The Wordy House 2.0
The Wordy House was established on April 30th, 2011. It is an 8-frame medium garden hive from the Brushy Mountain Bee Farm and its tenants are Italian honeybees from Rossman's Paiary in Georgia. In its first year, The Wordy House swarmed, was repeatedly robbed, fought off wax moths, and had to be moved on the property not once, but twice. The light winter of 2011/12 helped them survive only to loose them in the late fall of 2012 when the hive mysteriously emptied of bees on its own. New bees were purchased in April of 2013 and to my surprise, they made a new queen in their second week!
The inspiration for this hive's name came while watching an episode of Destination Truth. The DT team was in Antarctica investigating The Wordie House, an abandoned building that was part of a British scientific research center. One tweak and it was a perfect fit for a verbally dexterous beekeeper who loves words! |
Honey Plantation 2.0
Honey Plantation was established in June of 2012. It is an 8-frame medium flat-top hive from Conrad's Bee Supplies/City Folk Farm Shop in Clintonville. Its first tenants were bees from The Wordy House! In May of 2012, after finding 14 queen cells in The Wordy House, Michael Duncan and I split the hive to keep them from swarming. After a 4-week quarantine on Michael's property, they returned happy, healthy and with a new Queen, only to loose them suddenly in September of 2012 when the hive emptied of bees over a 5 day period. The 2013 generation comes to Hodgepodge Cottage as gift from Michael, who due to allergies, had to relocate his hives.
The inspiration for this hive's name came while watching an episode of The Big Bang Theory. Sheldon likes to frequent the national chain restaurant Souplantation. Incredulously he complains, "The (restaurant's) name always confused me. You can't grow soup!" And you can't grow honey either. Bazinga! |