Archive for the ‘bees’ Category

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Honey Bees – I’ve Sure Missed Them

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011

The day finally arrived…… we picked up our bees! And even though it started as a cloudy and rainy day, the sun was shining brightly when we arrived in Stanley to get them.

Paul Kinser is a wonderful man to deal with, and the nucs he started for us were healthy and bustling with activity. Bernie and I purchased two nucs from him, and Si and Mary Ann purchased three.

As he loaded each frame into our hive boxes, we inspected them and looked for the queen.

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I get a little excited during the queen searches, so I elbowed my way right up to the closest spot. I can’t help it. There’s just something so satisfying in being the first to spot the queen. And, even though I only managed to “win” the first queen location round, it didn’t stop me from crowding everyone out for the next four either. Dangit.

Look at this pretty little queen:

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*sigh* Doesn’t she make you want to just kiss her wings right slap off of her?

And look at what some of those silly girls did while drawing out this frame – see that big blob of comb poking up there?

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Paul said they did that in one day – he had just checked them the day before. Those girls keep pretty busy. I like that. But we may need to have a little chat about how to properly draw out frames…….

This is the last nuc. It’s one of Si’s. Look at that beautiful frame loaded with brood and bees.

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Bernie and I strapped our boxes closed for the trip home.

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Si strapped his.

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Paul put screen in the opening, and we loaded our boxes for the trip over the mountain, to the girls’ new home.

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It was dark when we got home, so we left them in the jeep for the night. The next morning, just at daybreak, we put the bee boxes in the apiary, and Bernie removed the screens.

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It was early, cloudy, and chilly, but a couple of girls came out on the porch to see what the heck was going on.

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My heart smiles every time I see those little bees. I’ve sure missed hearing them buzz about. It feels right having bees on the homestead again.

I hope they like their new home. I hope they like us. And I hope we can do right by them.

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Posted in bees | 11 Comments »

Pass the Cheese Please and Share that Honey

Tuesday, January 8th, 2008

Well, it’s only been about a little over a month since we made cheddar cheese and although we are supposed to let it age about six months, we decided to cut it tonight and see how it is doing. It’s pretty good! Very cheddary, but a bit soft still. Bernie thinks it would make a great spread, so I’m going to research that a bit.

It was such a nice, warm day today – in the 70′s! Such a nice treat after weather that didn’t get out of the 20′s for a while. In keeping with my resolution to wander outside every day, I went with Bernie down to the cabin this afternoon to take care of some things. While we were there, we noticed a lot of activity around the hives our poor little bees used to occupy. Our hearts started pounding. Are those honey bees buzzing around those hives? We quickly gathered up our bee suits and went into the apiary to investigate. The hives were indeed full of honey bees – but they were simply robbing the left over honey. We noticed right away that there were a lot of fights happening on the porch of each, and that was the first clue that we had robbers. We opened each hive and while they were all full of bees, there was no brood and no queen. Just little hungry girls happy to find the bounty.

We left the hives out this winter hoping that they would get cleaned up, and I guess that’s happening. The bees could be from a close by neighbor that raises them, or from one of our swarms that we never could locate. In any event, it was really nice seeing honey bees around those hives again and we are really looking forward to starting again in the spring. In the meantime, I’m happy to know the leftover honey is going to help out some other hungry little girls. They were so darn cute digging honey out of the combs I could have just kissed their little wings right off of them.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I do have to work tomorrow, but since I work from home, it won’t be all that bad. And any day I don’t have to leave the homestead is a good day. I’m not even going to the dump either – so don’t even ask me, Bernie. Happy Birthday to me.

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in apiary, basic living, bees, homestead, homesteading | 3 Comments »

Random Stuff We’ve Been Up To

Tuesday, October 30th, 2007

This blog and our website have been such great experiences for us. I started the website because when we first considered homesteading, I found lots of site about people who were homesteading, but very few that explained how they got started with it. I figured we were bumbling our way through it, and maybe someone could learn from the mistakes we make as we go and the stuff we do right. I never dreamed we would make so many new friends, and hook up with so many old friends we had lost touch with. It’s been great! Now if we could only get our families to look at it…… they’d rather call and ask “So what have you been up to? Anything new on your website?”

I think I told y’all that Senator Obenshain asked us to get a bunch of bikers together and ride in a parade for him the second weekend in October. Senator Obenshain has been a great friend to us, and we love riding, so we got a crew together and made him proud. Here’s a group shot at the end of it. If you’ve ever been around bikers you know that trying to get them in one place in one time is as easy as nailing jello to a tree, so this picture is missing a few. But it’s a nice picture anyway, so I’ll post it here:

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I also posted some additional pictures on the VFR website. Check them out!

We were having a lot of trouble with yellow jackets robbing honey in one of our hives. We ended up screening in the bottom entrance, so the girls would all use the top entrance and hopefully be able to ward off the predators a little better. Well, they were still struggling. So I put out some wasp traps that I hope will give the girls a little break. I talk about how to make the traps on The Bee Buzz if you are interested in reading it.

Tonight I made some coffee soap that is supposed to be great at getting rid of cooking smells (like onion, garlic, fish) off your hands. I have always wanted to make those pretty swirl soaps, but I never had much confidence that I could actually do it, so I didn’t try. Well, tonight I decided to give it a shot. I made the swirl color out of cocoa powder. The coffee soap is a dark tan, so I thought the deep cocoa color would be pretty in it. And it probably would. But I learned what I suspected all along. I am swirl challenged. So instead of swirled soap, I have blobbed soap. But it really smells nice. I’m hoping when I take it out of the mold tomorrow and cut it, it won’t look as bad as it does in the mold. But did I mention it smells really nice?

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in basic living, bees, biker, freedom fighter, home made soap, homestead, homesteading, honey bees, rain, Virginia, wasp, yellow jacket | 2 Comments »

Oh Deer!

Monday, October 1st, 2007

It’s that time of year, and the deer are really starting to move on the homestead. We could barely look out a window today without seeing a deer or two. Last night we saw two bucks lock horns on the side of the house. They are truly fascinating and beautiful creatures.

We’ve had a couple of mamas coming with babies to munch acorns in the yard throughout the summer. The babies are big now – no more spots. But they still hang with mama. One mother in particular has peaked our interest. She has a deformed or injured front leg. It doesn’t seem to slow her down much though. She has two daughters that are always with her. One of them has a scar on her side. We’ve been watching them all summer. They now come right up to the windows. It drives our cats wild. They’re not quite sure what to think. This morning one of the babies came right up to the window of the room I use as an office. Elvis and Priscilla were sitting in the window, quietly watching. Then all of a sudden the deer looked up and stared at them. The cats looked shocked! The three of them just stared at each other for about two minutes, and then the deer just started grazing again and wandered off – with two set of cat eyes watching her the whole way.

Bernie managed to get a few pictures of them through the window tonight. Here’s one of Gimp Mama and her babies:

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Gimp Mama is the one on the far right. Cute as little buttons. No question they will end up on some one’s table by the end of hunting season. Maybe even ours. But that’s the way nature intended it. And before we butcher any animal, we take time to reflect on cycle of life and appreciate that this animal lived a beautiful life, and now provides sustenance for our lives. I believe that shows far more respect for these wonderful creatures than what is shown for the animals that provide the meat bought in a grocery store.

We’ll continue watching in awe as animals travel across our homestead. We will also take care not to take any of the young ones when deer hunting is in season. We’d rather allow them to grow up and procreate.

Other than our Extreme Deer Watching, Bernie has been busy as a beaver on his back hoe. He’s just about got that bucket fixed. I’ve been working and then walking around identifying trees. We discovered this afternoon that we have a Persimmon Tree on our property – and it’s full of delicious fruit. The fruit is just becoming ripe, and I intend to can a few jars of it in the coming weeks. Thank the stars for Bernie’s extension ladder!

The bees are doing great. We watched them for quite a while this afternoon. I could just kiss their little wings right off of them!

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in back hoe, basic living, bees, cats, deer, doe, fawn, homestead, homesteading, honey bees, persimmon tree | 1 Comment »

Busy as Bees on the Homestead

Monday, September 17th, 2007

The past couple weeks have been very busy here on the homestead. Between moving, house guests, a biker event, and making soap, bath gels, and bath salts, we’ve been happily realizing our dream of living on this beautiful homestead.

I’ve had two businesses agree to sell my home made bath products and they seem quite excited about it. I made a big batch of oatmeal honey bar soap last week and set it on the rack to cure for the next six weeks or so. I’m pretty excited about this recipe, as I came up with it all on my own and attempted to make a very moisturizing, lathery soap – and I used the honey from our hives. We’ll see how it turns out in a few weeks…..

I hope to have a page up on The Bee Buzz website soon to sell my products in the next few weeks. I’ll let y’all know when I do that.

Bernie still doesn’t really feel that he’s quit work. Probably because he’s working so much around here. He gets up early and gets busy right away. It amazes me how much he’s accomplished in the past two weeks. I have noticed a big difference in him though. He’s much more relaxed and layed back – almost to the point of annoyance. I mean he’s always been fairly calm, but now he doesn’t seem to get riled about much of anything around here. If I take off on a rant about what a mess the house is with this move, he volunteers to stay home the next day and clean it. When I got worried about one of the cats not acting right, he told me to make an appointment and he took her in to the vet. He’s never taken an animal to the vet without me. He HATES taking cats to the vet! At least the “old” Bernie hated it. The “new” Bernie just loaded her up and took off. He even does the dishes now without me saying a word. And he puts them away when they are dry. Weird. It is down right weird. But I do think I can get used to this.

The bees seem to be doing really well, although there is another hive we are now concerned about. We’ll take it apart next weekend and be sure the queen is ok. I hope this cool weather is to blame for the inactivity in that hive. We’ll find out this weekend.

Life is good on the homestead. And it only gets better and better.

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in basic living, bath products, bath salts, bees, freedom fighter, homestead, homesteading, honey, soap | 1 Comment »

Loving Life on the Homestead

Sunday, September 2nd, 2007

We’re really enjoying the feeling of being on our homestead permanently. My Dear John wrote to tell me that this euphoric feeling will pass as soon as the burden of responsibility takes hold – but I have news for you, My Dear John. As much as I know you are absolutely right, you are not going to rain on my parade! I am going to take advantage of this feeling for as long as I can convince it to last.

We robbed honey from the bees yesterday and ended up with 77 pints! We are quite thrilled about that. I can not describe the flavor it adds to a cup of coffee. Possitively exquisite. I wrote all about it on The Bee Buzz blog and even put up a few pictures. Check it out!

Eddie and Gigi came out this morning and spent the whole day helping us get this place ready to start moving stuff from our house in town into it. It was a full day job. Bernie and I are pack-rats and you’d be amazed what we can collect in a year. At any rate, we’re all set to start moving tomorrow. Thanks a million Eddie and Gigi! Afterwards Bernie grilled us some burger and dogs over an oak wood fire. We eat good on the homestead.

That’s it for now from the homestead. Check out The Bee Buzz blog and think about getting your own hives. They are very little trouble, a simple joy to watch, give you plenty of honey to enjoy, and are so necessary for plant pollination. You’d have a difficult time not falling in love with them.

Bee Free!

Penny


Posted in basic living, bees, homestead, homesteading, honey, honey bees | 2 Comments »

The Count Down Until Full Time Homesteading

Sunday, August 19th, 2007

Well, we left the homestead today knowing that we only have one more time to leave it! And while it’s difficult not to wish the next two weeks away, we have so much to do in that time and so much to enjoy that it will take focus to take it one day at a time.

We left the Paper Wasp nest to hang for another week before we remove it. My Dear John had an excellent suggestion and we’ll put it in the freezer for a week or so before dissecting it.

Our big project this weekend was putting a double barrel Weber carburetor on my trike. That may not seem much like homesteading to you, but let me tell you that I would be one mean homesteader without my trike. So anything we do to it should be considered absolutely related to homesteading. The happier my trike is, the happier I am. So you can see, it is all very much related.

Putting on this carburetor involved everything from a simple wrench to a rubber mallet to a sawsall. That motor area is unbelievably tight. Like by buddy Tex explains, it’s a jigsaw puzzle. But we got it all disassembled and then put the new carburetor on, only to learn we screwed up on putting the alternator back together. Yes, putting on the carburetor involved removing the alternator. It is indeed a freaking puzzle – so much so that the instructions recommended removing the motor. It probably would have been easier had we done so, but Bernie and I are not known for taking the easy way out, so we just kind of winged it. But while we were winging it with the alternator, we didn’t realize it didn’t go back together quite right. So we had to mess with that a while. Once that was finished, the Grape Ape fired right up! I did a little jig. Bernie tried to look all “Yea, I knew it would start” but he was grinning like a fool. Very nice! The bad news is that I screwed up the throttle connection to the hand grip when we were testing the pull to the carburetor. Expensive lesson, but I’ll buy a new hand grip this week.

Other than that, we just really tried to enjoy our time on the homestead. The bees are doing great and you can read about them on The Bee Buzz. I began rendering beeswax this weekend, and once I am finished I intend to put up a webpage on the process on The Bee Buzz website. I have searched high and low on the internet for step by step instructions, and have yet to find them. Maybe this will help out some other searching soul. I hope to have it up within the next two weeks – complete with pictures.

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in apiary, basic living, bees, beeswax, biker, homestead, homesteading, motorcycling, paper wasp, wasp | No Comments »

Plan B is in Effect

Sunday, August 12th, 2007

Well, after trying to sell our home in town for over a year, we’ve decided to go to Plan B. As much as we had hoped and planned to sell the house and use that money to pay off all debt before we move to our homestead, circumstances have led us to realize that it really makes more sense for us to move forward. Bernie has resigned from his job effective August 31. Three more weeks, and we’ll be on our homestead permanently.

I will keep my job for now so that we can continue to meet all of our financial obligations. It will be a little tight, but it is certainly doable. In the meantime, Bernie will slowly move our belongings out to the homestead, and clean and paint our home in town. Maybe it will sell more quickly if it is empty. I’m happy that we’ll finally be on our homestead and I can realize my dream of having chickens and goats. Bernie’s happy that he’ll no longer have to wake up to a 3:15AM alarm clock. We’re both happy that we no longer have to remember what food, furniture, tools, and clothing we have at one place or the other. We stay perpetually confused about where our “stuff” is.

It was a nice weekend on the homestead. We went out Thursday night and enjoyed a nice, quiet, relaxing evening. It helped that there was no sign of bears. Then we went to Natural Bridge, VA on Friday for a Governor’s Motorcycle Advisory Council meeting that Bernie had. The meetings are open to the public, so I decided to attend since it was being held in such a cool place. If you’ve never been to Natural Bridge, it’s worth visiting. It has been listed as one of the “Natural Wonders” of the world. Very scenic. We rode our bikes down and although I confess to being very partial to Virginia, I will still say that there really is not a more beautiful state. Every state has something to offer, but I think Virginia has it all. And it’s so darn pretty.

At any rate, we stayed Friday night at the Natural Bridge Hotel and it was awesome. The hotel is completely biker friendly and the guests just seemed to be there to enjoy life and have a good time. We made new friends from as close as neighboring counties in Virginia and as far away as New York and from other places that we never thought to ask about. Some were bikers and some were not. It was a really super stay in a really beautiful place. I give it four out of five stars – and that’s only because the rooms could use just a little renovation.

We arrived back to the homestead Saturday morning and enjoyed a relaxing day. This morning we got up and got busy with the bees again. You can read about it on The Bee Buzz.

We had another great weekend on the homestead – and it only made it more enjoyable realizing that we will only be leaving it two more times before being there permanently! You’ll be hearing a lot more from me after that – you lucky dawgs.

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in basic living, bear, bees, biker, homestead, homesteading, honey bees, motorcycling, Natural Bridge, Virginia | No Comments »

OK Bears – This Means War

Saturday, August 4th, 2007

We arrived this weekend to find our spare hive parts torn apart and strewn around. Dadgum bears! I wrote about it and put some pictures up on The Bee Buzz. Today we did an inspection of the apiary and found that someone had been messing around the electric fence. I really hate to give bears a bad name, but there is no question it was a bear that wreaked havoc with that fence. The ground wire was still attached, but hanging and most of the insulator posts were broken – undoubtedly from the pressure of some large butt animal hanging on or tearing at the electric wire.

These bears have about ceased being cute. They may want to talk to the mice around here. I declared war on those little rodents and I won!! I am now officially declaring war on these bears. It is about time for us to start robbing honey and I’ll be darned if we’ll share it with bears.

On the upside, the girls are doing great! They are buzzing happily about. In fact, several of them are spending a great deal of time up here cleaning up the mess the bear made. I just love these little bees – they are so darn efficient. And cute as little buttons!

We mowed today – early. It was 90 degrees by noon. Then we went into town to get some items to repair the electric fence around the apiary and to hang out in some free air conditioning for a while. We came home and I made some nice bath salts that I’m giving for gifts. Then Bernie got his oak burning grill fired up and we grilled some corn, burgers, dogs, and ribs. Man – that’s some good eating there.

Tomorrow we’ll repair the apiary fence and open up our weak hive to see how it’s doing. We have 7 supers ready to rob right now. We’ll get on that in the next weekend or two.

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in basic living, bear, bees, homestead, homesteading, honey, honey bees | No Comments »

The Cyle of Life

Saturday, July 28th, 2007

As I approach 50, kicking and screaming every inch of the way, I find myself reflecting on the cycle of life more than ever before. It seems that every situation I find myself in boils down to the “cycle of life”. It’s interesting to me. I don’t necessarily find it depressing, I just find it very interesting.

We arrived at the homestead this weekend to face the fact that we have lost one of our beehives. No, it was not due to Colony Collapse Syndrome. It was due to the fact that we really refused to believe we were losing a hive. This is the hive that had a drone layer and the hive that we have never found a queen in. Still, we chose to believe we just missed the queen. There was a great deal of activity around the hive, afterall. But the truth is, the hive was dieing and while we had hoped it would last until Bob from the Department of Agriculture showed up with a new queen, the hive was struggling. And now it’s dead. Very sad. We still have five hives, but it’s pretty depressing to lose a hive when you know there is no one and nothing to blame but yourself. It was a cycle of life for this hive, but we could have prolonged it if we had interfered. And with bee hives, you really must interfere from time to time.

Well, Bob will be here Monday and we’ll inspect the other five hives. I wrote a little about the bees and my wax rendering experience on The Bee Buzz and I put some pictures up of some honey robbers on The Bee Buzz Website.

And speaking of the cycle of life, I told you last week of how my trike had a header blowout and we patched it up with a beer can and a clothes hanger. Well, here’s a picture of it:


Today we put new headers on her, and if the new headers weren’t so darn pretty, I would be a lot more sad about getting rid of this beautiful patch job. But do not worry, the old headers will go to Tex. He can take anything and turn it into something to be proud to own.

Speaking of Tex, he and Charlotte are coming out tomorrow morning. They’re bringing Bobo of course – I suspect Bobo is the real reason they are coming out. I think he gets to missing me and insists on it. I’ll feed them breakfast, and then Tex and Bernie will level out the container so we can build a lean-to off of it. I imagine Charlotte, Bobo, and I will spend a lot of time inside. These man-jobs can be a little nerve wracking. Besides, I need to melt and filter the beeswax one more time. I think Bobo will enjoy that activity a lot more than watching the guys do man-stuff.

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in apiary, basic living, bees, beeswax, biker, homestead, homesteading, honey bees, lip balm, motorcycling | No Comments »

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