hello it's Mr Ed here and today is September 12th 2024 I'm just coming on today just do a a relatively short video um concerning the aftermath of hurricane Francine I I have to say I appreciate so much the concern uh and the prayers that that all of us here in in Southeast Louisiana have received from everybody about uh the storm coming through and and because of that I I wanted to kind of just just do a quick update on what happened with um concerning the bees here at the Abbey as well as on on the other um out yards that we have so what I what I plan on doing and I'm not trying to um sensationalize uh the destructive forces of nature because we all very familiar with that you know it's we don't need to see any more that it's just it's just there so basically what I'm going to do is I'm going to be going to each one of our out yards uh this morning and just making sure that we don't have limbs on them because the storm in truth was was a very unusual storm in that as it as it approached Louisiana it kind of stalled out in the gulf and then it it started taking a easterly course um which it really wasn't uh they hadn't anticipated that and it it wound up almost uh making a a a near Miss on on New Orleans and shooting across Lake pona train and going right up um where we live herea the Abby uh world famous Mike Barry all of us it just it just went went North that way fortunately when the storm hit land it it almost took away the whole rear end of the storm uh so basically all it was was a a northern eyewall that was approaching uh uh everybody and of course now there's there's still a lot of heavy rain uh winds uh but it it hit the Louisiana coast with a category 2 but quickly d uh downgraded to Tropical Storm and as it passed through our area that's what it was a tropical storm but there's still winds 60 70 m our winds and a lot of rain for us and it was weird it's because the uh the rain Amounts is probably in the 4 in 5 in but it wasn't so much that the grounds couldn't handle it so this what I saw coming into the ABY this morning there was nothing major there's lots of small debris around um lot of pine needles so that'll be material for my smoker in the future um but it's it's just not a lot so I'm not really expecting uh to find catastrophes with our beehives um but just for my peace of mind uh as well as for so many of you all that that over yesterday and the day before as the storm was approaching uh emailed me uh commented uh about um you know you have me in your prayers and and I just want to let everybody know how much I appreciate um your concerned uh for for me for the bees and hopefully uh if I see anything uh you know like really terrible I'll show you that but I'm not really expecting that so I'm going to just go check the yards and give you a a a report basically back at the end so by the grace of God that report that I give it uh it's going to be a good one now there's nothing destructive about what's going on back here this is just uh old AG uh natural natural uh Decay uh what's going on back here so let's head in the back finish going back and find out uh how our bees did here at the ABY as I expected the all the hives they're fine uh there is a lot of evidence of of higher water around here in fact the spillway uh by the First Pond up there it it it looked like a a White River a white rapid how do you say it a a a rap white rapid Waters cuz it was it was just ripping down um through the culverts um it it was it the water was pretty high uh back there um and and there's evidence of you know water being on the grass you could see it all laid down hives are fine uh all the structur B I only saw one down tree uh back there and it was a dead tree anyway so so I'm headed back up to the front getting the truck and we're going to we're going to start uh going out to our yards so as far as the hives here at the ABY everything's good see y'all in a bit well great news so far uh this is the fifth yard that I've been to I've done all the hives at the Abbey I went to the St John yard St Anthony yard St Mary yard and now I'm at the St Bernard yard so it's I I I don't know exact number but it's over 100 hives that that I've checked and there's been no issue um at all with any of the any kind of down hives or limbs on hives or anything like that uh some some minor uh Street flooding getting to particularly this spot right here um but other than that no problems and like I said it's over it's it's at least 100 if not a little bit more than 100 hives that I've gone seen and out of those 100 I I only counted three dead outs so man that's that's awesome very very good I got two of them actually two of them are right here which really is surprising to me so I still got five more yards to go check and I'll give you an update when I finish those see how well after driving almost 70 miles checking on 11 out yards um back at the ABY and and man I I'm I'm really excited um and very pleased as to the outcome of what I saw today uh the last the last six yards uh that I went to I was kind of nervous because when I was when I was traveling from the St Bernard yard over to the St Dominic yard um I I had to actually go through some flood waters um and it was a good half a mile of of stretch on the road and the water was probably a foot and a half maybe even two feet deep thankfully I was not in the in the monk mobile but I was in the F-150 so that wasn't any issue but still um what I was concerned with because right at that spot in the road uh just a little past it is where we have our St Dominic yard and in fact I couldn't even pull into the driveway I just park on the road and walk into it because the water was up that high and so I walked over to the hives and thankfully um there's there's only a few hives over there and they're all sitting on uh cinder blocks and then 6X sixes but there was there was 3 in of water underneath all of those hives and all of our hives are screen bottom so if the water does come up it it'll just push right up into the hive and the bees push up it's I've been through all that that's just not a good thing but thankfully um that wasn't the case and so after I checked and I never realized just how low that property was uh in that area cuz we have three yards there we had the St Dominic the St Francis and the St Lucy yard they all in that area and I never real realized how low it was until today cuz every every one of those yards I had to park the truck and walk in because there was water on on the ground but by the grace of God everything worked out fine I I wound up um with a total of of uh 10 uh dead outs that I found and we've got over 200 HS [Music] baby let me call you right back okay okay love you with the number of hives that we have and there's 10 of them that that were dead outs man I'm I'm I'm happy with that I I don't know because I didn't go actually see whether they were the old Queen whether it was a split or whether you know um whatever whe they never were split I don't know the the condition of those boxes because a lot of them I couldn't actually walk to them I just could what I was doing is looking in front of the boxes to see um the bees what the bees were doing and surprising maybe not so surprisingly but even even here the number of of hives that the bees are doing orientation flights on um it's just amazing and it kind of makes sense because here we are September the 11th uh 12th and and um last week I mean I saw all these bees bringing in all this pollen so it doesn't I'm not really surprised to see all this orientation flight going on um but I'm I'm grateful to see that as well as well as I'm grateful for not finding any kind of disasters um out in the field out in any of our yards um as well as I'm I'm so appreciative of all the the prayers uh that that were sent our way uh during this storm so everything worked out fine for the storm we we came through it all of our hives came through it just fine so only thing I have to say with that is thank you Jesus so that's all I got for you in this one so thanks for watching keep on watching and I'll be making more God bless Mr red I'm out of here until the next video [Music]