animals in your life

[billy rubin]

springtime again

took the five surviving hives and divided the three strongest into 10 nucs. said to self, those others are still too puny to swarm. theres plenty of time.

anyway, as usual, i was wrong, and this is the third to swarm in the last week and i have no time to get ahead of them:

so im catching my bees out of bushes and trying to get em into boxes before they fly away. this one was awkward, right up in an elm and i couldnt get em all in a box and couldnt shake the tree. messed with em until they got pissed enough to start stinging me and then i said said fuggit

so i went from one hive last spring to eleven or so now. i did not buy queens this time around, just letting the bees raise their own queens as im not in a hurry to get productivity. cant do that indefinietely, as inbred bees get mean after a few generations, and im talking about seriously mean. i dont mind getting stung a bit, but ive worked with inbred bees so mean they chased me into the alfalfa and made me roll in it. that morning i shook 14 dead bees out of one boot. didnt take the other one off.

[billy rubin]

had to dig out the pressure tank for the well yesterday. not having water is a drag out here. had to haul water on the one ton for years here evrry summer, so i pay attentikn to the well operation.

but anyway, i flipped a piece of plywood next to the well and grabbed this beautiful lampropeltis, eastern milk snake they call em. not big, just about three feet, and very gentle.





mostly we see rat snakes here, elaphe they used to be, and this is the first lampropeltis ive caught.