beekeeping, in the dirt, urban plot

February thaw

Posted on by annabel
23
Feb

The sun is shining and the snow is melting. It’s been a long, cold and snowy winter and today we went over to take a look at how things survived the polar vortex and other gems of this season. The hoop house was balmy and smelled kind of like cabbage due to the overwintered kale within. Most of it has passed, probably due to too little sun and water (partly our own neglect), but we tried to revive a few plants that look promising in the hopes that we might get a couple more harvests out of it. The rest we pulled and composted. Under the snow outside lives a bed of parsnips, which we decided to harvest before the ground thaws and rots the precious roots. We had harvested some of these through the fall and early winter and got a good final haul today.

This is the bed that was covered in snow and the dirt covered parsnips.
This is the bed that was covered in snow and the dirt covered parsnips.
Hosed down parsnips.
Hosed down parsnips.

And, although winter isn’t over yet, the bees are still alive! They were out in full force, cleaning out the dead bees, taking a poo, and probably looking for food.

You can see the bees buzzing around the hive as well as the dead ones in front of it.
You can see the bees buzzing around the hive as well as the dead ones in front of it.