Finally my hair smells like smoke again — and not the burning cookie wrapper smoke that we often encounter here, but from my smoker. Today I gave my first all-in-Spanish beekeeping lesson to our groundskeeper, Baltezar. He was a champ. Because we don’t have a feeder inside the hive that would normally hold a sugar-water solution, we laid a small sheet of plastic on top of the frames and dripped a small amount of really concentrated syrup onto it. This method is more commonly used during the winter, but done with confectionary sugar as an alternative to liquid feed that can freeze. Having looked all over Izcuchaca today for azucar polvo, and after attempting to polvo my own azucar, I decided a syrup would do the trick just as well. Jossua, our bee guy, suggested using powdered honey that’s only available at, guess where…his tienda. While that would obviously be ideal, I think I’ve had enough of Jossua.

With Baltezar manning the smoker, we opened both of the hives. They looked pretty good, considering this was the first sunny day they’ve had since we installed them two days ago. The bees seem to be taking, and I’m sure they’ll appreciate another feeding later this week.

Las palabras del dia
Azucar — sugar
Polvo — dust or powder, think pulverized