The update is, we are still wet, and getting wetter. The tropical depression is dumping more rain on us.
Here are some pictures from the 19th, the day after our latest big rain:
Some of our bins with spare frames tried to escape from the barn, along with a Jester nuc:
On the 20th, we found the water was still high:
The water had gone down maybe a couple of inches yesterday:
The barn is still full of water and the bins still float, but haven't tried to escape.
We basically live in a bowl. There is a creek about three miles away, and everyone else's water flows to the creek to the Northeast of us, or to the creek's reservoir to the Northwest of us. We are caught in the middle.
I am thankful we only keep bees on the property. The neighbors to either side of us live in manufactured homes. They've got water up to their doors. One has never put in a culvert in the bar ditch, and must park their car on the FM road and wade through the bar ditch to get out. The other moved in about two weeks before the rains. They have a culvert, but no road, just mud. They must be questioning their judgment about now.
We replaced three queens last Saturday. We checked on one on Thursday, and she is okay. We plan on wading out to check on the other two today, when it stops raining. We left the tape over the candy on one of the hives because they were pretty hostile towards her. We need to remove the tape today, assuming the bees aren't still angry.
The good news is there are lots of flowers, mostly Mexican Hat, sticking their little heads above the water and the bees are working the flowers.
I'm afraid it will take a month of dry weather for all of this water to soak through the clay and bring our property back to normal.
Oh, my sunflower field is still standing. This is a picture I took on the 16th, after the first flooding of the property:
