Bee Prep

Monday was the perfect weather for some outside work that needed to be completed.

I have three packages of honey bees arriving from a local beekeeper in April. I have plenty of equipment but, like everything on a farm, they needed some upkeep before the bees arrive.

Since I am including honeybees in my bug curriculum this year for the younger kids and because I want the kids to grow up with a strong knowledge of beekeeping, I enlisted their help with equipment preparations.

The boxes all needed a good scraping and cleaning up and a fresh coat of paint.

I have always used white paint in the past, but the children and I thought this was a year for color.

The boys put on large, old shirts to protect their nicer clothes and went to town painting the boxes.

Earlier in the day we went to a local store and I let them pick out 3 colors.

It was all fun and games until Luna and Kid starting chasing each other. Luna got green paint on her head and backside. We rinsed it off and then she rolled in dirt. Dogs!

It was a great day for the baby to be outside too. He did nap between tasks :-) Actually the sunshine was a great immune system booster for everyone.

The next day we gathered the equipment, added new frames, and set up our new bee yard near the blueberry bushes.

This are will be expanded some, and we will be fencing it with a permanent fence to keep the cows out.  

All of the kids help set the hives up and I was happy to be working outside with my crew.

Today we gathered all of the bee suits and washed them. This weekend I will gather and organize gloves and veils.  I do need to order some new gloves for the boys still.

We also decided to set up 2 nuts around the property in hopes of attracting a swarm. We bought a paste called Bee Charmer as a lure for the frames. Every day the boys go check the "bee traps" in hopes that we get a swarm. I really hope we do because it would thrill the kids to watch! IO am thinking n early spring might set off early swarms. It was a nice 77 degrees today!

Finally, the German Shepherd baby starts her obedience training in a week. I am excited to see where this dog goes in life. For now, she is the best companion a baby could ask for :-)

Happy Friday Ya'l!!

Tis the Season

New chicks arrived today!

Last year, because of my pregnancy and morning sickness, we did not order baby chicks. I honestly have missed having the little balls of fluff.

I ordered pullets to replenish my flock of laying hens. I only got 50 total: 25 each of Welsummers and Buff Orpingtons.  Later in the spring I will order meat birds so we can run 2 batches this year.

Since I really didn't feel like keeping a make shift brood box in my kitchen this time, we finally forked out the money for an actual brooder.

We plan to move it to the garage once we get past freezing night time temps, but it has been super handy.  Although the company says day old chicks can walk on the wire floor, they seemed wobbly this morning when I put them inside. I decided a couple of days with paper on bottom would be simple. 

It also has food troughs on the outside, but again I felt it was easiest to use a feeder inside for a day or two. 

The pictures show it with half the top cover removed. It all gets closed up and has slats to vent on the sides. It really is a great to have the chicks warm and cozy inside.

This weekend I plan to get bee boxes cleaned and ready for new packages.

Yes, tis the season of spring!!!!

Happy Wednesday Ya'll!

Honey Bees and Exotic Rocks

It has been quite a bee keeping year so far.
I had a brand, spanking new nuc that was flourishing just 2 weeks ago and then BAM! The hive was completely empty. It looks like another possible case of Colony Collapse Disorder.

As a bee keeper this is very frustrating. I have only had issues with this the last couple of years and I have lost lots of bees and lots of money. I have no idea what the cause could be, other than a nearby farm spraying chemicals or possibly the round-up ready corn planted on the neighboring property.

Either way, agriculture can be tough at times and I am not one to give up.
This week we drove north to Knoxville, TN and picked up 2 nucs from a bee keeper there who raises Russian and Russian mix bees.

 

His driveway and yard looked like a bee keeper lived there and there were bees flying everywhere! He owns 500 hives and sells mostly nucs and starter hives  to area folks, about 200 a year.

 

He has been keeping bees for 35 years and told me that he too has issues with pesticides. He also said bee keeping is much harder now than back then, and my troubles are experienced by bee keepers across the country, including himself.

Was happy to get some new bees from him, as he doesn't treat his bees with any bee chemicals or drugs. He also told me that his hives that get full sun do not have issues with the small hive. That made me realize that my full sun hives don't have SHB issues either.

We plan to consolidate all of our hives to one side of the property that gets more sun and where my current Russian hives are thriving. Hopefully that will help any SHB problems.

The hives are home and doing well. I will be feeding them sugar syrup all summer to help get them ready for winter, especially since nectar flow is over here in my neck of the wods.

 

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We have had a typical summer weather pattern of hot, humid sun most of the day and then late afternoon thundershowers.

 

It is nice to sit on the front porch and watch the cool rain.

 

The kids have been looking through a rock and mineral book, picking out their favorite ones.

They decided to comb through a rock and mineral set that I bought about 12 years ago for home schooling. The set has samples of real rocks and minerals, numbered and labeled.

 

Willow actually was able to identify several rocks that she found on the property.

 

 

This is homeschooling. People always think that home education means sitting around a table for hours on end staring into thick textbooks. Nope.

This is homeschooling: sitting outside and deciding that looking up rocks and minerals would be great fun and then spending an hour identifying rocks and where they are found. Nobody made the kids do this because they had the desire and motivation to do this on their own.

It doesn't always work this smoothly and perfectly, of course, so I just sit back and relish the moments when it does.

 

 

Have a great weekend Ya'll!



This Morning

Don't you just love it when you awaken about 2 am with a really itchy foot? Yesterday I inspected bee hives, placed in them a grease patty, and then placed entrance reducers on them. All of this resulted in a few stings on top of my left foot.
I was wearing my bee suit and.....flip flops. I didn't expect the stinging ladies to notice my bare feet and plan a direct flight path to my toes.

I scraped the stingers out and my feet were fine. The entire rest of the afternoon and evening they were FINE. Come 2 am my foot was invaded with a serious case of the itchies.

Being awake in the middle of the night encourages my brain to ponder the next day's events that are planned and the long term goals for the season and year.

This morning the weather was cool and foggy and the cows were out of their fencing quietly munching on dew covered grass.

Lucy will be calving in a month and a half. Belle will be headed to a neighboring farm for a month to *hang* out with a bull.  I will miss her while she is gone. She's not as friendly as Lucy but her cowgirl antics are fun to watch. She is much younger than Lucy and her youth shows when she comes running and bucking, excited over a treat of grain in a bucket.

This winter we will start accumulating young bull calves to raise as steers on this same pasture. Fencing plans are the most daunting, but I am sure we can sit down one day and figure out a good plan.

Devin is finally off a stretch so he is going to build a chicken coop a top this trailer. This will be my egg mobile to move my hens across the pasture, following the cows. It will not be huge, but we do not have a tractor to pull a larger egg mobile. We work with what we can and this old jet ski trailer was a freebie. I am excited to see what Devin builds.

In the meantime, my hens are still enjoying their time out on pasture and currently they are scratching up the garden and eating bugs.

It's amazing at the amount of work they can do in one day, digging and scratching. Their egg production has picked up too. The only drawback here lately is that the hawks are returning looking for food. Yesterday a nice sized hawk swooped down at a rooster just feet from Devin in the back yard. It was a brazen hawk, no doubt. The rooster made an escape and was safe. This spring we will order a couple of goslings. Joel Salatin keeps two geese with his flock to help protect them from aerial predators.

***This is my early morning rooster who enjoys crowing us awake at the crack of dawn***

Duke was in an especially relaxed mood this morning. He posed nicely for his pictures, almost half asleep. He was up during the night barking away coyotes....I heard him:-)

Yes it will be fine day, despite my sleepless, itchy foot night. The itch is gone this morning and my list of chores is quite expansive. I was able to make  a mental list of my "to do" list while scratching my foot red. It wasn't a total waste of time awake. I pondered. I problem solved. I even made a couple of decisions.

One being that next time, every time, I will wear boots when inspecting the hives.

Happy, happy Friday! This weekend we will attend the annual weanie roast at the Martin homestead. What are your weekend plans?

My Day Off

I always have believed that one great aspect to homeschooling is that the schedule can be changed at a whim.

Devin's parents wanted to come and get the three younger girls and let them spend a couple of nights there. Of course we always allow for any opportunities to hang out with grandparents. School work can be put on hold for a couple of days.
Of course that means I get a couple of days off from school too! Of course here I am at 10 am and still on the computer, but I fully intend to get some crafting of some sort done. I also hope to tackle a few very messy kitchen cabinets.

 We had a very busy few days with school and laundry. The laundry seems to be building up more quickly these days. I wonder if the little girls are throwing clean clothes in a dirty pile because they are too lazy to put them away. It has been known to happen. Thankfully Indiana was a helper with the washing.

We also decided a last minute impromptu party was in order! I neglected to start the dishwasher at lunch so we pulled pout the paper plates, whipped up some homemade pizza, and ran out to fetch a Redbox rental and some root beer float supplies. Party!

 My beginner crochet skills are slowly taking shape. My first pair of fingerless gloves are finished and now I just need the cool weather to return so I can use them.

I enjoyed my last embroidery project so much that I have started another, smaller project.

My Birdie Stitches quilt is pieced and ready for my quilter next month. This was a really fun quilt to make and I hope that the quilt pieces sitting in my studio are as fun and inspiring to finish because I have way too many quilts needing to be finished.

 Yesterday the weather was nice enough for my bees to fly out of the hives and collect pollen. Though I have a few more hive losses.

 Some of the losses have been due to a raccoon tearing into the hives.

Here you can see where a coon has clawed at this hive body in attempts to knock it down. This hive will most likely not survive.

Despite the losses, I still have many survivors and expect this bee season to be a great one. If you are local, I am offering up a Beginner Bee Keeping Course. April 14th from 10-am-2pm.

This will be a family friendly study of bee keeping for all ages.
Topics covered:
The honey bee and her products
Bee keeping equipment
Bee biology
 Honey plants in our region
Getting started in bee keeping
Diseases and pests
Honey Extraction and processing
Spring, summer and fall management

Please bring your own lunch.
Class INCLUDES copy of Kim Flottum's book "Backyard Bee Keeping"

Cost: $30 per family. Non-refundable deposit of $15 due by March 17th. Full payment due by day of class.This class will be outdoors,dress accordingly! I reserve the right to reschedule class date based on weather conditions. Space is limited. 


If you are interested you may contact me at mybarefootfarm@catt.com

Have a fantastic Wednesday!