To Bee or Not to Bee?

Looks quite horrible, no? Keep or toss and get new hives? Still have bees at all? I love tradition and it's a loving memory of Grandpa but...? Yes, I was shocked to see them in broad daylight! - Well, the nets could be cleaned surprisingly easily! (I'm not sure whether to clean the 'invisible' propolized edges of the 'net' more too?)


I was advised to let go of these as new ones are cheap. (?)


Yes, it looks pretty scary!

The beehive could be cleaned quite okay, there are almost invisible cracks on the sides and in edges, bees put propolis there to fix this, I mostly scraped it off! (I was advised to do that, dunno? Though it seems counterproductive? New bees will have to propolize it all again?)
I was told old stuff must be scraped off and then to use fire to sterilize the wood.


This is the scariest part: the door is VERY bad! So, not sure what to do!

Will the neighbour have time to maybe make a new door or two? (Would it be better to just get new hives as some have advised? We're a bit late to ask the neighbour to make new ones, Dad said he might during the winter! I'd love to learn to make and renovate furniture and stuff myself, it'll be a long process I guess though.)

Partly, cleaning an old beehive is pleasant - the smell of propolis is soo yummy!!
Partly, I was fretting if there was anything iffy in the dirt (Grandpa's old neighbour said the bees just vanished from neglect and there weren't any diseases, so I hope all would be right with this!)

Dad said the beehives are probably as old as he is, or more! (60+ years!) He doesn't remember any new ones being made, these were quite new when he was little!

In any case, I've learnt a bit how to approach such a project, and saw it doesn't take so long to clean. You only see the real state of wood after you've cleaned it, and doors seem to be the part to watch out for!
Hopefully next year (winter?) I'll be able to clean and possibly renovate the old spindle too (I'd done it before if I knew what to use, so that it would be as eco as possible and still protect the wood?)

So, will I still have bees or will I give up on the project for the time being? (Or, until next year?) Stay tuned!
(Suggestions and ideas welcome!) What do you think?

A Day At the Farm :)

So now you know my Uncle has a farm.

It's not an eco-farm, Alas!

He has about 6ha grass, which is the average size of a small farm in Slovenia.
(Other stuff is woods & hills, I mean woods in the hills mostly.
The grass is mostly hills too, though the hills used to be fields earlier on, before the farm went 'modern'.)

The place is called the Slovenian equivalent of 'Beautiful Field', & they do say that there is one 'beautiful field' in the whole tiny valley/village!

My Uncle sort of has 1 'good field' too.. ;) Hills & woods all around, mostly..

And there is the beehive.

I had permission to rummage, though without a digital camera I didn't dare do any significant progress!!

We found some treasures though.

Uncle found a bottle with silver bullets, uhm, small lead bullets.
Then there were 2 perfectly okay glasses for petroleum lamps.

Some of the bee-thingies seemed okay-ish/still usable too..
Though hornets and wasps had had homes there too..

Some tiny wasps and - wild bees? (bigger than bee, smaller than bumble bee-hmm?! - but Uncle says wild bees are tinier than normal bees?) came into 'lookout' - when I started rummaging around.. (Uncle says wasps look for places to make nests.. My romantic imagination likes to think some of Grandpa's bees went wild & came looking for home, or check what's happening - if someone's gonna save & salvage their home. I can be quite horrible this way!:)

The beehive is a real dump, I was awfully sorry it had come this far..
Sort of thought Uncle would see to it that it stays okay..
And that beekeeping is a 'man's business. :)

My Dad is afraid of the bees. lol!!
Uncle isn't afraid of them, he just has no joy for them. Prefers mechanical stuff & such: he okayed the old hinges: some elbow work may be necessary, but they could be restored. YAY!!

Apparently at a time my Grandpa smuggled/kept some stolen nails & wire in the beehive that his ex-lover the maid stole from a building site where she worked..
It's all horribly romantic, & quite new to me, as it unfolds before my eyes...

He 'hid some things he didn't want kids to find' (& take apart, there were 6 illustrious kids at the farm!) in the beehive!

There seems no logic at what is there..

Okay, some of it is beehive equipment.. Wooden boxes for the bees, including one to catch a new bee family when it takes off..

Some fabric (from old bags!) to burn and make bees dizzy & calmer.. (equivalent to a more expensive fancy gadget!) No it isn't marijuana!! :) - Or is it?!!

And there are old magazines & newspapers there..
Or have been, I took them to a (hopefully) safer space. Some beekeeping magazines & some church magazines for kids or farm youth from 1935, half gnawed through, copies of 'Reporter' from 1953... :) with headlines like 'Horrible politics of the Soviet Union'... (approximately at the time when there was the end of love affair between Yugoslavia & Russia..)
'Finest Love Letters' and 'Lives of Saints'... there seems to be no logic!! :)

I try to piece together the pieces of my Grandpa's life through this mozaic of illogical gnawed-through pieces of his soul.. like scribbles into advertisments for 'magic potions'... (not very different from what some modern internet marketers claim!)
He just wrote what he went to get (untranslatable but hilarious!), or some silly sayings..
Scribbles of numbers on the beehives... 1+2+2=6 (?)

I wonder if there's a special code..? :)

some half-destroyed tools, bits & ends... some homespun flaxen yarn... (throwawayable, Uncle says, cause it's so dirty.. I can't seem to part with it..:)

Alas, Uncle had given permission to a neighbours' kid to rummage the beehive & take what he wants, when he started his own beehive.. Maybe I can take a visit sometime & see what they have taken..?

Another discovery in the attick: the old spindle & a tool to wrap wool on!
They're in really bad condition... Not sure what it will take to restore them to their former glitter!!

Some horrible clothes & some papers that belonged to my Grandma too.. I know even less about her than about Gramps.. Who was this tiny old sometimes-bitter woman that taught me to cook carrot soup (I forgot now!) & claims to have sufferred 'irrepairable damages' in a car accident I've known nothing of?!

Stuff to find out.. Stuff to de-clutter & polish & shine.. wonderful old wardrobes & chests - will they fall apart or stay in all their glory?! (Nothing fancy, just peasant/farm stuff.. but pretty.. I'd love to have 'em! :)

What's in the 'secret drawer' of the chest? (If anything?!)

I didn't do much at the farm (we usually do more..) but I felt quite tired .. maybe all the excitement & weight of the well, not centuries, but quite close..? :)

Dad & Uncle may not be happiest if I rummage through old memories, not all of them have been happy.. & I'm still 'too weak' to do any serious work! (But stubborn enough to at least make up for a little of it!)
Uncle, Dad, Coz & I also don't agree on farm politics & eco stuff etc.
At least the puzzle of why-Slovenian-farms-are-not-so-eco is coming together too.. And we got some apples from Uncle's orchard.. (They're in horrible condition mostly, but still yummable! Ideally they'd be sorted a month ago!:)
Uncle also has adorable kitties!!

So all-in-all, it's been a lovely day...

'I got bored of the computer,' I say, & my Dad is quite thrilled!! :)