Apples, apples, more apples. Crab apples, Norton apples, applesauce, apple jelly, apples and strawberries. Apples for me, apples for you, and you, and you. Apples for the sheep.
We now have the rams and some wethers at home on enough pasture for a couple of hundred sheep, can hardly see them in the tall grass. My husband actually went out and mowed the field in front of the house so the sheep could see an approaching coyote - and the coyotes are here nightly, singing their hearts out while Josie the Guardian barks and protects. The rams love garden treats - pea pods, carrot tops, beet tops (yes, we eat them too), extra zucchini, vines of anything that’s finished producing, and this year - apples!
I’ve done all I can with apples. The peas are filling out now, the cukes are happening, beets… a busy, busy time.
…and an update on the bees. Our bee master found time to visit, gotta love this man. He and my husband had a good look at our colony. They are healthy, active, filling up the second brood chamber with a winter’s supply of food. But honey for us won’t be happening this year. We don’t know why but we learned, once again, more about bees. They may have swarmed. The queen may have been weak. The bees may not have liked the queen for whatever reason - pheromones, weak?? If they decide the queen must go they surround her in a tight ball, so tight you’d have a hard time breaking it up, essentially smother her, boot her out of the hive and make another queen.
So, as we always say in Alberta, this is next year’s country. We will protect the hive as best we can (time now apparently to insert strips to kill mites) from the winter’s extreme weather conditions, and hopefully have a strong, healthy colony come spring and many kilos of honey next fall.
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