Tiptoethrough

Friday, April 6, 2012

Our week in pictures...

I hope you all had a great week and a fantastic long weekend if you do indeed have one! I thought I would share a little round up of my instagram pictures as a look back on our week. There was plenty of time outdoors, gardening and beekeeping... I'm so throughly impressed with the bees, I am guilty of some childlike wonderment for sure. It does my heart good. Thus don't be surprised to see more beekeeping posts in the future!

Our two new beds look more like coffins, but are a vast improvement from our deteriorating stone bed that was full of ants... We filled them with dirt this morning, which means next up is planting towards the end of the month and a sand box and green teepee for the little one ASAP.

Here I am looking stellar with bed head and garden clothes- and my ghostbuster-esque flame weeder that we used to kill the large ant nests that were built beneath our beds. Some times you have to be extreme. I aint afraid a no ants!

little dogs enjoying the peace that comes with the toddler's nap time.

The little miss before our weekly music class.

Received our saltwater sandals this week. I like the yellow, they will work well with my bone white legs that never tan. And the toddler ones ran big (?) so I might just keep the red ones for the babe to grow into. sizing and colors were limited but the results are cute! ; )

The bees flying around the hive after we smoked them so we could get in their and add a few more screens and replenish the sugar water.

While doing a bit of bee maintenance on Thursday- we spotted the queen of hive #1. She is marked with a yellow dot and has a long solid-tan body. Hello your highness! So awesome.

The bees made two large combs in the 5 days they have been living in the hives. Unfortunately we had to remove them since they were in the way of where we needed to put other screens, (in the gap created by the queen's temporary travel cage). It's a shame that their work was in vain, but they can still gather the orange pollen and use it again... very impressive, mad respect!

a little floral treat

Dad and Daughter after nap time... another long week where Cam hasn't seen much of the babe...

Little goodies for the babe's easter basket. I knit her a lamb, and two eggs (I'm under the allusion that I can knit her one more thing by Sunday...!?) and the Boston pillow I scored on FAB back in February after receiving a fatty site credit! Have a great weekend!

abs

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Beekeeping: Releasing the Queen

On Tuesday the beekeepers removed the queen from the cage where she was held during transportation. It takes a while for the group of bees to accept their queen, but once everything looks copasetic, it's game time and the beekeeper can remove her and introduce her to her kingdom. Here are some pictures from this coronation ceremony of sorts. ; )

The husband lighting the smoker with pine needles. (which heat up fast.)

smoking out the bees.

the beekeepers (wearing their version of beekeeping clothes- i.e. clothes they don't mind having bee poo all over!)

The queen is in her cage which was stapled to the screen on Sunday.

Unfortunately we don't have a picture of the queen, since I had to stay away and continue wrangling our toddler from running towards the excitement. She'll learn, but not today!

Then on Wednesday my brother took these AMAZING images of the bees returning loaded up with Pollen! Dam their awesome!!!

Links and Such

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Hey all! Well I missed last week's Links and Such since were vacationing in Maine for a few short days (too dam short if you ask me!)... so I'm excited to serve up a big heaping of links for you to enjoy! Have a great end to your week!

Now that's what I call a ROOF!
for easter- water color dyed eggs
is it weird that I want to dress like this this season?
how to build a beehive for kids
mmm this yarn looks lovely!
kid friendly- montessori inspired rooms
recipe: green tea, strawberry, lemonade smoothie
name rings
medusa pendant- jellyfish lights
how to make a plaster townhouse planter!
more added to "Mother's Day Gift Guide"

and in case you missed it:

A Love Letter to Spring: Easter Edition
ode to the coast of Maine (a mini recap of our trip)
I'm now blogging about my family's beekeeping adventures (a follow up post going up later today)
Vintage aprons now on SALE
NEW to my studio shop- vintage photographs

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Ode to the Coast of Maine, As seen from Wolfe's Neck State Park

We had a pretty full "to-do" list for our trip to Maine last week, and right at the top was going on a little hike at Wolfe's Neck State Park. This became a favorite destination for the husband and I... I would hike here when I was pregnant in the summer of 2010. Even two days before she was born- the husband took me here and inadvertently made me climb a very steep hill! Which I did because I am a rockstar. And then we brought the wee babe back here at only a few months old during a very snowy hike ... this was a place we saw ourselves bringing our daughter through out the years... moving from Maine has thrown a bit of a wrench in our plans ; ) but we will squeeze in trips in the time between grad school and our return to the state. ANYWAY- I wanted to share with you some pictures and a little video I took. It was lightly snowing when we arrived and it was low tide. I could have stayed there all day just soaking in the view and the silence, it was very peaceful. But with a toddler in toe, lunch and nap time determined our schedule... If you ever find yourself in Freeport Maine- check out Wolfe's Neck, it's truly awesome.

"wow!"

She had a great time picking up little snails and rocks, she was captivated. So much so that she didn't notice how wet she got, until she DID and then poof back to the car we went!

Her pants drying out on our drive back into Freeport for lunch. (The husband wrapped our fleece picnic car blanket around the baby's legs to warm her up. Thankfully the blanket lives in the trunk all year long! genius.)

Sacked out on our way back into Portland.

I'll share more about our trip through out the rest of the week. In two more installments- "Road tripping with a toddler" and a "General pictorial recap of sorts..." I felt that the coast deserved it's own feature. Have a great day!

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Beekeeping: Introducing the Bees to their Hive

It's been a dream of my husband's to keep bees. He took an apiary class in college and growing up a friend in Alaska kept bees and sold the honey. He seems like the perfect beekeeper, calm and sweet. ; ) But up until last summer we didn't have a place to keep bees... But then my sister-in-law and brother bought a cute little house in Pennsylvania (about a 10 minute drive away). My sister-in-law also wanted to keep bees (along with chickens and other awesome domestic fare). Last year we gave them the Bee Keeper's Bible as a House warming gift and then my husband got one for christmas (it's an amazing book, I highly recommend it!). So after attending a few local beekeeping meetings, they ordered their bees this spring and set to making the hives. Then this past Sunday they introduced their bees to the hives. It was pretty exciting to watch and I thought you might like to see some pictures and see how they did it!

The bees in their transportation hive. Did you know that they only poo when they fly!? so they had been holding "it" a long time during their voyage from Georgia. Needless to say the bee keepers were covered with yellow bee poo.

The Queen Bee arrives in a little cage with bees surrounding her, with a few whose personal job it is to feed her. The cage was stapled to the new hive before the remaining bees were dropped in. This Wednesday, if it appears that all of the bees are loyal to the Queen, the beekeepers will release her from her cage and the bees will get to work!

Hannah dumping the rest of the bees into the hive. While doing this- they sprayed the bees with sugar water to feed them and to ensure they would be full, calm, and a bit slow, not agitated and therefore wouldn't be so ready to sting. If they did sting, the beekeeper's have a spray bottle full of rubbing alcohol that they spray on the sting to remove the scent that calls the other bees to sting. This was only used twice on Sunday. ; )

Then sugar water was placed in the top of the hive. This will feed them while they get adjusted and settled in their new digs. Eventually more screens will be placed in the top for the bees to comb up with honey!

not stinging, just hanging out...

The bees being emptied into the second hive.

Pretty exciting stuff! I'll be sure to report back on how this beekeeping adventure goes. I guess it's rare to have honey the first year, but it would be cool! Regardless, I've read how nice it is to sit and watch bees during different times of the day, coming and going, busy about their task... how calming it is, and how it seems to reset one's own hectic pace of life. I'm in!

Monday, April 2, 2012

A Love Letter to Spring: Easter Edition

HI All!!! Hope your weekend was great!? We have recovered from our spring break trip up north to Maine and I have much to share- a little recap of our trip including videos of the beautiful Maine coast, tips on traveling with a toddler, and then Sunday's epic first day of Bee Keeping!! So stay tuned for all that this week. In the meantime, I thought a little Easter Edition of my weekly Love Letter to Spring, was in order. Do you have any traditions I should know about!? This year we will be giving the toddler her first Easter basket (since last year all she was interested in was nursing!) and I think we will try dying eggs with natural dies like beets, onion skins, cabbage, grape juice and vinegar (as seen above). Have a great Monday!