Lemon Cake

 

I tried a new Pinterest recipe today for a Lemon Blossom Cake.  Clay is having some work folks over for dinner tonight I needed to try out a cake to take to my job next Thursday so I baked this beauty.  I mixed 2 parts of the recipe by covering the bottom layer with the glaze and then icing the cake also.  I haven't gotten to try it yet, waiting on everyone to get here tonight, so I will have to update this post later.

 

I took this picture after I glazed the first layer.  The glaze was a little thin and too runny, I think I may have added too much lemon juice.

 

 

I brought in some gardenia blossoms and butterfly bush blossoms to bring some garden beauty inside.

 

We aren't really sure if the bees are going to be ok.  We did a hive inspection 3 days ago and didn't see any larvae or eggs.  There were plenty of bees and lots of honey and pollen, we also saw what looked to be a queen cell and lots of drone bees coming and going.  We are wondering if our queen has died and they have made another one, we will have to wait and see.  I looked at the outside of the hive today and there were lots of bees coming and going and there were bees in the super we added on top but they have not filled out any of the new frames.

 

Our magnolia tree grew a blossom this year, we have GOT to get this baby in the yard  in the fall.  

 

Bee Inspection

 

We checked on our bees for the first time this week.  They have been very busy.  They had drawn comb on all but one side of one frame.  There was a nice mix of brood, pollen, and honey.  Luckily neither of us got stung even though they were very active (probably due to the late hour of our inspection).  We have a few sugar ants coming in the hive so we will have to watch that closely.  We changed the entrance reducer to the larger entry and the bees took a little while to realize where the entrance was because they were used to going to the right side and the entry was changed to the left of the hive.

 

New Bees

I didn't manage to get any pictures and just took one video while we were getting the bees settled to their new home.  The bees were pissed off to say the least.  Clay got stung twice through his shirt, I managed to avoid any stings.  

I pulled out some pictures from our previous bee adventures.

 

 

I have been attempting to switch over to a dayshift schedule since Thursday morning when I got off work, it must be working pretty well because I crashed at 9:30 last night and woke up promptly at 5 this morning.  Lily and I went for a jog early this morning and as usual we were confronted with the guinea hens down the road and Lily tucked tail and tried to pretend she didn't notice them.  We went to Byron today to pick up bees.  We came home on Hwy 42 to see what the drive was like.  There is pretty countryside between here and there.  It is a dreary day and we took our time and drove by some interesting buildings in Roberta and Musella.  Now we are waiting for the weather to clear up a little before we move the bees into their hive.  They are currently buzzing away on the table.

Bee Productive

We stole a little honey from our busy bees today. They decided to build comb onto the inside of the cover and it had to be scraped off so we got a tasty snack. Otherwise the hive looked really good, no queen cells, no signs of hive beetles or wax moths, and lots and lots of brood.

We added a medium super to the hive since there was only 1 1/2 frames not drawn out. We also changed the entrance reducer because it only had the inch opening and there was too much activity for that.

Yummy Yummy breakfast! Frosted maple mini wheats, whole grain "raisin bran" imitation, Chobani vanilla yogurt, chia seeds, sunflower seeds, carob chips, and a little sunflower seed butter. I love to have variety in every bite!

I also love my fiesta dishware! I also made my longest trek here, I walked 2.5 miles out and ran almost all of it back for a total of 5 miles. Averaged 12mph. AWESOME!

The Newbees

Clay repopulated our hive yesterday with a new set of bees. Our last hive got overrun by wax moths last year and we lost the colony. My job this morning after getting home from work was to remove the screen box they came in and place the feeder on top. They had already made themselves at home in their new hive although there were some stragglers left in the screen box.

They were all in a tizzy, especially once I opened the bag of sugar water and poured it into the feeder. I am just tickled pink that I didn't get stung. I had all my gear on of course but I remembered a very important step...I placed hair rubber bands around the ankles of my jeans to avoid a repeat of the up-the-pants stinging that happened last year. = )