summer's b-a-a-ack
End of the rains, and days near 100°, nights upper seventies for the foreseeable future. The last rains were Friday and Saturday, as a stalled-out front at the Red River stirred up some instability to dump a few more thunderstorms out of the soaked atmosphere. Kieren was hammered as he came north from Dallas Friday afternoon, then we had a mild drizzle most of Friday night, and two heavy thunderstorms on Saturday. Sunday however was clear and sunny; the cooler cloudy days gone.
The Ridge rain gauge had 0.6" Friday afternoon, and then over Saturday it collected 2.3" more, for a total of something like nine inches over the two weeks. Sycamore Street's gauge Friday night was 1.8", but I brought it inside to read Friday night and didn't get it back out, so Saturday's storms were unmeasured. While there was more rain in town in several storms the last few days, overall there was less, maybe 6".
Yesterday Eddie and Steven worked around the house and yard at the Ridge. Both screen porches are now largely cleared of the enveloping jungle of creeper, hackberry, and mimosa, and the screen fixed.
I went through the hive (with video). The queen is continuing to lay; there is some uncapped brood and quite a bit of capped on several of the brood frames. But there doesn't seem to be much for all those bees to bring in, even with the rains. The newer super has just maybe three lightly-drawn-out frames, and there is no further progress in the upper super. I saw no pollen arriving, but maybe they gather some earlier in the day. I gave them a pint of syrup with a couple drops of lemon-grass oil to see what would happen.
As I was watching the bees in the late afternoon, I heard a mockingbird do a chuck-will's-widow call, very well too, it fooled me for a moment. He also rendered cardinal calls and song, carolina wren, house wren, and I don't know what else.
A tiny clicky noise made me look up. On a bare peach twig 3-4 feet over my head was a dragonfly. He perched there, then made little circuits, just a 4' circle or maybe figure-eight, and back to the perch, for a long time. I looked him up; he's a Widow Skimmer. This picture is very close to his appearance, though the species seems variable in wing pattern and body color.
The Ridge rain gauge had 0.6" Friday afternoon, and then over Saturday it collected 2.3" more, for a total of something like nine inches over the two weeks. Sycamore Street's gauge Friday night was 1.8", but I brought it inside to read Friday night and didn't get it back out, so Saturday's storms were unmeasured. While there was more rain in town in several storms the last few days, overall there was less, maybe 6".
Yesterday Eddie and Steven worked around the house and yard at the Ridge. Both screen porches are now largely cleared of the enveloping jungle of creeper, hackberry, and mimosa, and the screen fixed.
I went through the hive (with video). The queen is continuing to lay; there is some uncapped brood and quite a bit of capped on several of the brood frames. But there doesn't seem to be much for all those bees to bring in, even with the rains. The newer super has just maybe three lightly-drawn-out frames, and there is no further progress in the upper super. I saw no pollen arriving, but maybe they gather some earlier in the day. I gave them a pint of syrup with a couple drops of lemon-grass oil to see what would happen.
As I was watching the bees in the late afternoon, I heard a mockingbird do a chuck-will's-widow call, very well too, it fooled me for a moment. He also rendered cardinal calls and song, carolina wren, house wren, and I don't know what else.
A tiny clicky noise made me look up. On a bare peach twig 3-4 feet over my head was a dragonfly. He perched there, then made little circuits, just a 4' circle or maybe figure-eight, and back to the perch, for a long time. I looked him up; he's a Widow Skimmer. This picture is very close to his appearance, though the species seems variable in wing pattern and body color.
Labels: bees, dragonfly, mockingbird, red-bird ridge, weather
posted by AbigailM | 5:56 AM
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