You need some bees off your frame? Try Mr. Neil’s excellent Bee Flicking technique. Also a handy way to distract enemies should they surprise you in your bee yard. No bees harmed in the making of this video and most were scooped up off the ground and gently placed back in.
Non Birding Bill and I were over at Mr. Neil’s to do some fall beehive prep (for those who follow, the bees seemed to take my Ned Stark speech well and all but one of the hives actually bumped up production). After we finished checking the hives we were back in the house surfing the [ Read More ]
This gray catbird has taken to the suet plugs at the feeder in a big way. It’s one of two catbirds (presumably a pair) that have decided the peanut suet dough in the woodpecker log is the best thing ever. Hope they bring their fledglings too.
Mr. Neil is so excited to finally be home for installing our bees. First time ever he was around to be a part of it.
This is a problem that only I could have. Non Birding Bill and I had one of those exciting married people dates: did a little dinner, sorted some tax receipts, pretty much got down last night. While we were enjoying some sushi, my phone went off and I noticed the number was from Mr. [ Read More ]
In case you have not heard, we’re buried under an old school blizzard dumping up here. The local weather folk were predicting with barely restrained glee the potential for a massive storm. And though many of us have heard in the Twin Cities that we could get 1 – 2 feet of snow, many of [ Read More ]
We were banding birds at Mr. Neil’s yesterday. I have quite a few photos of angry titmice–we got three in the nets. These are exciting birds for us because my buddies Mark and Roger band mostly around the Twin Cities metro area and we don’t have titmice there, it’s just out of their northern range, [ Read More ]
It’s that special time of year when Lorraine extracts a little early honey, follows the strict codes, guidelines and fees of the county fair and submits it for approval. I know we aren’t the only ones entering honey because fellow beekeepers in the same county made some noise when we won last year that they [ Read More ]
Yesterday, I was out to check on the squirrel proof Feeder with the house wren nest. On Monday, Mr. Neil sent over photos showing that three of the four eggs had hatched. I wanted to see if the final egg hatched and found something completely unexpected: One chick and no eggs. Huh? What the heck [ Read More ]
Last night on Twitter, Mr. Neil posted a photo alerting me that the house wrens in the squirrel proof feeder hatched. Look at those little naked chicks, they look fresh from the shell! Look at the wee little toes! It looks like three of them have hatched and last I checked, there were four eggs. [ Read More ]
