What's sprouting?

Carrots

Kale

the sage is still blooming

potatoes!

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Day Two: Bee Story

 I went out to check on the bees yesterday. They ate an entire jar of sugar water. The first day I gave them an old Classico pasta sauce jar full of 1:1 sugar water, which held about 20 ounces. Yesterday I increased to a quart jar (32 ounces). I checked out several bee books from the local library, and they say to feed sugar water until the bees stop eating it, sometimes a month or more of feeding. I came to the realization that I probably need to buy sugar in bulk; 5 pound packages aren't going to last very long!

I'll probably take the grass out of the entrance today. I put it there during bee installation to keep them from flying out as much. But it also helps keep nosy neighbors (wasps) out of the hive.

I was glad to see the bees started housekeeping. There were some dead bees in the travel cage that fell into the hive when I dumped in the bees. The worker bees have pushed the dead bees out on the ground near the hive entrance. See the middle of the photo by the concrete blocks; the golden spots are dead bees.

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Baby Chicks

Our 62 baby chicks will be shipped on May 7, when they are a day old. We ordered them from Cackle Hatchery in Lebanon, MO.

After a fertilized egg is laid, it takes 21 days for the chick to mature inside the egg. The eggs that hold our baby chicks were probably laid on Sunday.

Here's a website with the chick lifecycle.

According to this website, the chicks' hearts started beating yesterday. Today, the legs, wings and beak will start forming.

Oh, the wonder of life.

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Bee Story

If these bees could speak, they would say:

Back in the Spring of 2012, we moved from Clarkson, Kentucky, to Whitewater, Missouri. "We" as in me, all my sisters (the worker bees), and a foster mom (the queen bee).

The three pound package arrived in the mail - I had to pick it up from the local post office.

a pound of bees is approximately 3,500 bees

Then we moved into this huge one room house, where I had to share a bed (wax foundation + frame) with my sisters.

The lower box of the hive, the brood box, holds 10 frames that are about 8" deep x 16" long.

We were treated like royalty for the first couple days, and were given a huge free bottle of intoxicant as a house-warming gift (quart jar of sugar water). Then, we started to explore and make our own intoxicant (honey).

The can on top of the hive is the sugar water that traveled with the bees. The jar on the lower right of the hive is the sugar water I made for them.

The little red wagon is getting a work out this year.

Honestly, though, installing the bees in the hive wasn't very hard. I watched several videos on youtube.com. but this one was the most helpful:



There were quite a few bees that didn't want to come out of their travel box, so I set the box up in front of the hive entrance. Hopefully the box is empty when I arrive home tonight and I can take it away!

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Warpaint

No, that's not buffalo chicken sauce on my brother's face. That would be the juice out of the stem of bloodroot, a native wildflower.

Bloodroot is the plant in the middle

My most un-favorite plant, poison ivy.

I'm so glad my Dad doesn't use chemicals on the field. See above, our neighbor's field, covered in burn down. It's a no-till herbicide.

And then see our field. The darker spots of grass are the results of cow pies. Fertilizer au naturale.

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Music Monday: Ticks by Brad Paisley

It's already that time of year. I was fixing fence with my brother this weekend and was covered in ticks...

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Getting ready for bees

Friday after work, my brother helped assemble frames for the brood box portion of the hive. This is the lower portion of the hive where the queen will lay eggs.

Nailing!

After nailing the frames together, we inserted the wax foundation. 

Full of frames!

The bees arrive Monday or Tuesday by mail. Today we are setting up the hive in the orchard.

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