Where our bees go in September

It doesn't seem that much is flowering these days. The bees, however, continue to zoom out of their hive as soon as the sun hits their entrance. I often wonder where they go. Here's one place:

The picture was taken with my iPhone so it's not the clearest photograph. Honeybees were all over this flowering plant. What is it?

DC State Fair 2012

Karl with his Blue Ribbon

The Barracks Row Day Festival was the home to the DC State Fair this past Saturday. Contests celebrating the culinary, craft and artistic talents were held all day. Aksel (with a bit of help from Karl) won an honorable mention for his DC-themed bike and Malin won a 2nd place red ribbon for her poem about tomatoes.

And Karl won a blue ribbon for his honey! It was really interesting to see how meticulous the judges were in their decision making. First, after lining up all 15 jars of honey in a row from darkest to lightest, they decided to give out three first place ribbons in three honey categories -- dark, medium and light.  They then tested the honey for water content and judged it's clarity and lack of "stuff" in it by shining a light through it. They graded the honey on the presentation and cleanliness of the bottle and cap and, of course, they tasted it.

Karl won the Blue Ribbon for dark honey. Top honors also went to two other Capitol Hill bee keepers for medium and light. Way to represent, Capitol Hill!

Ma'am, you know you have bees flying into your house??

As I was getting home from picking up kids after school, a well-meaning telephone repairman who was up on the pole adjacent to the back corner of the house called out and got my attention. "You know, you have a whole lot of bees flying around the back of your house," he said. "They're flying right up inside your wall. You and your kids really need to be careful!" He then went on to tell me that I should go to an auto parts store, buy some carburetor fluid because that comes in a container with a long nozzle and I can just squirt that on in there.

Do I fess up and tell him that we're beekeepers? Do I keep quiet? He was working just yards away from the hive. What if he got stung?

So I simply replied, "Huh. We need to do something about that." And told him we were sure to be careful.

I guess you really can't see the six foot tall set of supers just inside the window if you're not looking for it.