![\"\"](\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/DSC05298.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBusy day.\u00a0 Had lots of yard work to get ready for the end of warm weather.\u00a0 I even cut the grass today.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t notice how long the grass had grown on account of all that rain.\u00a0 Man, what a mess the clippings made.\u00a0 But soon enough all that will be done with.\u00a0\u00a0 It was nice to get out and look around the fields.\u00a0 There were tons of honey bees on the goldenrod.\u00a0 Now that I\u2019ve renewed my interest in keeping bees, I was looking at the varieties of bees that were on the flowers.\u00a0 And I noticed they were almost exclusively Italian bees.\u00a0 These are a southern bee and they don\u2019t fare well in cold winter areas.\u00a0 But they\u2019re the kind of bees that people get when they buy a package of bees from one of the big breeders down south.\u00a0 So most likely these bees aren\u2019t feral bees but some beekeeper\u2019s hive.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Funny, I got a little annoyed that someone was encroaching on my goldenrod.\u00a0 What the what!\u00a0 The only advantage of the Italian bees is their mild tempers.\u00a0 They\u2019re the least likely race of bees to sting you even if you\u2019re in their nest messing around with the frames full of honey and brood.\u00a0 So, knowing there are a lot of apiary hives around me was a little bit of a downer.\u00a0 I\u2019m hoping to catch a swarm next spring.\u00a0 But if there are a lot of apiary hives in the area chances are that the swarm will come from one of them.\u00a0 That means the bees will be southern bees and most probably also bees that have been living under a regimen of chemicals to ward off varroa mites and other plagues.\u00a0 I won\u2019t be using those chemicals so the bees will have to depend on their natural robustness to survive.\u00a0 But since they\u2019ve been dosed with various chemicals, they may be quite weak.<\/p>\n
That makes me think that I may as well purchase a bee package from a breeder who keeps northern bees under a natural beekeeping regimen.\u00a0 I know there are several breeders in Vermont who have this type of bee.\u00a0 I\u2019ve read about these northern bees.\u00a0 They\u2019re known either as Russian bees or dark bees.\u00a0 They are extremely cold hardy and are specialized to collecting a large amount of nectar in order to survive the long cold northern winter.\u00a0 Of course, that might mean a very long drive back and forth to Northern Vermont.\u00a0 That\u2019s a hike.\u00a0 It\u2019s possible they\u2019ll mail the bees but maybe not.\u00a0 Anyway, interesting things to think about today.<\/p>\n
While I was working on the garden, I saw both grasshoppers and katydids that were so worn out that I was able to go up to them and pick them up by the wing covers.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/DSC05387.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Even the few butterflies I saw, some fritillaries and painted ladies, were flying very slowly.\u00a0 And they were much less skittish than normally when I approached them while they fed.\u00a0 Of vertebrates, there were some turkeys in the yard, a few small frogs and a vole that shot out of the garden and headed into the blueberry bushes when I approached.\u00a0 I managed to get some shots of the turkeys as they noticed me and retreated into the forest.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/DSC05348.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/DSC05355-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Then I walked over by the swamp.\u00a0 It was looking very beat up.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/DSC05408-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
But this time of the year has its charms.\u00a0 A good day out in the air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Busy day.\u00a0 Had lots of yard work to get ready for the end of warm weather.\u00a0 I even cut the grass today.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t notice<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3366,818,1263,3],"tags":[3341,2122,2960,163,1267,2087],"class_list":["post-20406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-life-in-dunwich","category-ocf","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","category-photography","tag-dunwich","tag-honey-bee","tag-katydid","tag-new-england-swamp","tag-photogs-corner","tag-turkey"],"yoast_head":"\n