What a month!

Holy crazy month. I have been just swamped. I had events 4 out of the last 6 weekends with Damsel. It was pretty amazing. I was able to complete the director training program and promoted up two ranks during the program. I gained so much. So much confidence, so much joy and contentment. My goal when I began this Damsel path has always been to build an incredible team, to help my family, and to give back. In January with the help of my friends we raised $500 for the Gaston family. In February we raised over $400 for the Pratt family. This month we are working hard to help a sweet little 2 year old boy with liver cancer.

I also sort of fell into an activism role. I offered to help sponsor a giveaway for a new fb page called 1 Million Moms Against Gun Control. I also offered to help in any way I could. So when the awesome creator decided to take her dream bigger I was happy to help. So I am now the Nevada lead for what is becoming a nationwide nonprofit with an aim at providing education, awareness, and support on rights issues. We are actually even discussing expanding to the full constitution and not just focusing on gun rights. Being involved from the start in this is pretty cool.

I have had to take a brake this week from everything as I was feeling run down but I am loving it. Loving the ability to nurture my passions. Enjoying the meeting of new people. It truly has been an incredible joy.

New digs for the girls

We are going to be adding seven new hives to the apiary this year. I hope they like blue!

Pictures of our winter killed hive

Queen cell from different angles. This hive swarmed last summer before we bought it from a neighbor.

There were several frames of beautiful capped honey in this hive. They starve to death while attempting to chew through the caps.

Bee butts. This is a pretty good indication that they starved.

I am pretty sure this was caused by an infestation of varroa mites that we din't catch until it was too late in the year to do anything about it. I lost two hives to varroa this year and have one more struggling. They were eating a few days ago when I checked on them, but they don't seem to have the numbers that the Utah hive does. I hope it makes it.