Final Check

After a string of typical November weather, today is almost 70 degrees and beautiful. Last week I picked an overcast day to put the mouse guard and "bee cozy" on the hive, but today was the day to open the hive and put the fondant in.

Because I didn't want to take off the flow hive, but I also didn't want the queen up there, I made fondant in pieces that I slipped between the flow frames. The queen excluder is still in place. That way, the worker bees can get to the fondant from below and bring it lower into the hive, and there is still a lot of honey in there. At least, there was, the last time I checked. Hopefully that will work for them. 

The colony seems to be doing well, they didn't get super aggressive which would indicate that they were feeling pinched for food, and I did all I needed to do without my bulky gloves on. 

That's it until the spring, at which point I am hoping they will finally and fully move into the flow frames and I can, after 2+ years, harvest honey more easily. Wish them luck!

6 and 6

It's only been two weeks but the sauerkraut stopped fermenting, not sure why, so I decided to can it this evening. I cold packed it into 6 pint jars and it's processing for 20 minutes in the canner. 

The other project on my list lately was to make a batch of hot pepper spread, the one with the banana peppers, mustard, and vinegar. I had a bunch of banana peppers from the farm share, enough to make just about 1/3 of a batch, which worked out to 6 cups. 

Some of these will be placed in a box to send to my nephew for his birthday, hopefully he doesn't mind it arriving a little late.....