We had some excitement last week with the bees. This is where we are currently.
Hive from the left to the right:
The brown hive has Russian bees.
The white box has Carniolan bees.
The decorative box with the cute roof has Carniolan bees. This is the hive that swarmed last week.
The hive on the right will be full of Russians after Paul splits the brown hive. That is if they haven’t swarmed and left already. We received another phone call saying the bees were spotted swarming again and then flew off to the North. Paul told the bees, “Good luck.” He doesn’t like working with the Russian bees because they are aggressive. Apparently the other breeds are calmer.
Paul doesn’t like the Russians and I don’t like the Saskatraz. Last year both our Saskatraz hives picked up and left around October. They took every drop of honey with them!
The two smaller hives in our backyard didn’t make it through the winter. Paul was diligent in brining them into the garage during the coldest part of the winter and we thought they were good. Two weeks before spring the warm weather tricked the bees and the cold snap that followed froze them. Paul said he won’t replace them until we move, because he doesn’t like mowing around them. I’m going to miss having a hive in our yard this summer.
We will have to see how our three hives do this summer and which hive makes it through the winter.
Yesterday, Paul’s parents neighbor said she saw the bees swarm, so we rushed over there, but didn’t see anything.
Paul went over this morning to check on the bees. The first hive he checked was the hive with the swarm he caught last week.
It’s doing very well!
How do we feed the bees? That top box is a feeder. We mix 1 lb of water to 1 lb of sugar. Heat the sugar to dissolve and then cool.
Pour the sugar water in the top tray. Both sides. The bees come up from the bottom of the hive and drink through the holes. They can’t get into the water and drown. After they drink, they go back down into the hive.
Paul went to the brown hive, the one suspecting of swarming yesterday. Paul didn’t get a chance to look inside.
Before Paul could open the top, he noticed bees were spilling out of the hive. Then the bees were flying everywhere. Maybe the neighbor did see them swarm?
A few minutes later they started to gather. Within 6 minutes we had a swarm on the top of the greenhouse.
Paul was about to get a broom and sweep them into a box, but he didn’t get a chance. As quickly as the bees arrived, the bees quickly left the green house and moved back into the hive.
The hives were quiet again, like nothing had happened.
Why are they swarming this year? Maybe because this is the first year were able to keep the hives alive through the winter. The brood has hatched so now they are too many bees for the hives. No room for all the bees so they pack up and move out.
Paul will be gathering some boxes and frames to split the hives. Hopefully we can be ready by this weekend before they swarm again.
The next morning Eli made me a waffle for my Mother’s Day breakfast. He did a fantastic job and it tasted so good. I was sooo hungry. He also loaded me up with donuts, a cinnamon roll, fruit, and juice. He is such a sweet little boy. Love him so much!
We loaded the car, check out of the hotel and drove to the McConkie Ranch Petroglyphs.
We started at the Upper Main Panel Trail.
I told my parents this would be an easy.8 mile hike. Ha!
My knees started to cry again.
Eli pulled my mom. My dad pushed my mom. Lulu went her own way.
We made it!
My little boy with Luci’s leash in his back pocket. He kept an eye on her the whole weekend.
Discussing with dad why I don’t remember this crazy vertical hike. I remember the petroglyphs being off the side of the road. He said that was in 9 mile canyon, near Helper. Oh… 🙂
I had to take a picture of this chunk of rock that fell.
If I hadn’t run 13 miles and stair stepped 4 miles the day before, this would have been an easy hike. It was steep though. We walked along the cliff to see the petroglyphs.
Another chunk….
And another. You would think this mountain was unstable 🙂
After we climbed down the mountain and back to the car, we talked to a Vernal resident. She said she ran the Dino half many times and it was a challenging race and the race description hides the difficulty. Yes! Thank you!! I now had confirmation that this race was challenging. 🙂
She also said the hike to the Three Kings is a nice hike. Not long. Just 1.3 miles round trip. I just couldn’t do it. I’m ready for the 4 hour car ride home with my slippers.
Since I have talked myself into running the Dino half again, we will do the three kings hike then. We will also have to bring binoculars to see the three kings as well.
After the race Paul wanted to go for a hike. I did NOT want to go. Neither did Eli. I pushed my sore feet into my hiking boots, packed some muffins, cheetos, bottled water and off we went.
We drove to Red Fleet Dinosaur Trackway Trailhead and started our 2 mile hike to the reservoir.
To mark the trail they painted dinosaur foot prints on the rocks. I told Eli they were real to motivate him to keep hiking to the next print. How else do you motivate a 7 year old to keep walking?
Those tracks kept him busy for the full 2 miles!
A few wild flowers along the way.
The cactus in this area was different. Little circle clumps.
Vernal is very beautiful.
Love the rocks.
Making our way to the reservoir.
If I had known it was going to be two miles of stair stepping, I would have kept my knee braces on. This trail was NOT flat. Lots of rocks and boulders. My knees were crying.
When we came to the reservoir we walked across a large flat rock that sloped into the water. We started searching for prints.
What to look for? We thought every little crack was a track and then we found one. Dilophosarus track!
And then many. Some were indented in the rock.
About six tracks walking toward the reservoir. When the sun went behind the clouds, the tracks illuminated and we saw many!
Look Eli! Dinosaur tracks!!
Look, Mommy! I’m on an Island!!
Little boys and water. It didn’t take him long before he lost interest in finding tracks and made his way into the water.
After running 13 miles and then hiking 4 more miles a few hours later was not fun. While searching for tracks and walking in the Mesozoic era just as the dinosaurs walked, I forgot about my feet and knees. It was pretty cool. I’m glad we did it.
After the bees were taken care of, we jumped in the car and headed to Vernal!
When we arrived we were hungry and needed to find something that wasn’t too greasy. Not a lot of restaurants to choose from, we ended up at Denny’s. Salmon, mashed potatoes, and broccoli to go. We grabbed food and went to the hotel to check in and eat. Either I was starving, or we ended up with someone who cooked a great salmon. It was surprisingly very good. Paul was delightfully surprised with his dinner as well.
The next morning we were at the bus at 6:00am. On top of Dry Fork Canyon by 6:20am. We had an hour to freeze before the race started. I drank my peach smoothie Paul made for me. I wasn’t going to have him make it due to us being out of town, but I couldn’t risk not having it. I packed the nutriBullet and Paul blended my smoothie this morning at 5:30am.
Mile 1! Lots to go.
Mile 5. The missionaries were there handing out water and powerade. I choked down powerade at each station so I could ration my bottle of pedialyte/ gatorade mixture to make it to the end of the race.
Want a picture with these beautiful mountains? Yes, I need a rest…er, I mean, Yes. I would like a picture with this nice back drop. 🙂
Next water stop. The sister missionaries.
Can’t forget this sister 🙂
Our cheering section. Blurry, but on the left is Dad, Lulu, Mom, Paul, Gage, Rin, and Eli. Court left us long ago. He was waiting for us at the finish line for a while now 🙂
I was almost walking at this point. Mile 1o was brutal with another gradual hill and then the wind! I wanted to give in. Then Eagle Mountain guy (20 years older than me!) showed me up by passing me, and saying hello. I sped up just a little bit, but I didn’t have anything left to give. If I push it, I will not finish. Ferelyn encouraged me the whole way. If she wasn’t running with me, I would have stopped to walk miles ago. She said this is going to be her last year running. Now what am I going to do? I’m not strong enough to motivate myself during races.
I finished 2:20. I am very pleased with my time. This was a challenging race. Lots of rolling hills. Not many consecutive down hills. Again, this was another canyon that went up instead of down!!
This was a hard race to prepare for and I was NOT ready for it. You name it, it stopped me from running. It was either the snow, cold weather, ankle issues, sinus infections, vertigo, or insomnia. I’m thrilled to just make it to the finish line.
Almost time for the kids fun run to begin.
I asked Gage to stay with the two littles and he said, “No. I’m out to win it!”
This little boy in front of Eli was crying the whole race. Eli helped him during the race and now at the end. I felt like that little boy crying during my race, ha!
Finished! Gage took 3rd!
After the race we drove by our old house. The neighborhood has grown, but it’s still the cute, quite street I remember.
Crazy enough, I’m thinking of running this one again.
My parents arrived at our house to pick up Paul so we could carpool to Vernal. Just as they finished packing the car, Paul received a phone call letting him know our bees have swarmed.
We knew this was coming. One of our hives was over flowing with bees. They were bearding on the outside of the hive and thousands of bees were on the ground next to the hive.
Paul went out and put another box on top hoping the would go up instead of out.
Well, the box didn’t work. The bees packed up and headed out.
They swarmed from the pasture to the bush in Paul’s parents backyard.
Paul grabbed his bee suit, a hive box, and they all went over to his parents house to gather the swarm.
With a shake, they went into the box. Easy as that 🙂
20,000-25,000 bees?
Their new home. Paul plugged the entrance so they can’t leave. They need to get used to their new home. If the entrance isn’t plugged, they will pick up and fly away again.
