Memorial Day Quilt

This is still a work in progress. The borders are not sewn together but this is the way it will look when finished. The outer border is fabric from the year 2000 - Millennium fabric and it has the year 2000 and the word Millennium on the fabric.
It's a good lap size quilt - about 48 x 60 - may be a little larger when it's finished.

I'll be making others to be given to the Veteran's Hospital but this one will stay with me.

Memorial Day, originally called Declaration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who died in our nation's service.

Let us not forget.

Bee Checkup

Today was bee checkup day. It's been several weeks since I added supers.

Nuc #3 - no change, in fact, I'm thinking the queen may be gone - there's bees and brood but I need to check and rethink what needs to be done to that hive.







As you can see, Hive #4 looks like a skyscraper compared to the other hives. I added a brood box on top - the super that was added 5/6/10 was completely full of honey. So now there's two brood boxes on the bottom, four supers and a brood box on top.






Nuc #1 - added an empty super.
Nuc #2 - added an empty super - the super added on 5/6/10 was full.
Swarm '09 hive - no change - they still had room in the top super which was added 5/12/10.


The brood box was added simply because I had one available and only had two supers with frames and they went on Nuc #1 and #2. So now I will have to take some honey - I'm completely out of frames and I don't want to buy any more equipment.
I should be able to take 5 or 6 supers full of honey and still leave plenty for the bees for the remainder of the summer.

A Quilt for Baby Boy

A special quilt for a special delivery in July - my first grandchild. This is one of the best quilts I think I've ever made - simple, great colors and the owl fabric for the backing is just awesome and with orange binding - well, it just works.

And the "parents to be" loved the quilt too.

Super Added Swarm '09 Hive

Today I added an empty super to Swarm '09 Hive. All the bees were working - our weather has been a little cool this week but it's supposed to heat up again this weekend.

Adding Supers

Yesterday morning, Mr. Ellis and I checked my hives again and we started about 9 since it has gotten hot again.

It's been just a couple of weeks since we added supers but this is their busy time.

This is a frame from Nuc #3 - lots of brood but they still had lots of space in the hive.

This is Mr. Ellis with a frame from Hive #4 - we took the top super which was already full of honey and put it in an empty super on Nuc #3 (this way we could get all the bees off before putting it on the nuc).

This will give the bees plenty of food when times get a little tough later and I won't have to feed them.

Hive #4 - this hive had filled a super that we put on 4/22/10, so another empty super was added today.

Nuc #1 - no change in this hive. They look good and lots of bees but they have not filled out their brood box. They need to fill out the space they have and I'll check in a couple of weeks and add a super if needed.

Nuc #2 - added an empty super.

Swarm '09 - will add an empty super this weekend (didn't have enough supers ready).

So all the hives looked really good, lots of bees and brood and they're bringing in pollen and working hard. I could have taken honey today - maybe 4-5 supers but I just wasn't ready.

But I'm running out of supers - gotta do it pretty soon.

Daisy's Quilt

My neighbors at the river, Sara and Steven, had a baby girl in December - Daisy Marie. I finally delivered her quilt. She is so cute and the farm animals on the quilt are just perfect for all of them. They have horses, chickens, rabbits, dogs and a cat and live on the river.

How good can it be!