The Willow Springs Bee Blog is back in action for another year!
Our imaugural WS beeyard
event, held on Mother's Day, May 13, was to be the day that the beeyard
posts went in and the electric fence was installed. Those of us involved
thought we had planned this as thoroughly as we could via e-mail, but
obviously, we were lacking in the visualization part of the process -
that is, we all had a different vision of what the outcome would be!
We
ended up having an exclusive lesson on fencebuilding from Brian
Biesenthal (Thanks Brian!), who patiently guided Ayla Ludwig and myself
through post-hole digging (no big rocks thankfully), sinking posts,
making sure they were vertical and in line with each other, and securing
them in place. I guess we made it half way through our list - the posts
went in, but the electric fencing didn't. Good thing, because I didn't
know where to start with it.
During the ensuing two weeks since Mother's Day, Ayla, Judi Vinni, and
several volunteers managed to put cedar on three sides of the yard, and
build a platform for the hives. The idea
behind the three almost-solid walls is not only to shelter the hives
from north winds in winter and create a warm space to collect sun and
heat, but to make the hives less noticeable from the road (Willow
Springs is on the corner of Mapleward and Kam Current Roads). The front
(south) wall will have cedar planks in between spaced electric wire,
using spacing obtained from sources on the internet. The idea behind the
alternating wood and wire is that, as a bear looks
through the gap in the fence (trust us, this will happen), it will contact the wire - hopefully.
The wood on the front should also make the hives less obvious to
passers-by, and less threatening to those who are fearful of bees. It
might also encourage the bees to fly up when they leave the hive - we
will see if this works. :)
~ JoAnne Henderson (Willow Springs Volunteer)
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