Absence makes the heart grow fonder?

I hope. Sorry for the unplanned blogging hiatus. I don’t know even know where to begin, so I’ll just jump right in and see where I land…
Drought and Heat 2012: We are still suffering in our neck of the woods. Grass, crops, gardens.. all are dying. Even the trees are in danger at this point. I’ve been watering to try to save what I can. The good news is we’re now into the “cool 90’s” this week after two weeks of upper 90’s to (as much as) 107 here. Please tell me what’s going on where you are. The rains have been so spotty. I know some have received showers of blessing.
In spite of everything, we still have a few blooms and tiny bit of garden left. Amazing, I say.


Bees: We are picking up another hive of bees this week from a relative who is a beekeeper and does his own splits each year. This will be Hive #4. Yay! On one of our hottest days last week (107), I captured these honeybees soaking up the moisture at the bird bath. It was really interesting to watch! Maybe because I’m a Bee Nerd? At any point during those warmest days you could see several bees at a time cooling off here.

Do you ever have a list of “things I should have blogged, but never did?” Here’s one of my many. This handmade mosaic stepping stone was given to me by my parents on my 50th b-day (gulp) 2 years ago. I sooo love it! The gentleman who creates these is wheelchair-bound in a local nursing home (about my age), and donates the proceeds to our county’s Relay for Life.

Now, here is something that Mr. W is quite proud of. One of his newest projects. Still doesn’t seem real to us sometimes, but his dear blacksmithing friend Ed passed away suddenly a couple of months ago. Slowly but surely I think some of  Ed’s “best of the best” rust pile has somehow found its way to Flat Creek Farm :)
Just for fun, can anyone guess what this lovely crusty rusty item is?

One more random catch-up item.. and I’m outa here for now (hopefully not so long this time). Remember Goldie? Wow, she grew up! She’ll be one year old at the end of this month. Notice the post-critter-chasing tongue?

Hope everyone is doing well. I’m trying to slowly catch up on blog visits too. Where does the time go??
Till next time…

Oh, Honeybees…

What have you done now?

Spring hit about a month early here in the Midwest.

The bees received the memo on that.

We did not.

Saturday afternoon I went over to feed the bees. I spied something unusual in a tree overhead the hive. Yup, it was that SOMEthing you see in the picture above.

Hmmm….

It appears our good bees in the original hive had decided to make a split. And, without the assistance of their beekeepers. The nerve…! (go ahead and say it… ‘you snooze.. you lose’!)

A split is formed from the hive when things get a little overcrowded. A portion of the colony splits off, and begins to swarm. Certain other conditions figure in also. Normally, swarming doesn’t begin quite so early in the year. And there are things a beekeeper can do to prevent such things (including observation within the hive, and attempting to do the split themselves), but…

That’s okay. Mr. W and I needed a plan for a fun Saturday evening date. Why not capture some honeybees?!?!  I’m just thankful I happened over to the bee yard before they departed the scene. Forever!

Here’s a video of our adventures to save the bees. If you reallllly love bees and are interested in this, you may want to watch the entire 10 minutes. Otherwise, maybe just snippets. Also I have to note that it’s a bit of a challenge to video while donning a bee veil. Therefore, I am sorry for some video hiccups and ground footage!

Hopefully, the Queen was saved, and this new hive will thrive!

As if that wasn’t enough excitement, we went as scheduled to pick up our package bees from Walk-about Acres the following day.

I loved their directive signs :)

One of these buzzing packages was ours!

It was chilly, in the 50’s.. but as soon as we returned home, we proceeded to install the Minnesota Hygienic bees and the Queen (in cage) in a new box. I’ll keep you posted on how they do.

In a day or so, the Queen should eat her way out of her cage. The candy cork was removed and a mini-marshmallow was stuffed in. This was a trick we learned at the Beekeeping Workshop earlier this year. This delay will prevent the other bees from killing her (if she releases too soon).

Did I mention Mr. W built several brood boxes and supers late in the Winter? Thank Goodness.. looks like we’ll be using them all up at this rate! He did a GREAT job, by the way. They even have the recessed hand holds. I have to brag on him!

Now we officially have three hives. Exciting!

The bees have some nice pastoral scenery surrounding them. This is the pond that serves as a backdrop to the Bee Yard.

Did I also mention this is our 200th blog post? Wow, as slow as I’ve become at blogging, I thought I’d never make it to this point. Never say never! In honor of the 200th post we’re preparing for maybe a little somethin’ special in the near future.

Hope all is well in your neck of the woods!!

Linking up @ Homestead Revival’s 59th Barn Hop!

Ahhhh…. Spring!

 

Beekeeping Workshop

First I just want to say, Hi Everyone!! Sorry to be absent for so long. Life sure happens, doesn’t it? We just have to do the best we can, and run with it. I’m so thankful for Leap Day because that allows me to at least get one blog post in for February. Yay!

Recently, the Blacksmith and I attended a wonderful beginning beekeeping workshop sponsored by the EPA and University of Missouri Extension. Our main speakers for the day were Jim and Valerie Duever of Jim 'n' I Farms. We both learned so much that our heads were spinning. Thank goodness for some fabulous learning materials, camera, and lots of notepads. It was an entire day of beekeeping information – loved it!!

Feral comb, inserted into a frame.

Did you know that rubberbands work great for holding in comb, should you capture a wild swarm? Me neither.

 

We also learned about some different feeding strategies (including pollen patties), and when to feed them.

A fabulous demo was given on how to set your new package bees up in their new home. It’s really not as scary as it sounds (I hope, because we’ll be doing this soon).

Darn, I wanted a more close-up picture of Valerie. She had on the cutest honeybee cardigan ever!  Here she is demonstrating some beekeepers’ protective clothing options.

Everyone had hands on experience building a complete bee hive set.

Here, part of our group learns to put the frames together. We had all ages actively participating in this workshop.. which I thought was extremely cool.

We also learned how to insert the Duragilt foundation into the frames we had built. (All was easy peasy, once we got the hang of it).

At the end of the day, our completed projected was given away as a door prize. How cool is that? (sorry, best picture I could get of it.. everyone was in for a close-up of our wonderful creation!)

 

Hopefully, all of this new information from the workshop will help us have healthier and happier bees,

and more of this.

In addition to this workshop and reading some great beekeeping books, over the past couple of months we’ve been watching some great ‘bee’ flicks from Netflix. I would highly recommend any of these for your continued bee education:

Queen of the Sun (update: you can preview, rent or buy this beautiful documentary via the player at the bottom of this page!)
Bees: Tales from the Hive: Nova
Vanishing of the Bees
Colony

Off to put some frames together! Happy Leap Day!!

Operation: Sting

Also known as: Our First Honey Harvest and Extraction

How about some good news first? About 30 pounds of pure liquid gold “clover with a smidgen of wildflower” honey was harvested this weekend.

Casualties: 1 sting for me (over my eye when I took the water hose to rescue Mr. W) , and numerous stings for my Mr. Also, 3 plus stings for the Fiddler (and he wasn’t even on extracting duty, but splitting wood several yards away). We are all fine, and the Fiddler even boasts that his allergies are much better after several stings to the head. Ouch, but maybe a good dose of apitherapy is all he needed?

I have a ton of pictures to take you along with us on the photo story of Honey Harvest 2011, then I’ll close with a list of things we learned.. and also a quick update of what we’ve been up to the past, oh.. month? Good grief, how time flies! Please pardon what is sure to be a record-breaking lengthy post for me as I try and catch up.

Pulling the frames. This method was a good back-saver too (more on that at the end). Frames were pulled individually from the super, and we used the smoker and a turkey feather and bee brush to “tickle” the bees as I called it ;) It actually worked pretty well, and the nine frames were put into a large rubbermaid box. Much lighter to carry back to the ‘honey house’ than the entire super would have been.

Back at the ‘honey house’ (garage), each frame was scraped with a regular serrated knife to uncap, in preparation to place in the extractor.

Cappings were placed over an old oven rack to drain into a plastic box. (Definitely should have used a screen-type cover instead).

Uncapped frames (four at a time) were placed into the basket inside the renovated antique honey extractor.

Cranking away as centrifugal force spins the honey to the sides of the extractor and…

…out the honey gate. Here are the first drops of pure raw unfiltered honey, dripping into the filter over the honey bucket.

The drained cappings also produced an amazing amount of honey. Some bottling was done tonight, but more will be done tomorrow after it settles a few hours.

It is delicious, and beautiful, and oh-so-addictive. Did I also mention we’re firm believers in the healing powers of honey?

It was a little bit of work, mostly in preparation. Things definitely did not go as planned, and as we look back on this experience, those boo-boos seem so funny.

A few things we learned:

• those velcro strips on the bee suits are meant to be closed. do not question this!
• do not wear holey britches to the bee hive area, especially when bees are already irate because you’re removing ‘your’ share of their honey.
• quickly remove empty frames back to the bee hive area for the bees to clean out. do not tarry on this one! The bees WILL find the remnants of honey, and they WILL then take over the entire yard.. and hold humans hostage until they finish it!
• Irate bees who invade the yard in search of honey remnants like to bury themselves in your hair. This produces a little dance we call “the bee dance” and gives the neighbors something to talk about as they drive by.

All in all, I think we did great though.. and we are looking forward to next year’s beekeeping experiences.

******

Now, a quick update of what we’ve been up to the past month. Mr. W had his second back surgery of 2011 earlier this month. He is doing great, and plans to return to work in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, he’s been doing everything he can possibly do that doesn’t involve lifting, twisting, pushing, pulling, etc. Including coaching the wood-gettin’ team.

We also had a wonderful two-day visit with Osage Bluff Quilter and Blacksmith a couple weeks ago. Read about our Amish trip here on Patti’s blog – she’s a much better blogger than I am. Oh, how I wish we would have taken pics of those wonderful fried pies.. but we snarfed them right up! And, the same thing happened with Osage Bluff Quilter’s homemade Peach Salsa (the BEST in the world!) – all I have is an empty jar to show! We even got to visit with them the following weekend at the Heritage Festival – check that event out here.

If you’ve stayed with me this long… bless your heart! Thanks for stopping by.. and hope all is well in your neck o’ the woods!

Till next time…

Updated to link to:

As Summer Fades

Where has this month, and Dear Summer gone? We have been busy, but somehow it seems there is a new priority every day… and we keep spinning around in circles. Does anyone else feel like that? Here’s some randomness that’s been happening in our neck of the woods.
We said goodbye to an old wagon heirloom last week (Peter Shetler).

I’ve been working on a new pen as time allows. It will be  “Fort Knox” for geese (Greta and her future new gander friend), plus a hangout for roosters occasionally. This will consist of 3x6 foot panels with hardware cloth (14 of them). I chose the panel method so I can change my mind in the future and possibly move the pen or expand. You just never know :) There will be something over the top to deter raccoons and other predators. I never ever want a repeat of what happened to Grady Gander :(

Yesterday was planing day for the walnut lumber we milled last Spring. It was dry and ready to go. Hmmm, we will have to choose special projects for this dear old tree from our backyard that turned out to be our first sawmill project!

Our Hive #2 of Bees (we thought they were Carniolans) had a problem. They were without a Queen. While we were debating what to do, it seems the bees took matters into their own hands. Hive #1 (the Italians) started taking over Hive #2. Also, a frame of brood was moved over to Hive #2 from Hive #1. The objective is of course to somehow end up with a Queen in Hive #2.  We will check in a few days to see if there is any sign of a new Queen. So exciting! In the meantime, Hive #2 is guzzling *two gallons of sugar water per day*. Amazing.



Finally, I’ll close with a mosaic of our Sunday evening drive from yesterday. Just a few random views from our neighborhood. We shared the camera, depending on who had the best view at the time!

Also, Mr. W has had a  recurrence of his back woes. We are not 100% sure, but think there may be yet another back surgery in his future. We would appreciate any good thoughts and prayers on his behalf.
Hope all is well in  your neck of the woods!

Honeybees, the Amish, and a Goldfinch

We have a new swarm - another captured swarm. We think the newbies may be Carniolans (aka Carnies). Pictures to come soon of the NewBees :p
Here’s a pictorial update of Hive #1 – frame-checking, adding a Super to Hive #1.


Adding the Super to Hive #1~

Mr. W and I now have our own protective Bee Suits. They are awesome. We’ll have to do a self-portrait soon :) I must say.. in this heat – suiting up for the bees is a very good way to lose weight!
Speaking of heat, we made a quick trip to Amish Country last week. The heat index was about 110 degrees. I no longer feel like complaining about the heat after seeing this---

Making Wheat Shocks

And finally, a male Goldfinch giving me the Stink Eye at the window feeder.

If you’re among the many suffering with this extended heat…
Stay hydrated and well!!