year when the drought cut short the flowering season. So, happy eating little bees and happy eye-feast folks. Have a great week!

Revitalizing Rains

 
It's been a couple of weeks since our last great rainfall but we continue to see how alive the landscape has become with just a touch of rain. No amount of hand-watering can work the magic that real rain provides. It's wonderful! Things are green again and we even have flowers blooming, which is great news for our bees as well as for us. The color bloom we are seeing most is yellow - blooms of all sizes, large and small. The bees are loving it!

Butterflies and Thistle

This one if for Alan. :-) Thistle is here and so are the butterflies. We saw these along Big Oaks Road south of town a bit when we went to check on the bees out there. So many black butterflies everywhere - it was amazing! We had too many bee yards to check on so no time to get out of the truck. I got a few shots of the activity. We were wondering if these butterflies were competition for our bees as they all searched out nectar in this dry spring. The butterflies must be winning or the bees must not yet want thistle in their diet because we saw not one bee on the purple blooms.

Wildflowers in a Drought

This spring is nothing like last year's spring, that's for sure. Last year we had abundant rain. This year? Dry, dry, dry. And more dry. We need rain! And yet we still are able to see and enjoy some beautiful wildflowers. I know it's nothing like in the years we have rain, but I'd say we're lucky we have what we do! This is a variety that Mark picked from one of our bee yards for a photo shoot for our honey products. I just LOVE all the colors and how different each kind of flower is. The color, shape and scent of each is amazing. This is what goes into our honey that is being made by our bees. I love it.

Wildflowers & Artfest/Trade Days

Today's post is brought to you by some of the gorgeous yellow wildflowers currently in bloom in our lovely state. Hope you have been able to get out and see some of the blooms in the fields. This year we've not had the rain we needed, yet flowers are popping up all around. Perhaps the dry winter and spring gave these rare flowers an opportunity to pop up more noticeably. Not sure. All I know is that I've not seen these before so I thought I'd share here. Anyone have any idea what they are called?

It's been a crazy week for us so we haven't had a chance to share that Artfest is happening down on the square tomorrow from 9a to 5p. There's also a Trade Days and that's where Mark, Belinda and I will be all day - selling our delicious Gretchen Bee Ranch honeys and bees wax products. Hope you will stop by our booth near the gazebo if you are down there tomorrow. We'll have our first double booth with our big ole double canopy. We're big time now! :-) Mainly, just come by, say hi and sample some honey. We'd love to see you.

Summer Bloom

It's been blazing hot lately but nothing like last year, that's for sure. In our garden, we still have several sunflowers left to enjoy though they are fading. I'm still amazed at many different blooms we have seen this year and it's still kicking. On our drive to Lost Pines (Bastrop) this weekend, we saw many fields of sunflowers (the smaller variety) and other very small yellow flowers (not sure what they are). It was lovely!

I hope you all have a really WONDERFUL week ahead!

Flower Explosion

This spring has been one of the best flowering springs I have experienced in my 15 years living here and I am happy I stayed here long enough to enjoy such a sight! Every time I drive somewhere, I am truly amazed at the new flowers that have appeared that weren't there a week ago. And many of these I haven't seen here before. It's wonderful!

Currently, it seems there are a lot of yellow and purple flowers of different varieties blooming. BUT...there are also these beautifully delicate white flowers (anyone know the name) along with the Indian Blanket shown below. By the way, the bees LOVE Indian Blankets. They were all over these as I was photographing at a friend's home out in the country this evening. We ate dinner before heading out to see Jim, who had contacted Mark about a swarm. I guess we took too long for they were gone when we got there though Mark said they were likely nearby as they were buzzing the flowers pretty well. Thanks for showing us around, Jim!

Spring Flowers

More loveliness of spring blooming all around us.

Fields of Color

Today we went driving on Hwy 90A towards Gonzales in order to check on the bee yard out there. It's gorgeous along the way! If you haven't seen enough wildflowers, then you need to go out that way. I love how the blue and the red flowers are mixing in this area. Last time we were out that way (a couple of weeks), the Bluebonnets were not even around yet. This time, you can find many fields of blue. And yellow, purple, lavender, violet, white and so on. It's a great spring so far with the bright sunny days after a good dose of rain.

Red Wildflowers

The flowers are starting to really pop around here and I can't wait to see how they develop over the next month. The rainy winter should really be just what they need to shine this year. I love looking at all of them! I have not seen these red flowers in such quantity before this year. If you know what they are, please let us know. :-)

Flower Power

This morning I ran a bunch of errands while Mark rested as he was feeling a bit under the weather. There were so many people out and about today since Trade Days happened down on the square (I have blogged about this before) so it seemed like everyone took advantage of the event and tagged on their own yard/garage sale or cookout fundraiser. All I know is that there was a ton of traffic. Not SA "ton" but a lot for our little town.

While I was out and about, I took some time to just roam around and enjoy the blooming beauties about town. Not only are the gardens fully engaged (though ours is a bit behind since we waited so long), but there are plenty of flowers to enjoy as well. I shot this along Camp Street. The wind was gusting a bit and it was fun to try and sneak in some shots between gusts. I like this one because it reminds me of the fun I had trying to beat the wind. To me, I can feel the wind in this shot.

All I think about when I see flowers now is that our little bees are hopefully enjoying all the pollen! :) They are doing well. We took a look at the three backyard hives and they were active. We watched them for a while and noted that they were carrying in plenty of pollen on their little legs. So cute. And the pollen was all different colors. I really enjoyed it. Smokey sat with us for a while also. He loves it when we're out there with him. He's so like a little kid sometimes.

What we did this evening and are doing now:

1. Went shopping for work clothes for me. Thanks honey! Mark gives awesome fashion advice and I really trust his opinion on my outfits!
2. Had dinner at the Noodle House in SA. We both did pho. Yum.
3. Listening to Diana Krall. I love her!
4. Blogging and loading pictures onto Flickr.
5. Mark's playing with his new webcam. Now I can see him when I'm on the road!
6. Thinking about work. And what I SHOULD be doing. :-\

Sea of Bluebonnets

So it's not Seguin...but I didn't think anyone would mind seeing Navasota's wildflowers since we didn't have any to speak of around here.

After we got the bees, Mark helped me find nice spots to snap photos of the flowers. It was gorgeous! Before I came to Texas, I had no idea what a Bluebonnet was and once I saw my first blue sea of bonnets, I was in love. It's breathtaking when you see a field of them! I got some great shots of the flowers and it was all worth the fall I took while trying to get to the field. I think my excitment got the best of me and I didn't see the barbwire on the ground so my feet got tangled in it all and I went face down...hard and fast! Mark said one second I was there and then next blink I was gone. All I know is that I was stunned. Too stunned to yelp or scream and then I was motionless for a little bit. It was funny, it really was.

I save the camera in my left hand and the phone in my right. My forearms arm are bruised and upper arms hurt but all of that is subsiding already and I'm grateful I didn't break anything, camera or body. :) Like I said, the photos made up for it. But I do notice my body is NOT as forgiving as it once was.

Pink Primrose

Primroses in the backyard. The lack of rain meant a not so great wildflower spring. :(