Larus

A brief recap: last year was my first year keeping bees. I kept them in a friend's yard in the city, but those friends decided that having beehives in their yard is not for them. So, I moved my hives temporarily to the country, into the apiary of a sideline beekeeper who I know from our county beekeepers club. In the process of the move I lost one hive because I made a rookie mistake and shut them in too tight for too long. The other hive overwintered successfully, and in the meantime ...

I have drone brood in my colonies already. Lots of pollen and

nectar coming in. I probably won't have to feed my bees anymore until I get packages. I will be able to divide all of them at least once by mid-April. I am busy making equipment to handle the extra 20 or more hives I did not count on. The early fruit trees and dandelions will be blooming by early to mid-April.

- A local sideline beekeeper posting on our club's online message board on 3/18/12

Spring has hit very early ...

As I mentioned in the previous entry, there's a word in Russian - "bortnik" that refers to someone who works bees, but doesn't have an exact translation into English. It comes from an archaic Russian word "bortye" or "bertye", meaning "a tree cavity". Before hives with removable frames made their way into Russia, beekeeping was practiced by preparing cavities in standing trees with special tools, sometimes years ahead of time, and making sure these cavities ...

This is my previous entry, translated from Russian (you were right, Crackerbee) into English by a person, not by Google.

"May I get stung to death by drones..."

As a child, I read a book by James Fenimore Cooper (can't remember which one). I read it in Russian translation, and never finished the book. But I remember a character in the book who was a "bortnik" by profession*. I remember it was the first time I encountered the word "bortnik", ...

В детстве я читал одну книгу Джеймса Фенимора Купера (уже не помню название). Читал я её ...