bees

I lost my bees this winter. My first hive. From the looks of things, it seems to me they might have starved. There was maybe a cup of honey left at the very top. There also weren't many bees there. It's a mystery. This was in the top bar hive that I built last year. Perhaps they didn't store enough honey, perhaps the queen died and they lost their purpose? Who knows. All I know is I'll wait at least until next year to try again. I have to get my nerve back up. I'm still and probably always will be a recovering be-phobe. But a bee-phobe who is looking for all the pollination help she can get and who wants to eat her own honey. So give me a year and we'll have another go at it.

Now, about the top bar hive...
The idea is to allow the bees to build their own comb, hoping that they don't attach it to the sides, so the bars with comb attached can be lifted out. This is supposedly healthier for the bees. BUT - when I checked on the hive and found everybody dead, I took all the comb out and the girls had attached it everywhere. Had I wanted to harvest any honey while the hive was active, it would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible. So in addition to getting my nerve back up, I also have to re-think the hive situation and come up with a plan.

farm update

Wow, it's been awhile since I posted anything! I blame it on spending time with friends, both new and old; weeds and their desperate and evil desire to get the best of me; and lack of anything that seemed important enough to warrant a post on its own.


On the bee front:  
As you may know, with a hive of bumbles in the greenhouse for pollination and a hive of honeybees for honey and field pollination, I am a recovering bee-phobe. Not quite there yet, but making headway. Or, at least I was, until a few weeks ago. Deciding to clean up some old wood, I disturbed a nest of yellow jackets. After much swearing, running, arm flailing, and finally jumping into the shower to get them off me, I was stung five times. Not that bad you say? I beg to differ. I am still jumping at the sound of buzzing. That little incident probably set me back a year in my relationship with bees. At least. As a result, last week a friend volunteered to inspect my hive for me. He borrowed my jacket and hood, but the tyvek suit was too small. "Not a problem", said he, "I'm not afraid of bees". Long story short, the bees were in a foul mood and he was stung at least ten times. Never having been allergic, he didn't worry until he started having trouble breathing. I gave him three Benedryl and after about an hour, he started getting better. Come to find out later, after hearing his symptoms, his doctor said he nearly died. We can just consider this another year of set-back with bees, okay? However, my friend's not a quitter and so asked me to order him a tyvek suit. Now, armed with an epi pen he is ready to tackle hive inspection once again. Maybe this afternoon. God help me.


Sheep:
The flock is doing great. Everyone is healthy and thriving. Due to a reduced pasture size, heat and drought, I've found it necessary to feed hay. No lambs have been sold yet, so it looks like they may be going to the butcher at the end of October. If you like lamb and are interested in some for your freezer, let me know.

Poultry:

There are now seven remaining silky chickens here. Out of 25. Twice, I forgot to close their door at night. The first night, twelve chickens disappeared. The second time, another six were taken. I blame foxes. And of course, myself. I've been way too distracted lately.

The geese are doing well. Several goslings were sold and just one remains. Unless sold by the end of October, he'll be butchered.

To round out the year's supply of meat, my plan is to get some broiler chicks in the next week or so and have them ready for processing at about the same time as the gosling and lambs.

Market garden:
I've officially lost the battle with weeds in most of my new plot. Probably the best course of action at this time is to mow it and start prepping for next year while vowing to do better. The greenhouse is chugging along and producing well. Fall and winter seeds were ordered and have arrived. Planting will start up for those crops next week. A little late, but still okay.

So that's what has been going on here on the hill. I've been distracted in the best possible way, but as a result, things have run a bit amuck. Time to buckle down and get back to business.

checking on the bees

View of the hive after opening the bottom vent board. Please note the ginormous cluster of bees. (Oh, and also the cork that is still in the third entrance hole.)

The hive was installed over five weeks ago. According to the barefoot beekeeper, I should have checked on them and moved the dividers out to give them more space about four weeks ago. Did I? No. It was one excuse after another: too busy, too scared, too rainy, too scared, too cold, too scared, didn't have my tyvek suit yet, too scared, etc. In my defense, however, I have been peeking at their hive (from a safe distance) quite often. Lots of bees going in and out, seemingly normal activity, and so it was easy to put off. Then last week while doing my peeking, I saw hundreds of bees clinging to the outside of the hive near the entrance holes - like they might be running out of room. So after four more days of excuses, today was the day - warm and sunny, just the type of day that makes bees happy and content, with most of them out foraging for honey. Looking at what now seemed to be a couple thousand bees clustered on the outside of the hive, all I could think was "Most of them gone? How could this be the minority?" If the thousands of bees still in and on the hive are any indication, then clearly the queen lived and is laying eggs like gangbusters. She is one fertile mama.

So I made up a batch of liquid bee smoke, donned veil, jacket, gloves, rubber boots, and the new tyvek suit and walked that long, lonely walk to the end of the driveway where the bees live. Wow, was I hot. And a little claustrophobic. Even without the tiniest bit of skin showing, it was still unnerving. So first thing, I sprayed the liquid smoke on the cluster at the front of the hive as well as every bee flying anywhere nearby, then I released the bottom vent door and sprayed the bees that somehow managed to get in there. Kept spraying as I removed the roof. As a matter of fact, let me save time and just say that I really didn't stop spraying. Did I overdo the spray? Quite possibly. Most probably. Almost definitely. But it did seem to work.

So how were the girls, you ask? Well they've been busy. Busy building and filling comb. They even built comb on the dividers which wasn't a good thing since I was going to remove them. Since they were in use and full of bees, any one of which could be the queen, I moved them to the ends of the hive so that they at least have more room in there. Hopefully that won't mess them up too bad.

In retrospect, I quit too soon. I should have taken the opportunity to see if they have brood comb and honey comb built on different bars. I should also have removed the cork from the third entrance hole to give them more room to come and go. But quite honestly, when ninety percent of your brain is occupied with thoughts of an imminent bee attack, little details are easy to forget.

In conclusion, there are a couple things I'd like to say:
First - so far the bees seem to be thriving all by themselves without any help from me, thank goodness.
Second - if I can do this then nearly anyone can. So if keeping bees is an idea you've toyed around with, go for it!
Finally - that cork is staying right where it is and the bees will just have to deal with it.

By the way, is it just me or does that bottom vent board seem like a bit of a ramp for rodents and ants?

the buzz

The bumbles have arrived!

Inside this cardboard box is a sealed plastic insert that contains the bees. Upon arrival, all I had to do was lift out the insert, remove the lid from their sugar water feeder, replace the insert, and slide open that little blue door to let them out. Easy, do-able, and not very nervous-making. No special bee suit or equipment needed.

The bumbles are here in the greenhouse to pollinate the tomatoes, peppers, summer squash and lima beans. They aren't absolutely necessary, but supposedly the vegetables will be larger and more prolific because of them. However, since this is my first year growing in a greenhouse and I'm adding bees right away, there will be nothing to compare it to at the end of the season and I won't really know if they helped or not. But, they came highly recommended and so here we are. Coexisting. Hopefully peaceably.

I think that probably only my sister is able to comprehend how huge this is. Because you should have seen us as kids, hearts racing, adrenaline pumping, running for the house, flailing our arms and screaming whenever a bee chanced our way.

the making of the hive

If interested, you can download plans for building your own top bar beehive at the Barefoot Beekeeper web site or go directly to their download page for their free e-book. Although I found the plans to be a bit confusing, that could just be me. However, after I read their book, it became much clearer. I would definitely recommend reading the book before attempting to build your hive.

Certainly recycled lumber could be put to good use in making this hive but I didn't have any and besides, not two miles from here is the most wonderful lumber mill with friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable folks. Groff & Groff lumber is the type of place you want to go if you enjoy working with wood, especially beautiful or unusual wood. I went there hoping to get fir, but that's one species they don't carry. After a brief discussion about my project, they suggested going with cypress as an easy-to-work, slow to decay wood, good for outdoor use.

sending the cypress through the planer

While the plans make it clear you can successfully build the hive using hand tools, I love power tools. With that said, I am at best somewhat ambivalent about the table saw and the chop saw. Since these are tools that could cause serious bodily injury, I'm always very careful and slightly nervous when using them. But if that keeps me from loosing a finger by becoming complacent and sloppy with safety measures, then I'm okey-dokey with that.

ready to send a board through the table saw

I actually don't have any sort of step-by-step instructions or photos of the hive making process, but mostly just wanted to share where the plans came from. As construction was underway, I did modify a couple of things which added some time to the process. Most notably, the roof. In the plans it was just a flat roof covered with rigid plastic or roofing material. I decided to go with a peak style and made it out of cypress, covering the center seam with aluminum flashing. Function combined with beauty, you know?

There is one thing I would change if I had it to do over, or if I had allowed myself more time, and that is adding an observation window. It would be great to be able to observe what's going on in there without having to actually open it up and upset everyone.

One more thing... check out top bar bee hives on YouTube. There are some very interesting and helpful videos there.

If you do decide to keep bees and build your own hive, good luck and have fun. Oh, and you might not want to wait until the bees are about to ship before starting construction. Just saying.

The finished hive the morning after installing bees - you can see some of the girls at the entrance holes. I haven't yet cleaned up the package debris, but will most likely do that tonight after dark so I don't have to don the bee suit.

sunbeams and stingers

"The keeping of bees is like the direction of sunbeams."

Henry David Thoreau

the new hive

This week, in between potting up seedlings, meetings, bottle feeding lambs, and repairing winter-damaged fencing, I finally made my top bar beehive. I first heard about this non-traditional type of hive in a Mother Earth News article last year and then learned more from the book The Barefoot Beekeeper. I put the final touches on it on Thursday evening, moved into location on Friday morning, and got a call from the post office late Friday afternoon that my bees had arrived, and would I like to come pick them up? Of course, I promptly jumped in the car and went to get the latest livestock for the tiny little farm.

Oh dear.

One thought... was it too late to change my mind? Yes? Oh. Okay. So I brought them in the house, put the package on my office desk and closed the door. Then I went into the kitchen and made a batch of fondant as well as some sugar syrup for them to eat in case there aren't enough flowers blooming just yet.

So this morning as soon as it warmed up a bit, I decided to buckle down and install the girls in their new home.

But first I took the syrup and fondant out, then decided the bottom ventilation board needed a hinge after all and so added that, thought that the roof/lid should have eye hooks to secure it, painted one one more coat of beeswax/linseed oil sealant on the roof, brushed my hair, and gave the dogs a fresh bowl of water. Pretty much doing everything I could to delay the moment when I would intentionally open up a box with, oh, about 4,500 bees in it and not run for my life, screaming and flailing my arms. Seriously.

After giving myself a stern talking to about bucking up, I suited up and donned my bee jacket and veil, rubber boots, long pants secured with rubber bands at the bottom, and leather gloves. All the while wondering why on earth I hadn't bought the Tyvek suit.

still safely in their package

that's right

Carrying them out to the hive brought me to the moment of truth. I sprayed them with sugar water, sprayed inside he hive, sprayed the bees again, and began prying off the lid. Lid off, the bees still couldn't come out until after either the queen cage or their sugar can was removed. I carefully removed the queen cage and slammed the lid back in place. All the YouTube videos I watched said to check to make sure the queen is alive. Looking into the cage, I was surprised to see several bees in there. But it did seem as though one was a bit bigger and longer. After prying off her lid and placing her cage in the hive (Where it shall remain until the end of time. Amen.), I once again sprayed the bees, then knocked the box against the hive to make the bees drop to the bottom. Moving quickly now, I removed the sugar can, turned the box upside down and began dumping bees into the hive.

They were mad.

Really, really mad.

About to panic, I walked calmly away until we could all calm down a little bit. And got stung on my leg.

What's surprising is that I walked back. And finished up by gently brushing bees out of the way so the top bars could be put back on. Then I quit. I'll wait and go back out tonight after dark to put the roof on because the girls and I had about as much togetherness as any of us could handle for a little while.

here they are - if you look closely, you can see many of them still in their package, crawling all over the top bars, and at the entrance holes

So I did it. I opened up that box of fear and shook out a couple thousand bees. On purpose. And lived.

I feel good about that.

Now I need to go rest.

Then I need to order that Tyvek suit.

farm update

flora...
An awful lot of seeds are being sown into soil blocks and many, many seedlings are being potted up right now. This is the big push to get everything seeded in order to be ready for herb fairs and spring planting. Since the garden soil is still too wet and too cold to do any planting outside, all the work is in the greenhouse, which is a really nice place to be this time of year.

and fauna...
Once again the sheep are naked, having been set-upon by the shearer last week. Two of the ewes are confined to the barn where I can keep a better eye on them as they both had a bout with pregnancy toxemia. I think they'll be alright, but I won't be able to relax until the lambs arrive.
Griselda the goose is still laying eggs but shows no inclination to start sitting on them yet. Seems like she should by now, but it also seems I think that every year about this time.
Chickens - what can I say? With six roosters and just three hens, things are seriously out of balance. One of these fine Tuesdays I need to take three of those roosters for a ride to Roots farmers market where they have a small animal auction. It's something that should have been done last fall but I put it off and then winter hit. Hopefully a more reasonable hen-to-rooster balance will be restored once the silky peeps get here.
Of course we musn't forget the bees. Honeys will be arriving in early April and bumbles will be ordered as soon as the greenhouse tomatoes start taking blooming seriously.

It seems almost as though the tiny little farm is holding it's breath, waiting, in anticipation of all of the new life soon to burst forth... seeds, lambs, goslings, peeps... bees.

Soon, soon.

future residents

I got busy this morning and made arrangements for some additional residents here on the hill.

First, chickens. Specifically, Blue Silkies. When you have truly free-ranging chickens, things happen to them. Often unpleasant things. Becoming dinner for hawks, drowning in the sheep's water tank, or falling behind a stack of hay and getting stuck there. Like that. It's sad to find the evidence of a mishap, and thankfully, so far I haven't become immune to it. After all, it should touch us when a creature in our care comes to a bad end. This past year was tougher than most for the chickens and just a remnant remains. And so thirty peeps will be arriving in early May. Silkies, because they can't fly over the fence and make trouble in the market garden. Plus, they're cute as heck. And hey, I need my animals to be aesthetically pleasing.

Next, something I've been pondering for the past year and a half - honey bees. These girls are at least as big a step for me as the bumbles. Although I won't have to work near their home on a daily basis like the bumbles, I will need to actually get into their hive every once in a while. At least once a year if I want any honey. I can see it now - I'll be bundled up like that little kid in "A Christmas Story", except in white. Should be a hoot.