Archive for the ‘honey bees’ Category

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Burr Comb and Cute Bees

Sunday, May 22nd, 2011

We did our first hive inspections yesterday. And I quickly realized that my little chat with the girls about the proper way to pull out frames was apparently totally ignored. Totally.

This was what we found when we opened the Girl Power hive:

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And this was what we found when we opened the Flower Power hive:

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As you can see, they were both bad this week. Flower Power hive being slightly better than Girl Power.

*sigh*

We have to take some of the fault here. But before we get into that, let me share something with you…….. if there is only one thing you need to know about being a beekeeper, this is it………

Every single hive is different. And what works for one beekeeper will not necessarily work for the next beekeeper.

OK, so technically, that was two things. But, I don’t think beekeeping can be considered a technical undertaking, and both of those are really closely related, so work with me, will ya?

The beekeeper we got our bees from fed all of his bees by laying a freezer bag, filled with a light sugar water, directly on top of the frames of the brooder box. He put a one inch cut in the top of the bag and then he placed a 1 1/2 inch spacer on top of the frames, followed by the inner cover, and then the hive cover on top of it all.

This worked beautifully for him, and he had many extremely healthy hives to show for it. But for us? Not so much.

The girls really liked that 1 1/2 inch above the frames. So much so that they built burr comb to expand the hive.

We really want the girls to expand the hive. Only not like that. We were kind of hoping they would draw out the frames within the brood box. Then we would add another box on top and they could move up and start drawing out those frames.

Apparently, what we had here was a failure to communicate. And….. too much space at the top of the frames.

So, the first thing we did in both hives was locate the queen. Thankfully, in both hives, the queen was where she should be – in the brood box, healthily and happily laying eggs.

Then we shook all of the bees off of the hive cover into the brood box.

Then we removed all of the burr comb on the inside of the hive cover.

We removed the 1 1/2 inch spacer and placed the inner cover over the top of the frames.

We put their sugar water on top of the inner cover, added the 1 1/2 inch spacer, and then closed the hives with the hive cover.

Then I had yet *another* chat with the girls and explained what was expected of them. They argued with me for a few minutes, but finally bobbed their heads in agreement.

Then I kissed them and Bernie and I came to the house to grill some steaks and enjoy a beautiful Saturday evening.

We looked in on them today. No burr comb. They still act a little miffed at us for foiling their original plan, but all in all, I think they understand what needs to be done and will diligently work on it.

And it’s really hard to stay mad at them when they are so danged cute!

PS – All that burr comb? Well, it won’t be wasted. I’d much rather the bees use it within the hives, bbut it will be added to my existing collection and eventually be rendered into bees wax that will make lip balm, candles, and a variety of things.

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Posted in basic living, honey bees | 8 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 »

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Sunday, October 21st, 2007

Well, this has been a weekend full of just about everything. To make a long story short….

I got a lot of good stuff accomplished. I made two nice batches of cold processed soap – an Orange Cranberry Holiday soap and a Honey Oatmeal soap. Both turned out really nice and full of moisturizing oils. I also made lip balm and filled over 100 tubes. And I started a batch of prison wine.

The bad and the ugly stuff all happened today. We went down to winterize our bee hives and found that two of them had died within the past month. When I say “died”, I mean deader than a door nail. We were so shocked and disappointed. There were fine last month when we robbed honey and fine two months ago when the Dept. of Ag. guy came out to inspect them. I wrote all about it on The Bee Buzz if you are interested in reading about it. We are now down to three hives – half of what we started with this year. I could just cry.

So, in a nutshell, that was our weekend. I suppose we always have to take the good with the bad. Being out here on our homestead makes even the worse day a little more tolerable. We have so much to be thankful for that it’s really hard to throw a pity party when little things go wrong.

On the upside, while we were working in the apiary we had a couple neighbor ladies from down the road stop by. They were both very friendly and we stood and talked to them quite a while. They told us of a man down the road that also raises bees, and they’re going to hook us up with him. One of them owns the chicken farm across the street with her husband and she said they’ll certainly work out something with us so we can get chicken poop for fertilizer! The other one said her husband rides a motorcycle and they’d love to ride with us sometime.

There’s always a silver lining – even when you have to peel back a few layers to find it!

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in basic living, bath products, home made soap, homestead, homesteading, honey, honey bees, soap | No 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 »

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 »

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 »

It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s……. A Bear!!!!

Monday, July 16th, 2007

Well, after finding bear poop in the yard many times and seeing, first hand, the destruction they can cause to bird feeders, I guess it shouldn’t be so surprising that we actually saw a bear in the yard this weekend.

But it was surprising. At least it was to me. My niece and great-niece came up for a visit and we were enjoying Saturday afternoon just visiting in the living room. Bernie was out greasing his backhoe and all felt very calm on the homestead. I glanced out the living room window just in time to see a big black butt walking past the window. My first thought was “Now what is that huge dog doing in this yard?” followed immediately by the thought “Wow – that’s the biggest black dog I’ve ever seen” followed immediately by me screaming “Bear! There’s a bear!”. The three of us jumped to our feet. My niece ran to get her camera. My great niece ran to the window to get a better look. I ran to the front door and screamed “Bernie! Bear! Bernie! Bear!” frantically waving for him to get inside and look.

We all gathered at the window and I pointed and said “There he is – wait – where is he?” My eight year old great-niece looked at me and said “When you screamed for Bernie he took off running. That way. He ran fast and now he’s gone.” Doh!

After we all calmed down Bernie and I realized that the direction he was traveling was straight for the apiary. That worried us a bit. But we checked on the bees several times over the weekend and they were just fine. Probably the bear was just thirsty and headed for the creek for some water. I imagine his ears are still ringing from my shrill screaming to get Bernie inside.

Other than that the weekend was relatively calm. I did manage to render wax and I wrote about it on The Bee Buzz. I’ll try to get pictures up of the whole process in the next week or so. My niece got a picture of the little fawns looking for food in the backyard and she seemed pretty happy about that. My great-niece seemed more interested in the rabbits that ran about when I took her for rides in the Trail Blazer.

All in all, we had a great weekend on the homestead. Great company with lots of laughs and plenty of hugs. And we saw a bear! I really hope he doesn’t make visiting us a habit. He could ask his deer friends about the result of that. Bear season is at a good time of year……

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in apiary, basic living, bear, bees, beeswax, deer, doe, fawn, homestead, homesteading, honey bees, self reliance, self sufficiency | No Comments »

Dealing With Miss Penny 101: The Proper Way to React to a Home-made Gift

Thursday, July 12th, 2007

As I mentioned in my last post, I made some beeswax lip balm last weekend. I’ll get some pictures up on the website soon. It turned out quite nicely, if I do say so myself. In fact, of the three people I’ve given some to so far, two of them reacted quite positively. One even suggested I could get rich selling it. Needless to say, THAT person will be receiving future home made gifts from me. Probably she’ll be the proud recipient of some home-made soap, but that little jewel isn’t quite cured enough to be a gift yet.

We’ve established how much I enjoy the whole obligatory gift giving notion, but there are times when I do feel obligated to give a gift – and even times when the spirit just moves me to do so. And because of this, I feel it only fair that I should tell you how I expect you will react when you are the blessed soul that recieves a home-made gift from me.

Gushing is completely acceptable. Proclaiming me The Queen of All Things Home-Made is not only acceptable, but somewhat expected. Doing these simple little things will insure that: 1) I will not hate you for all eternity and 2) you may well be the proud recipient of another slice of heaven made by my own hands.

The truth is, as much as I enjoy making home-made gifts, I do NOT enjoy giving to people who do not appreciate them. In all honesty, that kind of pisses me off. So, lie if you must – but certainly gush over your gift. You will not only receive future home-made gifts from me, but you will insure I will actually speak to you when we cross paths in the future.

You may think I am a little sensitive on this subject. You may be right. But I’m the one making this crap and I’m the one giving it away, so I get to make the rules. So gush away or be dropped from my gift list. And have a nice day.

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in basic living, beeswax, homestead, honey, honey bees, lip balm, mice, self reliance, self sufficiency, soap | 2 Comments »

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