Not Everything Goes As Planned

I just realized I just stopped blogging after the Great Bee Loss of 2014, never even updating the blog about what had happened. I chalk it up to dealing with the sorrow that came with the Bee Loss. Here's the nutshell version:

We did our first check, which I talked about the post from April 2013, noting that the queen was out and the bees seemed to be buzzing away. There were decent numbers of bees coming and going from the hive each day, things seemed to be as they should be. We did our second check about a week after the first and the bees were just ... gone. There were a few dead bees lying on the bottom of the hive, but only about five. There were a couple nice pieces of comb started, both about the size of C's hand. One even had lots of nice little babies, the other a touch of honey. But no bees. Well, that's a lie. There were about three bees, just hanging around, seeming confused about where everyone else had gone. We joked later (when we were finally able to joke about it) that they must've been the bees no one else liked. We figured they must've gotten sent to scout new pollen sources and all the other bees hightailed it while they were gone. We were really sad. We tried for a long time to figure out what went wrong, but we finally came to the conclusion that sometimes things just do. We've tried to rectify any issues or problems that may have existed with the old hive by getting the new, pre-made one. I will definitely miss the little windows that C put in the one he built especially for me to be able to peek in without disturbing the bees, but I'll live. It's more important that they stick around to pollinate lots of plants, and maybe make some honey, than that I get to peek at them whenever I please.

But we comfort ourselves by telling ourselves that all those other bees are probably still out there somewhere, pollinating away, improving the ecosystem. The world needs more bees, and hopefully we've helped make that happen in some small little way. And we're trying again this year! Fingers crossed!

Every year is a new year

Well, I'm going to try starting this back up again. We didn't do a garden last year because we had the wedding in May and traveling and what seemed like a million other things throughout the summer, so we thought we'd let it go for a year, and start again next (now this) year. And here we are with something even bigger than a wedding coming in July ... a new baby! But we've ordered the bees and will be starting seeds in a few weeks, so we're doing it anyway!

What we did do last year was get chickens. They have been a real adventure. They will be a year old June 1. We got two Americaunas and two Barred Rocks. They were all supposed to be girls, but chick sexing is not a 100% science, so we ended up with one Americauna rooster. He's gorgeous, but he's a total butthead. He's recently started charging us and throwing his talons up when he gets close. And he doesn't even have his spurs all the way in yet. I told C if he even looks wrong at the baby he's finding a new place for him (the rooster) to live unless he wants to find him (the rooster) in the crockpot when he comes home. Other than that, we've really enjoyed having them. And we love the fresh eggs! Although I fully expect to have them coming out our ears by the end of the summer.

Why would that happen, you may ask? Well, we went to the farm supply store today to look for something totally unrelated to chickens and there was a sign as we walked in that said, "Chicks are here!" I knew just by the look on C's face when he saw it that we were in trouble. Yep. We couldn't leave without six new babies - Golden Sexlinks, which are a cross between Barred Rocks and Rhode Island Reds - and two little ducklings. We are already finding out that the ducklings are quite a bit more loud than the chicks. This should be fun!

We'll be trying bees again this year too. We decided to go with a brand new,
prefabricated hive. C painted it this weekend (it's going to be very colorful and bright - welcome to my world!) so there would be plenty of time for it to air out well before the bees come. Here's hoping for more success this year than we've had before.

So much to make us excited for spring! Then excited for summer! Heck, we're excited for life!

Hiving and Checking for the Queen

The bees arrived Saturday, and it couldn't have been a worse day for it! It was really cold, hovering not much above freezing, and was raining and snowing off and on all day. Not good for the bees! But there wasn't much to do other than move forward. I mean, the weather wasn't supposed to change for at least a few days, and they couldn't stay in their package forever!

They come in a wooden box, two sides of which are screen. There is a hole in the top which is plugged during transport with a can of bee food (basically very thick sugar water) that has tiny holes punched in the bottom. The bees feed off this sugar water while they are trapped in the package and unable to get to pollen. They're fine in there, but they're obviously better off in their hive.

 

The queen is in a tiny version of the larger package, which is suspended from the top of the package. This is so that the bees begin getting used to her scent and so that they can take care of her, but she remains separated from them. Because the bees from packages are paired with the queen shortly before they're sent out to their new homes, you want the bees to have a little time to get used to their new queen. Otherwise they might kill her.

I picked them up early that afternoon and kept them in the garage so they'd be a little warmer until C got home. We put sugar water (a 1:1 ratio) in a spray bottle and spritzed the sides a few minutes before we went out to the hive. We first removed the queen cage, covering the now exposed hole that the bee food can was plugging. There is a small hole in the bottom of the cage with a cork in it. C removed that cork, immediately covering the hole so the queen couldn't get out, then I shoved a mini marshmallow into the hole. Don't worry! The plan is that the bees will eat through the marshmallow and let her out. Then we dumped them out of the package and into the hive. Literally just dumped them. C shook the package around a little until almost all of them were out in the hive. The temperature did work in our benefit a little in that it made the bees a lot less likely to fly around during the hiving process. Unfortunately I did not get any pics of this process. Maybe next year. Anyway, we closed up the hive and left them to get the queen out.

We checked back in this afternoon (Wednesday) to be sure that the queen had indeed been let out of her cage as planned. We found a huge wad of bees suspended from two of the top bars. While we didn't see her, it's most likely that the queen was in the middle of that wad. And hopefully they are working on making comb. We closed the hive back up and we'll leave them again for about a week. If all goes as we hope they will have a good start on comb and there may even be some brood!

PS Have I mentioned our awesome bee suits? They're made for someone about 6" taller than me, but otherwise they're quite stylish. You should see the way people slow down and stare as they're driving by when we are walking across the yard in these babies. It's quite funny, really :)

Build It and They Will Come

After we decided to get bees, we'd already decided to use a top-bar hive, but C decided he wanted to build our hive. We found plans in several different places, but he decided the plans he found in a beekeeping magazine - GRIT Magazine's Guide to Backyard Beekeeping and Honey - looked like the best and easiest to follow. So my Can Do Basically Anything Stud Muffin got started.




Gotta measure it out








Used a chalkline to make sure the lines were straight.

He made all the cuts.

I helped by sanding.

 We used a low VOC water sealant to protect the wood. We let these air outside for a week before C was ready to assemble the hive. You want to make sure that there are no toxic fumes remaining that could kill the bees once they're in the hive.

 I really wanted to be able to peek in without disturbing the bees - especially in the winter when you're really not supposed to open the hive at all - so C had the owner of our local glass shop cut some pieces of glass so that he could put in windows.

 Here are all the parts for the top bars.

 These will lay across the top of the hive, flat part (the part laying against the table) will be on top, the bees will build their comb suspended from the thin piece going down vertically from that.

Here are my windows!

And here is the roof! It's almost done! And a good thing... the bees arrive this weekend!

Time for Seedlings

We had a great garden last year, though the selection was somewhat limited. That was partly by design - we wanted to get our feet under us, figure out our soil/climate/season, gain a little experience as gardeners - and partly from inexperience - see reason number one. All-in-all, given that it was our first stab at gardening, I think we did a pretty good job. But one of the things I regret about last year is not keeping better records on our doings, so I'm making a big effort to be better about that this year. I am keeping a gardening journal, including a graph paper map of our garden and all the relevant dates. I plan to record those things here, too, along with pictures taken along the way. This will be the first of the garden progress related posts...

This year we've decided to go with almost all heirloom seeds, and are using organically grown seeds whenever possible. We began talking about this idea during the winter, and we quickly realized that it was important to both of us, mostly for the same reasons we wanted to start gardening and get bees in the first place: it's important to us to be sensitive to our environment and we want to be able to give back as much as we take. Unlike hybrids and genetically engineered seeds, heirloom seeds are much more genetically diverse and have no genetic engineering in their history. While the other two are often engineered to the point that they can survive in more drastic climates (like ours) or are resistant to various diseases, I believe that these problems can be avoided too by using heirloom seeds that have been used in the area before. This year we got all our seeds from two companies: Botanical Interests, a great Colorado company, and Seed Savers Exchange.

We have also decided to use these little plantable, biodegradable peat seed flats again this year. The only thing you have to be careful of with these little guys is being sure that, when you plant them, you put the entire pot under the ground. If you don't, if even a tiny edge is above the ground, it can be disastrous for the plant. The pots soak up some water, which is fine if it's under ground, but any exposure to the air, and the water in the pot is quickly wicked away. We found this out the hard way last year. This year we will also use a very sharp knife to remove the bottoms of the pots. We didn't have trouble last year with the pots degrading and the roots being able to push through, but if we can help the process, why not? The pieces we cut off can just be thrown into the compost pile, so there's no real waste from doing that.

Last year we had three strawberries, two blackberries, and one each blueberry and raspberry; but four or five of a handful of different veggies. We decided to be much more diverse about our plantings this year. We will have: three cauliflower (white, purple, and green), three broccoli, two broccoli rabe, four beets, two eggplants, two tomatoes, two jalapeno, two cayenne, two tomatillos, two each of Catskill and Long Island brussels sprouts, five cucumbers, five edamame, five lima beans, four acorn squash, four butternut squash, three yellow squash, three zucchini,  and four each of Jack O Lantern, Big Max, and Casper pumpkins. We planted everything but the tomatillos, cauliflower, eggplants, and Casper pumpkins March 23rd. We kept them inside, near the fire so that the oil stayed nice and warm - a factor far more important than sun at the germination stage.

We began to see our first sprouts - within the first week: the 27th saw all three broccoli and both broccoli rabe sprout; the 28th brought us sprouts of two beets, 2 Long Island brussels sprouts, four cucumber, four edamame, and one Jack O Lantern sprouts, we also planted the tomatillos that day; the next day, two more beets, two Catskills brussels sprouts, one cucumber, one edamame, and three Jack O Lanterns sprouted; the day after that two yellow squash, three zucchini, and the last Jack O Lantern sprouted; the last day of March we saw sprouts for the two tomatoes, four limas, one acorn squash, one yellow squash, and all four Big Max pumpkins.

The first two days of April we had sprouts from the last lima bean, three acorn squash, three butternut squash, and the last Big Max; and a tomatillo finally popped through the 3rd; the 4th the second tomatillo sprouted, and we planted the cauliflower, eggplants, and peppers - jalapeno and cayenne. We'd been waiting for local garden shop to get in the seeds we wanted. One of the cayenne sprouted very quickly - the 6th, and the 7th two of the cauliflower sprouted. I love that we can already tell which are going to be the purple ones - they have darker leaves with purple around the edges. The 8th we had sprouts of one jalapeno, one cayenne, and the last cauliflower; the 9th our last sprouts - one jalapeno, one cayenne, and both eggplants - emerged.

Over the last two weeks the seedlings have been growing like crazy! By the time we put them in the ground - still a month from now - we'll have strong, healthy plants, ready to put their roots into the ground and give us lots of delicious vegetables.

Of course we're hoping to still have the fruit too. It all looks like it's wintered over okay, so within the next month or so we should start seeing some green leaves on them as well. We're definitely looking forward to lots of homegrown food this summer!

P.S. We are t-minus two weeks and counting until the bees arrive!!

Beekeeping 101, Part 3

The third, and last, in our series of beekeeping classes was largely a review. We started by discussing how to hive bees in a top bar hive. This is pretty much the same as hiving them in a Langstroth hive, with two main differences.  First, after you dump out as many of the bees as possible, rather than leaning the mostly empty package against the entrance (a top bar hive is elevated off the ground), you clothespin a sheet to the entrance board and drape it down to the ground. Place the package on the sheet so that the bees can crawl out of the package and up to the entrance. Second, you band the queen cage to one of the middle bars, rather than suspending her by the wire in the top. Otherwise the process seems pretty much the same.

We also talked about “setting up” the top bar hive. The teacher of the class recommended using a thin (about ½” wide) spacer at the end to keep the top bar closest to the entrance from being close enough that the bees will glue the comb to the front wall. She said it also allows a little more room when you need to remove the first bar. One of the most important things with a top bar hive is making sure the bees are off all the upper surfaces before putting the bars back in. This avoids squishing bees (bad: kills bees and releases the alert pheromone which stirs up the rest of the hive) and trapping them in the upper section of the hive (bad: if the bees get trapped up top they’ll start building comb there). You want to start with about seven bars, with the follower board behind them. When the bees start filling those up, simply add more bars. It’s apparently a good idea to try to keep five empty bars throughout the summer.

We talked about lighting the smoker. This is assuming that you use it very often (more on that in another post), but even if you don’t, you’ll surely need it from time-to-time. We got ours in our first batch of supplies. I’ve enjoyed taking it apart and checking it out. It’s recommended that you learn how to light it before your bees arrive and you need to use it. It takes a while to get the hang of it, and it takes a while to get it going good. It’s best to light the smoker before heading out to the hives. Get some paper or shavings going at the bottom (nothing potentially carcinogenic like charcoal), then add your burn material slowly until it starts smoldering. It’s best to use juniper bark because that smoke kills off some of the mites that like to camp out on bees.

We talked about supplemental feeding too. This is important if the bees run out of stored up honey to eat. At the end of the summer, you have to leave lots of honey for the bees to feed on over the winter. When the winter is very cold, the bee population decreases some; and the bees fly very little – really only to get water. If they fly very little, they eat a lot less. But if the winter is mild, like this one has been, the bees fly a lot more, which means they eat a lot more. It’s a good idea to check the hives in February to make sure they have enough to eat. This can be done in a Langstroth hive by simply lifting it. If it’s still heavy, there’s probably still enough honey. With a top bar hive, you kind of have to open it up.  Unless you have windows like we will! Then you should just be able to peek in without disturbing the bees! If you find they don’t have enough honey, you have to feed them. Plain white sugar is the best. Or sugar water made from plain white sugar and water. You can modify one of those gallon size chicken feeders by using a circle of #8 hardware cloth to cover the feeding tray. This is so the bees can walk on the cloth and suck the sugar water through it, without falling into the water and drowning. (For the same reason you will want to put something the bees can light on while drinking in the water source you have planned for the bees. We are going to get some sturdy pool toys – or the like – to float in the pond, as we plan on that being the bees’ main water source.)

And finally we talked about planting for bees: apparently blue is their favorite color. For that reason, in this area, it is recommended to plant blue sage, Russian sage, borage, bachelor’s buttons, and blue lupine, but bees also love all kinds of fruit trees, willow trees, lavender, white clover, lilac, bee balm, hollyhocks, and roses (among numerous others). We already have six apple trees, a pear, Russian sage, lavender, hollyhocks, lilac, and five roses, in addition to the blossoms that occur in the garden (the various squashes, cucumbers, pumpkins, etc.). But we’ll also be planting others this year especially for the bees. I’m most excited about the borage because that has great use for fertilizer, and is really good for “heating up” the compost pile, as well.

And that was about it. I’m so excited about all of this, I can’t believe we still have another two months and 15 days before the bees arrive!

Beekeeping 101, Part 2b

As usual, all of this information is from the class and/or reading I've done ... and now it's time to talk about hiving the bees! This is what it's called when you receive your package of bees and move them into your hive, their new home. First, it's really important to have the hive built well in advance of getting your bees, especially if you plan to paint or stain it. It will take a good month for any chemicals, smells, etc that might be harmful - or even fatal - to your bees to dissipate, so getting it built and ready for the bees early is the best thing.

The day the bees arrive, set them aside in a cool, shady spot until late afternoon. Part of the reason to do this is because it's cooler, so the bees are calmer, but also bees are less likely to decide they hate your hive and leave if it's about to be dark. Bees apparently do very little flying at night. They also need a little more time to get used to their new queen. They will have been hanging out with her for only a few hours to a day or so, so more adjustment time is better. When you put them aside, and several more times during the day, check the sugar can to be sure there is still enough in there to keep feeding the bees. If you want, you can go ahead and mix up some sugar water (two cups of water to one pound of pure white sugar) and put it in a spray bottle. Periodically throughout the day lightly spray the screen on the outside of the package with the sugar water. The bees will lick it off. When they do that they get all fat and happy, which makes them calm.

Before you start, remove the middle-most frames from your hive to make room to put the bees in. When it's time to put them in, pick up the package, and give it a good shake downward to get most of the bees to the bottom of the package. Don't bang it on anything, that'll upset the bees. Remove the sugar can, gently reach in and remove the queen cage, then cover the hole with something. Have a mini marshmallow ready and remove the cork closing the queen cage. Cover the hole with your finger (you don't want her to escape!) until you have time to shove the mini marshmallow in it. Set her aside, being sure she can get plenty of air. Get the package and gently turn it upside down so that the hole is right over the gap in the hive. Then gently shake it around to get the bees out and into the hive. Most of them should come out, but if there are some left just lay the opening of the package next to the hive entrance and they should come out and into the hive on their own. Very slowly and gently (to avoid crushing any bees) replace the frames, leaving one out if necessary so there's still a space in the middle. Hang the queen, still in her cage, in this space. Make sure the screen is facing such that the queen won't suffocate. Then slowly and gently (so as to not crush any bees) close up the hive. As long as it's not freezing outside, provide sugar water in whatever manner your hive allows for so they have plenty to eat and can start making honeycomb. Over the next few days the bees will get more used to their new home, and their new queen. During this time they will eat through the marshmallow to release the queen. You'll want to leave them alone for a few days to allow this to happen, but check in about three to be sure she's out. They can apparently feed and groom her through the cage, but she needs to be out to start laying eggs in the comb the bees have been building.

Our bees are coming at the end of April, but there will be limited flowers at that time, so we'll give them sugar water for the first few weeks. That way they'll have made lots of nice comb and a good number of eggs will have hatched by the time the bees start going out and foraging for pollen. Then they'll start making honey and will be able to feed themselves. Yay for honey!