First thing Saturday morning, I went up to the orchard to check on them, as well as feed/water all of the chickens. When I got there, my heart sank. I saw a hole dug under the bottom of the movable house and there were no birds inside the pen! No feathers, bones, or other remnants of the birds. It’s as if something dug underneath, went in with a gunny sack and carried them all off.

So, I’m out about $160 for the 50 broiler chicks and the 10 turkeys I had ordered. And if I can’t get any more turkey chicks, we won’t be raising any to put in the freezer.

I guess we’ll go back to raising them in the garage side of the basement and putting them outside when they are 4 weeks old.

On a more positive note, Saturday morning, while waiting for customers to pick up their produce, I pulled 18 full frames of honey that were “capped”. I also saw that the bees were still working on an additional 12 frames that were not ready yet. “Capped” means that the bees have reduced the water content of the honey to 16% and sealed the cells with a coat of wax. How they know when it is at 16% water content, I don’t know. I do know that if I take the honey before they cap it, it will go rancid, but if I wait until they cap it, it will keep forever if it is kept in a sealed bottle after extracting it from the comb.
With my sons’ and nephew’s help, we extracted that honey. I poured it into the filter on the 5 gallon bucket and then bottled 19 pounds of honey (there is still between 1/3 and 1/2 of the 5 gallon bucket full).

I put the frames back in the supers on Sunday afternoon.

–Pat

So, while I was waiting for some of the later arriving CSA customers, I pulled the full frames off of the hives.

I then proceeded (with Sam & Aric’s help) to extract the honey.
I just finished bottling 16 – 1 pound containers and a quart jar full (for us) and still have over 1/2 of a 5 gallon bucket.

I should be able to pull the rest off next weekend. Now, if the other hives (or even if these same 3 hives) up another super full of honey, I’ll be in fine shape…

I installed 6 packages of bees Sunday afternoon.
I’m getting pretty fast at it -It took all of about 5 minutes for the first one, and around 2 – 3 minutes for the other 5.
I fed them pollen patties yesterday. I have 2 1-gallon “community” feeders set up with sugar-water, to help them pull wax, and to stimulate laying in the queen. They were installed in hives that had pulled comb on the foundation for all or, at least for 7 of the 10 frames, so they have a head start there.

I intend to pull honey off of these hives, so I will be installing individual feeders on each hive this week, along with queen excluders and supers with empty frames (foundation only – no “pulled comb) so the bees can pull comb. If they can get that done by May 1st – 10th, I should be in business, and will pull the feeders off and add additional supers that have pulled comb. That way, then will have plenty of room for putting up honey. This helps me in 2 ways:
1. The bees will be less likely to swarm, since they have the entire brood box for brood, and 2 supers for storing honey.
2. They will have supers with comb – so all they have to do is put the nectar in the cells and start making honey out of it.

We are planting lots and lots of Anise Hyssop (Agastache foeniculum). It is said that 1 acre of anise hyssop can supply 100 beehives with enough nectar to put up 100 pounds of surplus honey per hive. With my 7 bee hives, we should do well.

We are also planting a bee-friendly flower garden, and have some clover in. All of these plants should boost the “nectar economy” and, hopefully will provide enough stores for my bees to overwinter well. Since most of the farms are no longer here, it has been a struggle to support more than 4 hives here with the amount of bloom that has been available.

Add to that the 125 blueberry plants we have, (which will bloom in July) the several hundred strawberries, 40 plus fruit trees, and we could have a good year.
And if the black locust blooms this May, we’ll have a bumper crop of honey!!!

Here’s to a successful beekeeping year!

–Pat

Here in Verona, KY there once were lots of big farms – mostly tobacco, but there were gardens, etc.,.
Now we are slowly turning into suburbia, and those that have large lots, or acreage, only have manicured lawns. Some do hay with their huge parcels of grass, but there really isn’t much for my bees to forage on.

As a result, we are planting about 1/2 acre of white sweet, yellow sweet and dutch clover this year. We are also going to plant lots of Anise Hyssop along one side of the driveway.
From what we have read, the sweet lover is a great nectar source for the bees, but even better is…
The Anise Hyssop!
According to what I have read, 1 acre of hyssop will support 100 beehives, each producing about 100 pounds of surplus honey. I could use that shot in the arm!

We also intend to grow a lot of bee-friendly flowers by the hives, plant some bee-friendly trees (tulip poplar, sourwood) and we planted black locust trees over the past couple of years.

We really got a surplus of honey 2 years ago, when the black locust bloomed. But we can’t rely on a strong yearly bloom and honey yield from the black locust.
So we’re betting the bees on the Hyssop.

Hope it turns out well…

I headed out to the kitchen, turned on the light and was heading into the family room for my shoes (which I had left out there last night). Suddenly, my right foot stepped into something – it was wet and felt spongy – I stepped over “it” with my left foot, only to land in the same thing.

I switched on the lights in the family room and found myself standing in a river of honey!

Upon further investigation, I found a broken thumb screw on the honey gate (the little valve that opens on the bottom of a bucket to allow easy pouring of honey during the bottling process) and the gate was no longer pressed against the back plate, but was hanging open… and honey was still dripping out of the opening.

The bucket as still over half full when I went to bed last night – about 30 – 35 pounds of honey – which was now an oozing, lazy river flowing all over the hardwood floor – a swath as wide as a bowling alley lane and about 1/2 inch deep.

Needless to say, I was NOT a happy camper. It was the last bucket of honey, and had been reserved as our personal stash.

I stomped into the bedroom to tell my lovely wife what I found. of course, she was none too happy to be faced with Mr. Grinch, and proceeded to tell me so – and that it wasn’t the end of the world.

She was right, of course – I went downstairs and out side the garage and got a plastic snow shovel and she started clean up while I got a tub full of hot water and some rags for her.

She scooped up the honey and saved it for me to feed the bees with.

Oh well, hopefully next year I’ll get to eat my own honey.
At least the bees will be fed this winter…

–Pat

Anyway, weather here has been crazy, as has the Pacific NW – my brother is in the Tacoma/Seattle area, and it’s been over 100 degrees there! Very unusual.
I would be enjoying the coolest (temperature-wise) July since the 1930’s, but it keeps the tomatoes from turning red! Lots and lots of tomatoes and other stuff coming up and growing big, but the tomatoes just won’t turn red!!! Did I say that already?? We are usually canning and drying them by now.

And the bees.. they are not through capping over the honey, si Can’t pull it off and extract it – all I can do is look longingly at all that honey and wait (another 4 letter word, by the way).

We’ve had so much rain that we haven’t had to put water in the goat watering tanks for a few days now.

Hope it clears soon and I can harvest honey!

Why do we continue to import foods from other nations when there are farmers in our communities that we can get to know, can trust, and will provide us with fresh, wholesome, healthy foods?

Is the lust for rare foods, and the need to have immediate access to foods so important that we would gamble our health, livelihood and very life for the “convenience” of what the supermarket can offer?

We should seriously consider befriending a farmer or two. Get to know them. Ask them how they grow their crops. Ask them how to make the foods keep longer, stay fresher.

You’ll be glad you did…

An article by abcnews medical team says that honey is good for coughs -