Jilda and I walked around to check on the trees and shrubs we planted this past weekend. Everything looks happy. All of the new blueberries bushes we planted except one survived and are blooming. Each day it looks more and more like spring.

Today was a workday for Jilda so she headed out after lunch. I finished up a few stories I'd been working on and decided to check on the bees.

All four hives are buzzing. One of the hives had a box that was my first to assemble...before I actually knew how to assemble them.

Last year when I tried to open it up and have a look to see what was going on, it came apart. I'd fretted about what to do. One of the old beekeepers told me to let it stay on over the winter and deal with it before the honey flow in the spring.

I went down this afternoon with a plan. I removed the defective hive and installed a new one. The defective hive was filled with bees. With a leafblower, I blew them out and took the old hive into the honey house (don't you love the name of my new workspace?).

Three of the frames were filled with uncapped honey that they'd collected this year. I cut all the honey and comb out of the old hive, put it a feeder and placed it back inside the beehive that I removed it from. They won't be happy, but they'll take that honey and place it on the new hive I installed this afternoon. I know this sounds complicated, but it wasn't that hard.

All of the equity I've built up this spring by feeding them sugar water is gone. One of the bees stung me on my thumb.

I'm excited about this whole beekeeping thang.