Farm and Garden: Bees

Bees bearding on the outside of the hive

The bees are doing great so far. We clearly have one really strong hive with an amazing queen. The other hive is growing although it is a whole lot slower than the other.
The stronger hive has grown so quickly. It has already filled out 9 frames on the bottom box and is quickly working on the final frame so I have added a new box of frames to the hive. I am really enjoying this hive so far. It is a very calm and gentle hive, after moving the hive around, I took off my veil so that I could see the frames better because I have a really difficult time seeing. I was able to lift the frames and look at how they were doing without them getting too upset. I was a little nervous, so I didn't play around for too long but they were making some beautiful frames of honey and capped brood. Right before we got the new box on, a bee got caught in my hair so I stepped away and had Matt look for it unfortunately it is difficult to find a bee when your hair is about the same color. Being tangled in my hair must of angered it because it climbed up and stung me in the head. It didn't bother me that much, but I have to say that when you hear a bee buzzing near your ear but can't see it and know what the inevitable out come will be; it is a little unnerving. I took a minute to calm down and finished closing the box and gently put the covers back on top.

The hive was growing so fast they created their own frame

on the side of a feeder box

I have to say I should not have tempted fate...the other hive was not nearly as gentle or forgiving. When I opened the smaller hive. I did not have the same experience. These guys seemed to be agitated already and did not like me messing with their frames. I pulled a couple just to see what was going on with them and although slow, they are building out comb and filling it with honey. So I checked the older frames and there was a decent amount of capped brood on the center of the frame so I figured that that was enough checking because they were beginning to crawl on my clothes and not just fly around curiously. I backed away to put the veil on in order to push the frames back together and realized that there was another one stuck in my hair. I was really hoping to get this one out without another sting, but with several crawling on my shirt and towards my head I didn't think it would end well. Matt searched for the stuck bee and tried to brush the other bees away and one got him too. At some point I took my gloves and protective shirt off so that I didn't mash one accidently. Luckily I did not get stung by the bees on my shirt or the one in my hair...I missed the one on my leg though. So as I am wrestling with the last few bees that are telling me to back off, Matt gets the frames back in order and I suited back up to help get to top and cover back on.

Two things came to mind this evening while looking in on the bees. "I think the bees s-u-s-p-e-c-t something...followed by an internal moment of panic that was screaming "THESE ARE THE WRONG SORTS OF BEES". Then I realized I was channeling my inner Pooh Bear.

In the end every thing turned out okay and the bees look great there were only two hive beetles that I could see, and between the two of us only four stings happened. I call that a good ending when you consider that there are several thousand bees in each box.

Farm and Garden: Bees a new start

 These are our new nucs. Last year was our first year with bees and for the first few months everything was going great, then our hives were attacked by a huge hive of robber bees that eventually took every drop of honey and killed many of the bees. There were so few left in the fall that there was no way for them to recover...so we are trying again to make it work.

On the way home I joked and said keep an eye out for bees in the car. When we got to the street before our street Nathan said hmm, there is a bee on the ceiling...drove a little further and there were 2...turned onto our driveway and there were 8...by the time I parked and got out there were 20+...it didn't bother me that much until I started to realize I still have to move the nucs from the car to the back yard.

One of the boxes was still sealed and easily moved. Then I stood and watched the growing swirl of bees trying to decide my next step. My first thought was to suit up and try to be quick...I knew this was not going to happen, at least it wasn't' going to happen safely , so I checked with the beekeeper that I bought them from and he said suit up and smoke the bees it should be fine...so I thought okay then here we go...

Then I decided to put the nuc in a plastic tub, cover it and have Nathan help me carry it down to the backyard. I suited up, smoked them and gently moved them to the tub and covered it. As we walked it to the back I couldn't help but think about the "can of worms" I was about to open. I made Nathan stand back, opened the box, picked up the nuc and put it in place.

We let them settle out a bit and I pulled back the screen to let them explore their new surroundings...

 Happily, no one got stung.

Farm and Garden: Bees

By some small miracle, we still have bees. I'm not sure at all how we are going to keep them alive over the winter. The other day, when sadly cleaning up where the hives were to clean everything out and save it for when we start over in the Spring, I noticed a couple of bees coming out of a swarm trap that we put out thinking that the robber hive may have been a late swarm. I opened up the hive cover, and there were a small group of bees busy working on two of the frames in the box. I had to quickly close them up and block the entrance down, because the robber hive almost immediately came out from wherever they are hiding and swarmed in for the attack. So far it looks like they have survived the last attack and are still hanging in there.

Farm and Garden: Bees update August 2016

Our bees are struggling and it happened rather fast. We have been in the habit of checking on them weekly to make sure that everything was looking okay and everything was developing well, and then the rain started and I got a little worried about checking on angry bees. Understandably, bees don't like cloudy, or rainy weather; it makes them very grumpy. We began to go longer between checking on them and hive beetles had moved in. The bees were doing their best to keep them at bay, but those little buggers are relentless. I did what I could trying to remove/kill what I could but they just kept coming. We have a couple of traps now that are doing really well, but it still needs more work and possibly a beetle board that I saw someone making that keeps the beetles from being able to get in in the first place.

The beetles are a big issue, and I'm not sure what came first, but our next two issues were the most devastating. A swarm of robber bees came(several times apparently because I see them come back almost every day) and took everything that my little hives made. It took me a while to figure out that this was going on at the same time as the population drop in the hives. These robber bees just swooped in and completely cleaned our hives out of all their honey and pollen stores. Then soon after I began noticing that the numbers of bees began dropping. Our strong hive dwindled down to only a few hundred bees and it seemed like the queen was gone. The other hive still seemed to be strong, but the bees hanging out in front seemed to be quite a few less and upon inspection, they seemed to have either lost their queen also or they just decided to abscond. Basically looking at their losses and hive issues the queen took most of the bees and went to find better accommodations.

My neighbor tried to help out with some brood frames from his bees last week. We went through a couple of his hives and took off some of his honey frames. In the process of doing this the robber swarm that has been attacking my bees came after his hive too probably because it was open and they thought vulnerable. My neighbor's hives are really big and strong and were able to fight them off easily, but it made for an interesting inspection with bees flying everywhere...angry, fighting, aggressive bees. I got stung twice because of improper shoes...lesson learned.

This week, in order to try to save the hives, we have combined the two hives and I am in the process of replacing the queen. Hopefully in doing this, building the numbers and having a queen laying again, the hive can strengthen itself and have the ability to make it through the winter. We will then split the hives again and hope that they strengthened enough to make two strong hives for the year.

The robber bees are relentless. Sadly, I am pretty sure that we will be starting over with new bees in the Spring. I think at this point it will take a miracle to keep this hive going. In desperation, we have completely closed up the entrance to the hive in order to discourage the robber bees and keep them out. I have put an empty hive body on top of the inner lid of the hive and set up some sugar water and a bowl of water with rocks so that they have access to water while they are shut in. The outside of the hive is covered with the rogue bees desperately trying to get into the hive. they have pretty much cleaned out the hive for several weeks now and the bees that I have left have been completely wiped out of any possible honey and pollen stores for the winter.

Farm and Garden: Bees

Today we opened up the nucs and transferred them to the full size hives. I think it went really slow, because I actually felt a little more timid than I thought I would be. I was really concerned about accidently mashing bees with the frames and having chaos ensue.

We opened up the more aggressive of the two hives, and although they got a little rowdy, flew around and bumped into us a bit, they really didn't try to attack. It took them a while to settle down and go inside, but it really wasn't bad. This hive was so busy and hectic that I couldn't find the queen and one of the frames had some bumpy comb on it that reminded me of queen cells that I have seen on other frames in other people's hives. Luckily it is just misshapen comb and not the threat of swarming.

The second hive is a bit smaller and slower than the first hive, but there was lots of brood in many different stages of development and I was able to locate the queen in this hive because they were not nearly as crazy as the first group.

I'm not sure which I enjoyed better. The crazy busy rocking hive, or the one that is moving along at a steady pace that is calmer. I guess time will tell.

Farm and Garden: Bees

We finally got bees. On Saturday we drove out to Red Belly Bee Farm and picked up our first two packages of bees and brought them home with a mixture of anticipation, excitement, and a little anxiety. It has been a very long wait, but we can finally strike it off our list of things that we would like to try learning to do.

Bob packaged the nucs by stapling a piece of screen across the access hole and duct taping the top down so that they didn't bounce off on the drive home. I was very grateful that they were securely packed for the drive home, and we made it all the way back without incident.

Nathan(hesitantly) and I gently took the boxes to the back of the property where we will be placing them for now hoping that they are in a good place to take up residence.

The first box was really easy to settle in. I put on protective gear-hat, vale, and gloves-and carefully removed the staples and took of the screen. The bees slowly peeked out took a small flight around and quietly settled in for the evening.

The second box was a little bit different. I haven't had very much experience with bees, but with the little bit of exposure that I have had, I've quickly learned that a mashed bee means that there will possibly be trouble. I was optimistic though that the two smashed bees may not still cause too much excitement after a whole 40-ish minutes ride home...looking at the opening that was blocked with the screen quickly made me realize that this one was going to be a challenge. I puffed a bit of smoke hoping it would help and gently began undoing the staples. The closer I came to releasing the screen the angrier the mob seemed. I told Nathan to stand a good distance back and released the flood. They were really angry and poured out of the opening to inspect the "danger" quite a few of them surrounded my area and I calmly smoked around me in hopes of distracting them, and then carefully walked toward Nathan to gently smoke the ones that were inspecting him for possible signs of "danger".


After a few minutes they lost interest and surveyed their area and then settled in for the evening.
We didn't panic, and we didn't get stung. I counted that as an extremely amazing and encouraging first encounter with our new bees. I am sure going forward there will be stings...probably quite a few, but for today we avoided that possible tragedy and move forward into the world of Beekeeping.


So...so far so good. Yesterday and today both hives seemed to be busy as...well...bees. Tomorrow we will try to open up the hives and see what's going on inside and attempt to move them into their new residence.



Here's to continued adventure of Our Handmade and Homegrown Life.

Hope you are having a beautiful beginning to your summer.

Landscaping: New Native Plants

Matt and I went out to Strawberry Plains Audubon Center in Holly Springs, Mississippi. This place is amazing. They do lots of events throughout the year and there are lots of classes and opportunities to learn about and commune with nature. The event highlight of the year is in September for their humming bird festival that celebrates all types of animals, and the migration of the humming birds. Last week, we went out and picked up some native woodland species to add to our yard. I am really hoping to create a landscape haven for wildlife in our yard, and also introduce lots of species that are edibles for both our family and the wildlife that surrounds us. This also gives us the opportunity to add specific plants that will be good for our new hives of bees giving them plenty of opportunity to have close nectar sources.

There were so many different kinds of plants to choose from that it was really difficult to make choices, but this year we picked up Oak Leaf Hydrangea, which I have been wanting for many years.

Jewel Weed(Impatiens capensis) for ground cover in a damp area of the yard.  It is a common native found in areas along creeks, bottomlands, ditches, ponds and low land damp areas. It is a relative of impatients. The stems re translucent and succulent like. the flowers are bright orange and spotted and the seed pods are sensitive to touch when ripe and explode open shooting seeds out. This plant is considered an annual native to North America, not perennial, but it can be an aggressive reseeding plant and may not be welcome in some gardens. Be sure to plant in an area that you don't mind becoming over-run with these plants. It is also said to be great for skin issues, bug bites, and soothing rashes especially poison ivy. The two plants are often seen growing near each other in the wild. some other names for this plant are;  orange jewelweed, common jewelweed, spotted jewelweed, spotted touch-me-not, or orange balsam.

Woodland poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum) is a native perennial  that grows well in moist woodland settings. It is happy in shade to part shade. It is also called wood poppy, celandine poppy, and poppy wort. It is valued for its bright sunny yellow flowers that have four petals that float cheerfully above the deeply lobed leaves. The seed pods are a fuzzy blue-ish green pod that add interest because of their uniqueness.

The Green Dragon (Arisaema dracontium) plant that is in the same family as Jack in the Pulpit. Although it can be an edible if treated properly, I prefer to have it for it's unique look in the landscape. The plant has a toxin in it that makes if unfavorable unless prepared properly, so we will just consider this a pretty ground cover. These plants are unique, they come up out of the ground with one leaf(with several leaflets) on a stem. when the plant flowers, it creates a stalk near the base of the plant that grows out of the side of the stem and the single flower grows off of it. The flowers are inside a spathe and contain both male and female flowers. The fruits form a cluster of bright orange-red berries at the end of the stem where the flower had grown. It is also known as a Dragon-root plant. It is a native perennial  species found in damp woodland areas of North America. 

Milkweed and Turks Cap for the butterflies, and hummingbirds. Turks Cap(Malvaviscus arboreus var. drummondii) is a wonderful woodland perennial to have in the landscape because not only is it a very showy plant with beautiful red flowers to attract butterflies and hummingbirds, it is also a very useful edible. The leaves can be used in the same way as spinach, steamed, boiled or as a salad leaf(young leaves are better). The flowers can be eaten as a treat off of the bush, used as a salad garnish, or made into tea. and the berries can be eaten, made into tea, or jelly. It is in the mallow family of plants and is a hibiscus relative. Some other names of this plant are Wax mallow, Red mallow, Texas mallow, Mexican apple, and Sleeping hibiscus.

I also picked up a couple of wild ginger plants to put in the front of the house where I am in the process of building a dry bed at the drip line along the front of the house in a very difficult area. Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense), a member of the birthwort family was used by early settlers as a substitute for the ginger that they could no longer get. It doesn't have the same flavor as the tropical version, but in learning from the local Indians they were able to adapt it as a substitute flavor in their foods. It also had medicinal uses for the Native Americans. It is a stemless, low-growing, perennial woodland plant that prefers deep shade areas. It is a very slow growing ground cover that makes a beautiful display in areas that may otherwise look bare. It spreads by rhizomes that grow at or just under the ground surface. It has a curious bell shaped brownish red flower that blooms at the ground surface that attracts small insects such as ants and small flies as pollinators.

I am looking forward to making this plant sale a tradition to continue adding beautiful native plants and perennials to our yard.