Early Spring and Spring Break

First post on my new blog and I have a tun to talk about! Spring Break has officially started as its now Monday and that means hard work of Gifted Expo Projects! What is that you may ask? The reason I have ventured onto this endeavor! More intelligently put, it is a full semester long independent study period in which something interesting to the student is researched and put into practical use. In my case, that topic is beekeeping. I have already gone through half of the semester as last friday marked the end of the quarter, and that time has been full of bee biology research. I even traveled from Chicago to Minneapolis to partake in the prestigious short course: Beekeeping in Northern Climates, which was incredibly helpful. Now its nearing fourth quarter- spring is jumping into action, and thus I must as well.

For those of you in the Chicago-land area, you already know about this ridiculous weather we've been having. Hopefully you've also noticed that its been great for the bees as well. I believe that I've seen more honey bees in the past few weeks then I have in the past few summers. That said, its been a real rush for me, as a new beekeeper, to keep up with the weather. If I want by what I know about hiving a new package of bees, then I would have at least two extra weeks until I needed to get them in, but I was walking my dog the other day, and the dandelions are already blooming and the bees already swarming! There happens to be a swarm of bees checking out a small hole in the brick wall of my house, but there seems to only be about five workers. That said, they have started going into the hole for the night, so I can only assume they have moved in and are passed the "checking out" stage of swarming. Hopefully they move on their own, but at this point I find it rather hard to believe that they will.

Along with that little bump in the road, there is also the problem of bring my yard up to par with the regulations on beekeeping in Palatine. The tree that fell in the big wind storm we had a few weeks ago is still laying on my backyard. Sometime this week it will be removed. The delay was caused because we were comparing bids on a few different companies, but now we have decided and the work will get rolling. The next hurdle after that is the fence. Bids for that will be coming on Wednesday and hopefully it will be installed before the end of next week if all goes well. (Again this weather is causing much rushing and creating quite a time crunch.)

On a lighter note, I just called Long Lane Honey Bee Farms and asked them about their walk in store. My mom and I are planning on visiting this Wednesday to purchase the hive and personal equipment. It is a hour drive, but I think it will be worth it to go and talk to the people who know what their doing and see what we are going to buy before we bring it home. I feel pretty confidant at this point that we will get the bees in their hive by the end of the first week of April. It was pretty nerve racking for a while, but now everything seems to be moving well.

Environmental Helping Tip of the Post:

Now that its getting warm again we will all be tempted to turn up that air conditioner, but just by keeping it two (2) degrees warmer then you would have put it, you could help save valuable energy. You don't even have to compromise either! Make up those two degrees by turning on a low-powered fan. That said, we all know that in Chicago the spring weather can go all over the graph. When it gets to be a comfortable temperature, turn off your thermostat entirely and open up your windows to let out that stale winter air and let in the fresh spring breeze. Lastly, don't forget to turn it down (make it cooler when its cold, hotter when its warm) when you go to sleep- your body is pretty good at regulating its own heat then and you can always add a cozy blanket!

Environment Protection Agency
http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/0B2A59279C9C66A8852578BF005550CE