What a week it has been here in Iowa. It has been many years since I can remember an ice storm this bad. We have had 2 days where we did not have electricity for most of the day. Our phone line was out also (yes - we still have a landline)! Thank goodness for cell phones. And thank goodness for generators. When I pulled into our little neighborhood last night it was COMPLETELY dark - what an eerie feeling. Huge chunks of ice are falling off the house and they sound like big crashes of thunder. Things are much better today but no sunshine - everything is just boring gray. My pictures look like I was using black and white only! How I miss the sunshine and we aren't supposed to see any until Tuesday!! Tropical sounds better all the time. I know these inconveniences are nothing at all to what the people of Haiti are going through. So I count my blessings, do the best I can and try and help out others in need.
A week ago we checked our bees and we were pleasantly surprised. We had some small late season swarms that we were able to catch and knew we would be lucky if they made it through the winter. Two of them did not, but the rest of the hives looked good and still had plenty of food reserves left. I have always been anxious for spring, but I think a beekeeper in a cold winter climate is more anxious than most!
Hard to believe it stays over 90 degrees in there!
