Author Patricia Lanza visits Sasserfrass Hill Bee Farm

Greetings Everyone,

We have had such a warm fall. I still have zinnias blooming and my Cherokee Rose is full of beautiful pink flowers. My sweet bees are so happy the weather is still warm and they are bringing in pollens for protein and the camellias are blooming providing nectar and all is right with their world.

Last week Sasserfrass Hill had a very special visitor. Patricia Lanza, Author of Lasagna Gardening which is a book on a new layering system for Bountiful Gardens: No Digging, No Tilling, No Weeding, No Kidding! She was wonderful and I enjoyed her so much. She shared information on things I should do to take another step on my journey. She made me feel I was ready to move to bigger venues to reach more people with my message to help save the bees.

She encouraged me to publish some of my photographs in magazines. She reinforced my resolve to continue my quest and I needed her encouragement.

Thank you Pat. I am so happy I met you and I hope to see you again soon.

I checked several hives on Friday, the bees were doing great and are going into the winter with lots of honey. I hope I will come out of the winter with strong hives and healthy bees.

I am getting my Christmas decoration out of the attic this week and will start decorating Sasserfrass Hill for another wonderful holiday.

Eat more local honey.

Bee Well,

Ms Deb

Augusta Magazine came for a photo shoot

Greetings from Sasserfrass Hill,

We have been blessed with some beautiful fall days this week. It was 74 degrees today. I fed the bees Honey -B-Healthy with some antibiotics and it was a feeding frenzy. I want my bees to go into the winter strong and healthy.

I worked in my yards all day Monday and Tuesday morning, raking, bagging and blowing tons of leaves into the garden. I mulched them with my tractor mower in hopes it will help add organic matter to my hard clay soil. I watered flowers, dead headed plants, and used the blower on the drive way, carport, patio and the bee shed porch. I made flower arrangements and got dressed and ready for Laurie and Chris of Augusta Magazine, to come in the afternoon and take some photos of me in the bee yard. I am not very photogenic, and I hope the photo they choose will not make me look like a deer in head lights.

I will be in the January - February issue on the very last page of the magazine, called the "Last Word". It has a photo and they ask you five questions. I thought they would be questions about the bees, but there were only a couple of bees questions. I asked Laurie if the magazine could do an article on the bees in the spring. Laurie said she would love too and she would see what she could do.

We are making lotion bars this afternoon. We have several orders we need to deliver by the end of the week. Amaretto and Lemongrass are the flavors of the week.

Mama has been busy putting labels on the lotion bar tins, labeling honey and cleaning wax. She is a busy bee and we appreciate all she does on Sasserfrass Hill.

Eat more local raw honey everyone. It will help build up your immune system and keep you healthy this winter.

Bee Well,

Deborah

P.S. I don't know why the spacing is so crazzzy... It looks fine when I type it but when it goes to publish it put about five spaces between each paragraph....????

Fall is in the Air on Sasserfrass Hill

Hello Everyone,

We are as busy as bees on Sasserfrass Hill this fall. We are enjoying the cooler temperatures and so are the bees. This summer heat was brutal and many plants dried up before giving a drop of nectar to the bees. We hoping for an abundance of hardy fall plants.

We have several Garden Clubs coming to see the bees and we have really been working hard to make the yards worthy of the attention. It is a little intimidating to have master gardeners come and see my yard since I am not a master gardener or have I had a lot of time to get beds and plants put into place.

I am also speaking to several garden clubs this month. I spoke to the West Lake Garden Club on Tuesday and after the meeting a Girl Scout leader ask me to come speak to her girls about the importance of my tiny pollinators.

I am going to Lake Forest Elementary, they have a Garden Club for kids and I am very excited to talk to these little gardeners on Tuesday. I am speaking to the Lunchbox Series in Aiken on the 17 th and will have lots of photos and honey to sell.

I am also participating in the Quest Fall Holiday Festival the first weekend in November. So as you can see we are really as busy as bees. When I have a spare moment I am making lotion bars and lip balm to get enough to carry me through October.

I have several special orders of lotion bars and even sent an order off to Miami. Florida last week. My Niece Rhonda is in Guam and ordered honey, lotion bars and lip balm for her friends as gifts. Her friend Sadie enjoyed them enough to order more.

We put a mite treatment in the hives a couple of weeks ago and I need to check them one more time before it gets too cold. This year is flying by a light speed... I am trying to keep up.

Mama came over and helped me with a garden club and home school group last week. She is so nice and friendly, I think people buy more because she is so sweet.

I put a "Buy Local Honey!" sign on my car and have sold lots of honey from people inquiring about the sign.

Another one of my photographs was accepted by Bee Culture Magazine as a cover shot. I am very excited and hope to see my "girl" on the cover very soon.

God has bless us and we feel the need to give back and try to be a part in saving our tiny pollinators.

Thanks to everyone that has supported us and had faith in us. We are having a wonderful and thrilling time at Sasserfrass Hill Bee Farm.

Come see us and Eat more Honey.

Ms Deb

Time for Fall Chores on Sasserfrass Hill

September is only a few days away and it is time to do your fall chores in the bee yard.

A friend of mine, Jane Waldrop is interested in getting bees. She asked if she could help me check some of the hives. She wants hands on experience so when she does get bees she will feel a little more comfortable. You can read all the books you can find on bees but the real test comes when you open the hive and have thousand of stinging insects in your face. Even with a veil it is a bit intimidating. We went through several hives and all was well.

We got to the peach hive and I knew things were not right. I had been watching it for days. I had hurt my back the week before so I could not check it as I should have. I kept thinking it would be O.K. until I my back was feeling better....but no. Those nasty wax moths moved in and had started to tunnel through he frames. They are such nasty pests. They can only make themselves at home if the hive is weak. I was sad to see all the damage. I put the frames into the freezer (I have a frig in the garage just for freezing frames). I felt better

knowing I was killing those awful pests, larva and the eggs.

The peach hive had no queen, no brood, (babies) and only a handful of bees. so I decided to combine them with another small hive. I put a sheet of newspaper on top of the green hive and put the peach hive on top. I poked several slits in the newspaper, so the bees could smell each other and get familiar with the queens pheromones. The next day I went out to check and the bees had eaten the paper away and was throwing it out the front of the hive. Everyone seemed to be happy. I successfully combined two weak hives. I was happy the technique had worked.

It will be fall before you know it. I also treated my bees with a new mite treatment called HopGuard. It is made from hops and is an all natural product. I am hopeful the Hopguard will work and the bees will go into the winter free from the awful parasite mites and have a pest free winter.

God Bless my bees...and all the tiny pollinators of the world.

Swarm goes into nuc

Late Sunday afternoon I looked into the bee yard and saw the sky full of bees. They were gathering on the fence just behind the hives. I went out and took some photos and video and thought I would let them stay till the next day since it was late and already getting dark.

It has been too hot to go into the hives and pull queen cells. When you don't pull the queen cells out this is what happens. But with 110 heat index the thought of putting on a bee suit is too much for me to endure.

The next day I got a nuc, (a small five frame hive) with four empty frames and a frame of honey. I started scooping from the fence. I would put mu hands onto the frames and the bees would just crawl off my gloves into the hive. I had scooped about half the swarm into the nuc, looking for the queen with every handful. I never saw her... but all of a sudden I heard a loud buzzing and all the bees took flight. The ones on the fence left and the bees in the nuc started pouring out as well. I was sad to see them go but I wished the love and light. I took a few photos of them in the top of the pecan tree.

I had an appointment and when I returned home they had left the tree. I took the nuc and put it on the the feeding table I have in my bee yard. I saw some bees but I thought it must bee the other hives robbing the frame of honey. I did not put the top on the hive because I wanted them to have easy access to the honey. Several days passed before I looked at the hive. I thought the robbers should have had time to clean the frame. When I looked into the hive to my amazement they bees were building cone on the empty frames. My girls had not flown the coop but had gone into the nuc. I was so excited... but also I am not sure what I need to do to move the bees to a new location. They can not stay on my feeding table.

I am going to my bee meeting tonight and I will ask several of the more experienced bee keepers what they would do.

The bees are amazing little creatures. I am so happy they did not leave Sasserfrass Hill but decided to stay. We bee happy.!!!

Ms Deb

Weather has been cooler and wetter

Last week we had two days of only 90 degrees, which was almost cool, com paired to the 110 degree heat index we had the week before. I worked in my yards. I planted some plants friends had given me. I cut my grass and my elderly neighbors grass. It was actually pleasant working outside.

I found a very small swarm of bees on my umbrella very late last Sunday evening. Experts say if it is a small swarm and you remove the queen, the worker bees will go back to the hive they came out of. I did find the queen and put her in a bug box along with several attendants. I have a friend that needs a queen. I think she will be a welcome addition to her hive. I hope she will be happy and live a very productive life across town.

My queen and her attendants have been in the bug box for a week now. I hope she will survive until my friend returns on Tuesday. Until then she is getting honey and water. I have never kept a queen for so long in a bug box. I am not sure how long you can keep a queen in a cage... We will see...

Good luck my tiny queen.

Ms Deb

We have had lots of rain

Today is July 8th and we have had more rain in the last few weeks than we have had all year. We were in a nine inch deficit until a few weeks ago. Afternoon showers has turned the grass green and the flowers are blooming again. We are very grateful.

Jennifer Berry from the University of Georgia Bee Lab, came down and spoke to our Clark Hill Bee Club. She said the forecast was for cooler and wetter July and August. At the time it had not rained in weeks and it was 101 degrees... I thought... from your lips to God's ears...I think he heard, because it has been raining since her predictions.

The bees have been festooning on the hives in the evenings. Which is equivalent to us sitting out on the porch trying to stay cool.

We are getting the old four frame, hand cranked extractor out and we will be extracting honey from some of our hives next week. The Augusta Chronicle Newspaper reported Luke Thompson called and want to bring a photographer out and do a story on extracting honey. It will be exciting and I am looking forward to seeing how much honey the girls on Sasserfrass Hill have produced so far this year. The girls work hard for the honey ... and I am sure it will be impressive to see the beautiful liquid gold pouring from the extractor.

We made a big batch of Lip Balm last week. We gave out over twenty samples. Everyone said they really liked them and think they are the best recipe so far. We also have to make a big batch of lotion bars and fill several orders. Hopefully we will be making lotion bars next week.

Things are buzzzy on Sasserfrass Hill so I will sign off and get to work.

Bee Well,

Ms Deb