Things have been insane around here trying to finish up the school year with Sarah, who by the way made straight A’s, and just generally trying to manage chickens and bees and whatnot. Here is a quick update:
The chickens are GIANORMOUS they have more than quadrupled their size since we got them several months ago. They actually look like chickens now, they have lost almost all of their baby feathers and are almost entirely a gorgeous glossy black, when they stand in the sunlight there feather glint beautiful shades of green, blue and purple. Their little spindly legs have thickened and turned completely black, however their combs and waddles have yet to grow into much of anything and are still a grayish brown, they are supposed to turn red eventually.
They have such personality and charm and it is hysterical to watch them torment Fred in the evenings, refusing to go to roost and making him chase them all about the coop. Nights when it is my turn to put them to bed they are usually already nicely settled in their house and I merely have to close the door. I really believe they just get a kick out of Fred chasing them madly around the coop and banging his head on the ramp. He grumbles and complains that they are “dumb stinky chickens” but he is attached to them too. He takes his guitar out in the evening and serenades them as they scratch around in the yard. I am not sure if they enjoy this or not, he thinks they do. (It seems to me they tend to hurry into the house a little earlier on these evenings.)
As for the bees, well, they are alive! My transplanted queen was a success. Fred saw her earlier in the week. She is hard to miss because she is marked with a bright blue gob of paint. Fred did a little research and said the queen raisers specifically color code the queens according to the year in which they are hatched. Theoretically, a queen from good stock can live for around five years but, according to whichever book you read, a queen’s ability to lay is really tapped out after around two or three years and most books advise requeening prior to the queens natural death to prevent swarming and to control the genetic makeup of your hives. All I know at this point is I am glad I did not kill her and or tank the hive.
We had a short break in the weather yesterday and Fred went out to check the hives the bees had begun to “pull comb” in our top super of our largest hive so he went ahead and added the queen excluder, this is a small screen that allows the workers up into the super box to make honey but does not allow the queen to follow them and lay eggs. If the bees produce enough honey this super should be our first honey harvest in a few weeks. We are very excited. We have been feeding our smallest hive, our split, for a couple of weeks now and although they are maintaining they are not growing significantly. We will continue to feed them and may need to do so through the winter to keep them alive.
That is an update on everything you may have been following to date. We are struggling with this weather and the rain as are many people around the country. Our hearts and prayers are with the victims of the flooding out west. We know intimately what it is like to watch the water rise and wonder if this will be the storm that washes away everything we own. We count ourselves as very blessed because even now as I type this and watch the rain fall outside our window God has given us enough significant breaks in the rain over the last several days to keep the creek and the river within their banks.
These things that are outside of our control in life are often the things that leave us so very hurt and angry. Whether it is the ravishing of nature, illness, the oil leak in the gulf, loss or personal pain, things we cannot control sometimes leave us wondering where God is and why is he not answering our desperate pleas for help. There are so many things in life that disappoint and that just do not turn out the way we plan but sometimes that in and of itself is the problem, we so often focus on what WE plan instead of what God wants or has planned.
Regardless, sometimes bad things just happen, we live in an imperfect world with no promise of tomorrow Job tells us, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb and naked I shall return there, The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Basically, we came into this world with nothing and we will leave this world with nothing. It is a sobering thought when you contemplate that most of us spend our entire lives trying to amass stuff and to gather acolytes that have very little intrinsic value. My prayer for my personal life is that God will allow me to stand in the midst of my suffering and continue to praise his name.
This is not easy. When crappy things happen it is easy to get mad at God. The great thing about God is he is big enough to take our anger and like the father he is, still love and care for us when our anger is spent. Ephesians tells us “Anger and sin not.” This is good advice and a worthy point for people who think Christians should never get mad. Getting mad is not a sin. Sometimes getting mad is a necessary response to propel us into action. Jesus got mad and since he lives for thirty plus years I am willing to guess that he probably got mad more than just what is recorded in the Bible. Sometimes getting mad is just a natural human response to things that are outside of our control.
When I lost my job I was mad. I was hurt I was angry and not for the first time in my life I felt like I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing or what God’s plan for my life was. I had worked so hard to get that job I had jumped through all the hoops, passed all the tests, surely it was God’s will for me to be there. How could I have ever landed there and successfully passed the rigorous testing processes if it was not God’s will? So why did I have to give it up? Why the stumbling block? I have wrestled with this since September and I really still do not have any clear answers. What I do know is that through all of my anger and depression, for all of my ranting and tears God is faithful.
It is not always for us to know the way or the why of the Lord, we are but a small part of his creation. Yes he loves us but we are not in charge he is. The sooner we surrender ourselves to this the easier our burden will be. I have spent a great deal of time reading the book of Job lately. I have revisited my own anger and disappointment as I try to help a friend deal with theirs. We often focus on the first part of the book of Job the epic struggle between God and satan, Job’s loss and the shunning by family and friend. We applaud Job for his steadfastness in his faith but what we gloss over is: Job whines a lot. Job gets depressed, Job questions God and in fact I would go so far as to say Job gets angry.
We endow Job with saintly virtue because he continued to praise God through his suffering but so often we down play the part where Job is still human and deals with human emotions and turmoil through his loss and suffering and questions God’s fairness and loyalty. Ultimately, God’s response to Job is: if you think I am wrong and what I do is unjust then you do it better. Ouch. That puts it in perspective for me. We are not God. On this earth it will always be impossible to completely know the mind of God. I do not know why children suffer. I do not know why one man starves while another owns millions. I do not understand why a godly man is struck down with cancer while a child molester lives into his seventies. I do not know. I am not God. What I do know is that I will choose to praise God.
I can testify that through the trials in my own life God is faithful and a world with God in my life and in charge of my life is much preferable to a world without. We have no promise of tomorrow and we cannot guard all of these material things we collect against everything that may come. I am making a conscious choice in my life to place more value on the things that really matter. I am so grateful for my family. I am so grateful for my friends. I am so grateful for my church. I want to give back. I want to be a better friend, a better wife, a better parent, a better teacher. I want to help those around me learn from the mistakes I have made and start sooner to value those things of real worth. I make mistakes every day I am not perfect. I am learning and this is a journey but I would like to leave you with a passage of scripture that Jeff read at Fred and my wedding:
“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become a noisy gong or clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
Love is patient, Love is kind and is not jealous: love does not brag and it is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account wrongs suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth:
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. LOVE NEVER FAILS…”
I Corinthians 13: 1-8
I know I said I would leave it there but let me add; to me this really sums up what a Christian life should be. If we follow these basic principles of love we will be kinder to ourselves, each other, our families and the world in which we live. Love makes anger obsolete, I am not saying I will never get angry again (in fact I get angry a lot, my temper is probably my least attractive feature) what I am saying is that if we act out a spirit of love our angry will not cause us to stumble or to harm.
Thank you for reading,
Much love,
Autumn
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Monday, June 7, 2010
Wavering
Here is something I have realized in the short amount of time I have been writing this blog. “Going green” is a resolution, and like all best intentions (January diets and daily devotions), it is easy to get side tracked and fall back into lazy old patterns. We have become such a society of convenience and instant gratification that the concept of disciplining our personal lives is almost foreign, notice I said almost. Our family started out with the best of intentions, we still have those intentions, but I have observed all of us, on occasion, drifting back into old patterns.
I have actually found it easier to make the big changes, like making our own detergent and turning off the air conditioner, than to keep up with the little things; like turning off lights when we leave a room or using a hand towel to dry our hands instead of reaching for a paper towel. (It is the initial thrill of getting saved versus the daily grind of doing devotions.) When things are new and exciting and we can all still feel that sense of purpose it is easy to cheer each other on and keep our goal of greener living in the forefront of our minds. As these same things become mundane daily activities and the excitement of our initial purpose wears off it becomes easier to reach for the paper towel on the dispenser beside the sink than to walk to the cabinet and get a clean dish towel.
Two weekends ago, at the Sustainability Fair, we received lots of swag (and no the irony of giving away lots of free new stuff at a fair about recycling is not lost on me). In our loot haul we received close to a dozen grocery bags, you know the kind made from recycled plastic that are reusable over and over again so we do not have to bring home the flimsy plastic ones from the grocery store that almost instantaneously choke the landfill? I will be the first to admit, I had lots of uses for the flimsy bags, mainly it made litter box clean up super easy, but I also realize how detrimental they are to the environment and that they are an unnecessary step. I can just almost as easily move the garbage can to the litter box and skip the plastic middle man.
The first couple of conscious trips to the grocery store were easy. Recycled bags in tow, we got up on our morally superior high horse and gallivanted off to the market. (I have found that when using these bags it is easier to bag my own groceries than to let the bag-person do it, they will throw the first few things into the recycled bags and then quickly begin filling in the gap with plastic. Of course since they also like to use my three dollar tomatoes as hockey pucks I tend to bag myself or have Fred bag anyway.) We came home with our sense of purpose and moral superiority fully intact. Fred and I were very pleased with our eco-conscious grocery trips. We are taking lots of small steps towards smaller foot-prints in the market. For example we no longer put our fresh produce in those flimsy little extra plastic bags that are immediately tossed as soon as we get home and we try to purchase organic whenever possible.
After our first trip to the grocery store with our new reusable bags our cat Bettie quickly put us in our place and gave us a show-and-tell lesson about just what she really thought of our inept efforts at going green. As I was unloading the groceries in the kitchen she took a pee in one of the new reusable bags. Um, that one may now have been relegated to a one time use bag. Bettie has a great disdain for our meager attempts at a more sustainable existence as she made painfully and messily evident. I rinsed it out and put it on the back porch. I may try to put it in the laundry with the rags this week, but I think a cycle through the washing machine will probably destroy it.
All the grocery bag drama aside, the real point of this entry is how we need to constantly renew our motivation as a family to better planning and organization and our commitment to going green. You see after the initial thrill and newness of our grocery bags wore off I found myself falling right back into my old shopping patterns. We would make a big trip to the market once a week. On this trip we could remember to take our bags. Then through the week I would find myself running to the store to get one or two items, forgetting the bags at home and coming home through the week with several of those insidious plastic bags, stuffing them back into the closet to be used as cat poop receptacles.
Yesterday found our family in a mad rush all day trying to cram a weekends worth of activities, from church to birthday parties to grocery shopping, all into one twenty-four hour stretch. This left us at the market late yesterday evening without any of our recycled bags. It did not even cross my mind until we were standing at the car loading our groceries into the back. I admit when I realized what we had done I was more than a little ashamed of myself and embarrassed that I might be seen by someone who reads this blog and judged by my actions.
I could not help but draw the parallel between this and my spiritual life. In Sunday school yesterday morning we talked to the kids about the difference between being a Christian and being saved versus really having a relationship with God and knowing what his will for our lives is. We talked about the difficulty of having a relationship with someone to whom you never speak or to whom you never listen. Like my grocery bags that do me no good at home in the closet my Bible does me no good at home on the coffee table. Furthermore if I only pray when I am desperate or in need and only open my Bible sparingly, like a divining rod, how can I really expect to have a functioning relationship with God or to be a good example of Christ for others.
As we loaded our plastic bag shod groceries into the back of the car the shame I felt, the embarrassment and fear of someone seeing me was very much akin to the feelings I get when I do something I know to be outside of God’s perfect will. I wonder who is watching me and into whose life I may be throwing a stumbling block out of my own misstep. We all make mistakes and like I have said over and over we are making baby steps towards our more sustainable greener life but some things just take a little dollop of discipline. I need to be more prepared to face the challenges of greener life just like I need to be prepared everyday in my spiritual life.
If we keep a few of the recycled bags in the car or spend a little time planning our trips to the store then we will not find ourselves caught out without something we need, just like if we spend a few minutes reading the Bible in the mornings we will not find ourselves caught without the spiritual armor and reinforcements we need in a sticky situation. In Sunday school we talked about how hard it is to prove to other people you are related to someone that you never talk to or know nothing about. It is the same in our Christian lives, even though God may be our spiritual father, if we know nothing about him and never talk to him people may have a hard time believing us. All it takes is a little bit of discipline and a fervent desire to kindle something more in our lives.
I want to be a better Christian, a better person and a kinder steward of the environment. I want someday to stand before God not knowing that I am saved and have entered his kingdom by the “skin of my teeth” but I want to hear “well done my good and faithful servant.” Like the struggle towards a greener life, the daily battle with clutter that gets in the way of what I really want to do and be rages on. But I am taking a moment this morning to renew my commitment to my relationship with God and my desire to take better care of the planet he has given me. So if you see me at the store loading plastic bags in my car or you see me out and you think well she’s a Christian she should not do/say/be/wear whatever please forgive me for making you doubt, I am human and I struggle daily too.
I would like to leave this blog today with a passage of scripture we shared with the kids from a translation of the Bible called Seek and Find, remember it is always easier to hear God when the lines of communication are open:
“My child, remember my teachings and instructions and obey them completely. They will help you live a long and prosperous life. Let love and loyalty always show like a necklace, and write them in your mind. God and people will like you and hold you in high esteem. With all your heart you must trust the Lord and not your own judgment. Always let Him lead you, and He will clear the road for you to follow.” Proverbs 3:1-6
Much love,
Autumn
I have actually found it easier to make the big changes, like making our own detergent and turning off the air conditioner, than to keep up with the little things; like turning off lights when we leave a room or using a hand towel to dry our hands instead of reaching for a paper towel. (It is the initial thrill of getting saved versus the daily grind of doing devotions.) When things are new and exciting and we can all still feel that sense of purpose it is easy to cheer each other on and keep our goal of greener living in the forefront of our minds. As these same things become mundane daily activities and the excitement of our initial purpose wears off it becomes easier to reach for the paper towel on the dispenser beside the sink than to walk to the cabinet and get a clean dish towel.
Two weekends ago, at the Sustainability Fair, we received lots of swag (and no the irony of giving away lots of free new stuff at a fair about recycling is not lost on me). In our loot haul we received close to a dozen grocery bags, you know the kind made from recycled plastic that are reusable over and over again so we do not have to bring home the flimsy plastic ones from the grocery store that almost instantaneously choke the landfill? I will be the first to admit, I had lots of uses for the flimsy bags, mainly it made litter box clean up super easy, but I also realize how detrimental they are to the environment and that they are an unnecessary step. I can just almost as easily move the garbage can to the litter box and skip the plastic middle man.
The first couple of conscious trips to the grocery store were easy. Recycled bags in tow, we got up on our morally superior high horse and gallivanted off to the market. (I have found that when using these bags it is easier to bag my own groceries than to let the bag-person do it, they will throw the first few things into the recycled bags and then quickly begin filling in the gap with plastic. Of course since they also like to use my three dollar tomatoes as hockey pucks I tend to bag myself or have Fred bag anyway.) We came home with our sense of purpose and moral superiority fully intact. Fred and I were very pleased with our eco-conscious grocery trips. We are taking lots of small steps towards smaller foot-prints in the market. For example we no longer put our fresh produce in those flimsy little extra plastic bags that are immediately tossed as soon as we get home and we try to purchase organic whenever possible.
After our first trip to the grocery store with our new reusable bags our cat Bettie quickly put us in our place and gave us a show-and-tell lesson about just what she really thought of our inept efforts at going green. As I was unloading the groceries in the kitchen she took a pee in one of the new reusable bags. Um, that one may now have been relegated to a one time use bag. Bettie has a great disdain for our meager attempts at a more sustainable existence as she made painfully and messily evident. I rinsed it out and put it on the back porch. I may try to put it in the laundry with the rags this week, but I think a cycle through the washing machine will probably destroy it.
All the grocery bag drama aside, the real point of this entry is how we need to constantly renew our motivation as a family to better planning and organization and our commitment to going green. You see after the initial thrill and newness of our grocery bags wore off I found myself falling right back into my old shopping patterns. We would make a big trip to the market once a week. On this trip we could remember to take our bags. Then through the week I would find myself running to the store to get one or two items, forgetting the bags at home and coming home through the week with several of those insidious plastic bags, stuffing them back into the closet to be used as cat poop receptacles.
Yesterday found our family in a mad rush all day trying to cram a weekends worth of activities, from church to birthday parties to grocery shopping, all into one twenty-four hour stretch. This left us at the market late yesterday evening without any of our recycled bags. It did not even cross my mind until we were standing at the car loading our groceries into the back. I admit when I realized what we had done I was more than a little ashamed of myself and embarrassed that I might be seen by someone who reads this blog and judged by my actions.
I could not help but draw the parallel between this and my spiritual life. In Sunday school yesterday morning we talked to the kids about the difference between being a Christian and being saved versus really having a relationship with God and knowing what his will for our lives is. We talked about the difficulty of having a relationship with someone to whom you never speak or to whom you never listen. Like my grocery bags that do me no good at home in the closet my Bible does me no good at home on the coffee table. Furthermore if I only pray when I am desperate or in need and only open my Bible sparingly, like a divining rod, how can I really expect to have a functioning relationship with God or to be a good example of Christ for others.
As we loaded our plastic bag shod groceries into the back of the car the shame I felt, the embarrassment and fear of someone seeing me was very much akin to the feelings I get when I do something I know to be outside of God’s perfect will. I wonder who is watching me and into whose life I may be throwing a stumbling block out of my own misstep. We all make mistakes and like I have said over and over we are making baby steps towards our more sustainable greener life but some things just take a little dollop of discipline. I need to be more prepared to face the challenges of greener life just like I need to be prepared everyday in my spiritual life.
If we keep a few of the recycled bags in the car or spend a little time planning our trips to the store then we will not find ourselves caught out without something we need, just like if we spend a few minutes reading the Bible in the mornings we will not find ourselves caught without the spiritual armor and reinforcements we need in a sticky situation. In Sunday school we talked about how hard it is to prove to other people you are related to someone that you never talk to or know nothing about. It is the same in our Christian lives, even though God may be our spiritual father, if we know nothing about him and never talk to him people may have a hard time believing us. All it takes is a little bit of discipline and a fervent desire to kindle something more in our lives.
I want to be a better Christian, a better person and a kinder steward of the environment. I want someday to stand before God not knowing that I am saved and have entered his kingdom by the “skin of my teeth” but I want to hear “well done my good and faithful servant.” Like the struggle towards a greener life, the daily battle with clutter that gets in the way of what I really want to do and be rages on. But I am taking a moment this morning to renew my commitment to my relationship with God and my desire to take better care of the planet he has given me. So if you see me at the store loading plastic bags in my car or you see me out and you think well she’s a Christian she should not do/say/be/wear whatever please forgive me for making you doubt, I am human and I struggle daily too.
I would like to leave this blog today with a passage of scripture we shared with the kids from a translation of the Bible called Seek and Find, remember it is always easier to hear God when the lines of communication are open:
“My child, remember my teachings and instructions and obey them completely. They will help you live a long and prosperous life. Let love and loyalty always show like a necklace, and write them in your mind. God and people will like you and hold you in high esteem. With all your heart you must trust the Lord and not your own judgment. Always let Him lead you, and He will clear the road for you to follow.” Proverbs 3:1-6
Much love,
Autumn
Thursday, June 3, 2010
The Making of a Monarchy (I hope…)
(this is really just an addendum to today's early post)
Well I have either just really foolishly flushed twenty-five dollars down the toilet or I have successfully requeened the hive. Not a whole lot of margin for error there. I went through every frame of both the brood box and the super on the hive that I still believe (up until moments ago) to be queenless. I saw not a single speck of new brood or eggs (other than that which we placed in the box on Sunday). I also did not see any “emergency” queen cells. This worries me because, according to the inspector, if there was not a queen present then the workers should have drawn an “emergency” queen cell from the brood I transplanted. It is his stance that no sign of emergency cells mean, in fact, they have a queen.
I am not entirely sure I did the right thing and I actually have approximately twenty-four to forty-eight hours to change my mind. It should take that long for the sugar cork to be eaten away and allow the queen and her entourage to escape from the queen cage. I may go out again tomorrow and take another look through the hive but I went, carefully, through every frame looking at every cell for sign of brood and scanning intently for the queen. I have seen the queen in the split we made so I at least now have a better idea what she looks like. She is long and slender and a slightly different color from the others.
I may have made a mistake. I do not know. But I had to go with my gut on this one and I just do not think there was a queen in that box or if there was a queen I think she must have been trapped during the terrible weather we had last week and therefore missed her mating flight, remaining a virgin and of no use to me whatsoever. I know that sounds harsh but I would rather loose/kill one queen bee than lose my whole hive, you know, sacrificing one for the good of many and all.
I am still considering isolating her with some bees in a nuc box and waiting to see if anything starts happening in my hive. If I do that and if there is a mated queen in that box and she starts producing then I would have four hives instead of three, because the nuc could then be colonized. In this instance the worst case scenario is if there was no queen in the original hive then I could combine it with the nuc and go back to three hives. Also, having several hives now does not preclude me from combining them closer to winter. If none of them are super strong when fall gets closer I can always kill the queen of one colony and combine two or more boxes together for a large hive with a better chance of surviving through the brutally long cold months.
This like everything else in my life right now feels adrift with no clear sense of direction. The bees have become some kind of living metaphor for my inability to move decisively in any direction. I feel that I cannot stand still because it feels stagnant but I feel that when I make a decision to move one direction or another a door is promptly closed. I want to do right by my bees and I want to seek God’s will for my life but days like today I feel like I have lost the secret decoder ring for both.
Much love,
Autumn
Well I have either just really foolishly flushed twenty-five dollars down the toilet or I have successfully requeened the hive. Not a whole lot of margin for error there. I went through every frame of both the brood box and the super on the hive that I still believe (up until moments ago) to be queenless. I saw not a single speck of new brood or eggs (other than that which we placed in the box on Sunday). I also did not see any “emergency” queen cells. This worries me because, according to the inspector, if there was not a queen present then the workers should have drawn an “emergency” queen cell from the brood I transplanted. It is his stance that no sign of emergency cells mean, in fact, they have a queen.
I am not entirely sure I did the right thing and I actually have approximately twenty-four to forty-eight hours to change my mind. It should take that long for the sugar cork to be eaten away and allow the queen and her entourage to escape from the queen cage. I may go out again tomorrow and take another look through the hive but I went, carefully, through every frame looking at every cell for sign of brood and scanning intently for the queen. I have seen the queen in the split we made so I at least now have a better idea what she looks like. She is long and slender and a slightly different color from the others.
I may have made a mistake. I do not know. But I had to go with my gut on this one and I just do not think there was a queen in that box or if there was a queen I think she must have been trapped during the terrible weather we had last week and therefore missed her mating flight, remaining a virgin and of no use to me whatsoever. I know that sounds harsh but I would rather loose/kill one queen bee than lose my whole hive, you know, sacrificing one for the good of many and all.
I am still considering isolating her with some bees in a nuc box and waiting to see if anything starts happening in my hive. If I do that and if there is a mated queen in that box and she starts producing then I would have four hives instead of three, because the nuc could then be colonized. In this instance the worst case scenario is if there was no queen in the original hive then I could combine it with the nuc and go back to three hives. Also, having several hives now does not preclude me from combining them closer to winter. If none of them are super strong when fall gets closer I can always kill the queen of one colony and combine two or more boxes together for a large hive with a better chance of surviving through the brutally long cold months.
This like everything else in my life right now feels adrift with no clear sense of direction. The bees have become some kind of living metaphor for my inability to move decisively in any direction. I feel that I cannot stand still because it feels stagnant but I feel that when I make a decision to move one direction or another a door is promptly closed. I want to do right by my bees and I want to seek God’s will for my life but days like today I feel like I have lost the secret decoder ring for both.
Much love,
Autumn
WHAT'S MY MOTIVATION?!?
I’ve neglected the blog now for over a week, and frankly I’m not sure where this entry is going, however, I owe it to myself and the people following this blog, who are diligently praying for Fred and me, and our success, to give you an update. The last week or so has been fraught with disappointment both in our beekeeping endeavors and our personal lives. I had hoped this fall to open my own yoga studio here in the Elkview area. I needed some additional training for national certification and insurance purposes and had intended to take that training over the summer. The class I had enrolled in was canceled due to lack of interest. So God has closed that door for now.
That news and the seemingly ceaseless rains of the past week or so left me in a directionless funk. Logically I know that things happen in God’s time and according to his plan but logical reasoning and practical application do not always seem to go hand in hand. I like to be proactive and in motion so stillness and the ability to listen are not two of my strongest attributes. I find myself starting lots of little things and leaving a trail of half finished projects in my wake. I guess, for now, this is what I am supposed to be doing, caring for my family and the bees and chickens. I am not much of a housekeeper so it is especially trying for me to be stuck here on the rainy days when I cannot get out and work in the hives or tend the chicks.
Here is an update on the bees. We found the queen in our split. She is laying and the hive looked good. Last Saturday when we got into the hives and began poking around we saw evidence of what we thought was a queenless hive. This is especially frustrating because it was the hive from which we made the split originally. There did not appear to be any eggs or larva or brood at all so we assumed that when we made the split or sometime after we had accidentally killed the queen. We spent all day Saturday and part of the day Sunday trying to track down a queen producer within driving distance so that we could quickly obtain a queen and get the hive back in order.
Our biggest fear was that we would lose the rest of that hive to a swarm, apparently we had bigger things of which to be afraid. We called the president of the KVBA and he asked how long we thought the hive had been queenless. We believed it could not have been more that around a week because we try to get in the hives at least once a week sometimes more and a week ago we had not noticed anything alarming. He said we would probably be ok to mail order a queen since the hive apparently had not been without a queen for an extensive period of time but (and let me say this is a big but) if we left the hive queenless and there was no brood from which the workers could rear a queen eventually one of the worker bees would begin to lay eggs.
Well frankly this did not sound too bad to me. Seriously, why not just let one of the workers take over the queenly duty? The more I thought about it the better it sounded. Then he dropped the bomb on me. Yes a worker would begin to lay eggs but those eggs would strictly be drones, which means that very quickly the hive would be overrun with bees that could neither feed nor care for themselves or the hive. UGH! He also went on to elaborate on the fact that once you had a laying worker, not only was she almost impossible to find and snuff but that by the time the problem was caught it would be almost impossible to correct and usually the entire hive would be a loss. The frames would need to be destroyed and we would have to start from scratch with a new colony. Can I say again? UGH!
So we spent all day Saturday and most of Sunday calling everyone on the WV Queens producer registry trying to find a queen within driving distance that we could get right away. Remember this was a holiday weekend so even if we got one in the mail it would not ship out until Tuesday at the earliest and we were running out of time. We found one Italian queen in Wardensville, up in the panhandle, which was ready to ship. It would be a nine hour drive to get her. We debated what to do.
The beekeeper that reared the queen suggested we take a frame of young brood from one of our other hives, remove all the bees and stick it in the hive that was supposedly queenless. He said as long as there were brood to care for the workers would not begin to try and lay, his advice was this would buy us a few days grace period and allow the queen to ship USPS. We decided this was the most economical solution. It would have cost us nearly one hundred dollars by the time we had driven there, paid for the queen and driven home not to mention the entire weekend would have been shot. We did as our fellow beekeeper had suggested and switched a frame of brood for a frame of honey and waited for our queen to arrive.
Tuesday morning dawned bright and early with a call from the state inspector. Remember I have been trying to mesh schedules with him for weeks now. Our apiary was due for inspection but I wanted to be there when he came so I could take full advantage of his expertise. He did not give me much notice he was about an hour away and heading my direction, if I wanted him to stop he would. I told him yes and briefly explained what I thought the problem was. He gave a huge sigh, mumbled something about newbies and said he would see me in an hour. I scrambled to find someone to sit with my niece while I got in the hives. My mother-in-law came to the rescue and agreed to babysit for the hour or two it would take.
The inspector arrived and we suited up and headed to the hives. He pointed out about eight million and a half things that we were doing wrong, scoffed at my “Beekeeping for Dummies” bible that I live by and basically all around marveled that my split had lived at all after my caging them off debacle. However, most of the problems he found were minor and general he said (for newbies, of course) we were doing a pretty good job (for people who had no clue what they were doing). We did not have any major illnesses; one hive did have a couple of mites but nothing that was overly concerning. He pointed out a few changes we should make and then we moved into our queenless hive.
He went through both supers and the brood box and pulled out several frames. Unfortunately, it seems our inexperience has once again led us to the wrong conclusion. The inspector was of the opinion that we do have a queen in that hive and that she was probably a virgin on her mating flight. He said the empty cells in the brood box were an indication that the workers were cleaning out for the new queen to begin laying, not that they had left or that the queen was dead. He said the real proof of a queen was that the workers had not begun to pull an “emergency” queen from the frame of brood we had placed in the super. Well great. Not.
Now I have a twenty-five dollar queen and no hive to put her in. She just arrived this morning (Thursday) and I, frankly, have no clue what to do with her. I taped closed the sugar cork end of her cage and placed her on top of the hive frames. I’m getting ready now to gear up and head out. My options are (assuming that all of my hives have a queen):
a. Snuff one of the queens and replace it with the new queen.
b. Get another brood box and put some of my bees and a new queen in it and try for another split.
Or
c. Try and sell the new queen we just bought.
These are the options assuming that the inspector is right and there is a queen in the hive. If there is not a queen then I will simple un-tape the cork and let the new queen do her thing. Pray for me I will need it this afternoon!
Much love,
Autumn
Romans 5: 3-4 “And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulations bring about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character, and proven character hope.”
That news and the seemingly ceaseless rains of the past week or so left me in a directionless funk. Logically I know that things happen in God’s time and according to his plan but logical reasoning and practical application do not always seem to go hand in hand. I like to be proactive and in motion so stillness and the ability to listen are not two of my strongest attributes. I find myself starting lots of little things and leaving a trail of half finished projects in my wake. I guess, for now, this is what I am supposed to be doing, caring for my family and the bees and chickens. I am not much of a housekeeper so it is especially trying for me to be stuck here on the rainy days when I cannot get out and work in the hives or tend the chicks.
Here is an update on the bees. We found the queen in our split. She is laying and the hive looked good. Last Saturday when we got into the hives and began poking around we saw evidence of what we thought was a queenless hive. This is especially frustrating because it was the hive from which we made the split originally. There did not appear to be any eggs or larva or brood at all so we assumed that when we made the split or sometime after we had accidentally killed the queen. We spent all day Saturday and part of the day Sunday trying to track down a queen producer within driving distance so that we could quickly obtain a queen and get the hive back in order.
Our biggest fear was that we would lose the rest of that hive to a swarm, apparently we had bigger things of which to be afraid. We called the president of the KVBA and he asked how long we thought the hive had been queenless. We believed it could not have been more that around a week because we try to get in the hives at least once a week sometimes more and a week ago we had not noticed anything alarming. He said we would probably be ok to mail order a queen since the hive apparently had not been without a queen for an extensive period of time but (and let me say this is a big but) if we left the hive queenless and there was no brood from which the workers could rear a queen eventually one of the worker bees would begin to lay eggs.
Well frankly this did not sound too bad to me. Seriously, why not just let one of the workers take over the queenly duty? The more I thought about it the better it sounded. Then he dropped the bomb on me. Yes a worker would begin to lay eggs but those eggs would strictly be drones, which means that very quickly the hive would be overrun with bees that could neither feed nor care for themselves or the hive. UGH! He also went on to elaborate on the fact that once you had a laying worker, not only was she almost impossible to find and snuff but that by the time the problem was caught it would be almost impossible to correct and usually the entire hive would be a loss. The frames would need to be destroyed and we would have to start from scratch with a new colony. Can I say again? UGH!
So we spent all day Saturday and most of Sunday calling everyone on the WV Queens producer registry trying to find a queen within driving distance that we could get right away. Remember this was a holiday weekend so even if we got one in the mail it would not ship out until Tuesday at the earliest and we were running out of time. We found one Italian queen in Wardensville, up in the panhandle, which was ready to ship. It would be a nine hour drive to get her. We debated what to do.
The beekeeper that reared the queen suggested we take a frame of young brood from one of our other hives, remove all the bees and stick it in the hive that was supposedly queenless. He said as long as there were brood to care for the workers would not begin to try and lay, his advice was this would buy us a few days grace period and allow the queen to ship USPS. We decided this was the most economical solution. It would have cost us nearly one hundred dollars by the time we had driven there, paid for the queen and driven home not to mention the entire weekend would have been shot. We did as our fellow beekeeper had suggested and switched a frame of brood for a frame of honey and waited for our queen to arrive.
Tuesday morning dawned bright and early with a call from the state inspector. Remember I have been trying to mesh schedules with him for weeks now. Our apiary was due for inspection but I wanted to be there when he came so I could take full advantage of his expertise. He did not give me much notice he was about an hour away and heading my direction, if I wanted him to stop he would. I told him yes and briefly explained what I thought the problem was. He gave a huge sigh, mumbled something about newbies and said he would see me in an hour. I scrambled to find someone to sit with my niece while I got in the hives. My mother-in-law came to the rescue and agreed to babysit for the hour or two it would take.
The inspector arrived and we suited up and headed to the hives. He pointed out about eight million and a half things that we were doing wrong, scoffed at my “Beekeeping for Dummies” bible that I live by and basically all around marveled that my split had lived at all after my caging them off debacle. However, most of the problems he found were minor and general he said (for newbies, of course) we were doing a pretty good job (for people who had no clue what they were doing). We did not have any major illnesses; one hive did have a couple of mites but nothing that was overly concerning. He pointed out a few changes we should make and then we moved into our queenless hive.
He went through both supers and the brood box and pulled out several frames. Unfortunately, it seems our inexperience has once again led us to the wrong conclusion. The inspector was of the opinion that we do have a queen in that hive and that she was probably a virgin on her mating flight. He said the empty cells in the brood box were an indication that the workers were cleaning out for the new queen to begin laying, not that they had left or that the queen was dead. He said the real proof of a queen was that the workers had not begun to pull an “emergency” queen from the frame of brood we had placed in the super. Well great. Not.
Now I have a twenty-five dollar queen and no hive to put her in. She just arrived this morning (Thursday) and I, frankly, have no clue what to do with her. I taped closed the sugar cork end of her cage and placed her on top of the hive frames. I’m getting ready now to gear up and head out. My options are (assuming that all of my hives have a queen):
a. Snuff one of the queens and replace it with the new queen.
b. Get another brood box and put some of my bees and a new queen in it and try for another split.
Or
c. Try and sell the new queen we just bought.
These are the options assuming that the inspector is right and there is a queen in the hive. If there is not a queen then I will simple un-tape the cork and let the new queen do her thing. Pray for me I will need it this afternoon!
Much love,
Autumn
Romans 5: 3-4 “And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulations bring about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character, and proven character hope.”
Saturday, May 22, 2010
The bird days of spring...
Yesterday was just bizarre.
Fred finished up the chicken coop on Thursday, working his butt off to get it completed, well more like two fingers and several layers of skin, and surprisingly, he was completely done before dark. It is fully equipped with two nesting boxes (which the chickens will not need for some time), a perch (which they will need sooner, although they do not quite understand that yet) and three doors (one with a ramp into their “yard” of their coop, a big one for mucking the house, and one for access into our back yard.) It is quite the palatial mansion of chickendom.
So instead of bringing the chickens back into the bathroom after spending the day in the yard of the coop, which had been our original intent, the chickens spent Thursday night in their new digs. Just before sundown we settled them in the house of their coop and watched them furiously eat their pine shaving bedding as fast as they could. Everything I have read seems to indicate that pine shavings make the best liter because they reduce odor and are very absorbent. A friend warned me early on that cedar shavings, while they smell great, can be deadly to chickens causing some kind of respiratory disease. No one mentioned a word about the chickens ingesting their bedding?!
I am at a loss as to whether or not eating the pine shavings will be harmful. Eventually, after the newness wore off, they settled down and started acting a little more normal (for chickens) and only occasionally picked at their bedding choosing their food dispenser instead. I had spent most of the afternoon, while Fred finished coop construction, trying to train my flock to drink from a gerbil waterer. One of the many reference books said that this was the cleanest way to provide lots of fresh drinking water for the girls and it keeps them from running through their water or filling it with bedding and droppings.
This was a seriously hysterical exercise. To begin with I placed their water dish, the waterer and their food bowl all in close proximity within their yard. I took the box of raisins and sat down in the yard with them. Let me tell you these chickens would make terrible spies they would sell their grandma to the devil for a box of Sunmaid. I coaxed the chickens over to me with raisins and then I started tapping on the ball in the tube of the dispenser so they could see and taste that there was water there. I held my finger out with a few drops of water on it (this got my finger soundly pecked). Then I reached back up and tapped the ball a few more times. The ladies looked at me with puzzled chicken amusement. They obviously think I am insane.
At this point I considered admitting defeat. The chicken-lady at Green’s, who has been extremely helpful and full of good advice, pretty much laughed at Fred when he told her why I wanted a gerbil waterer. She said chickens do not have tongues so drinking out of one of those would be nearly impossible. Fred had bought a traditional trough waterer which I promptly made him return. I would prove my vast chicken training skills and I would keep my coop marginally cleaner by training my chickens-of-superior-intelligence to drink from the gerbil waterer. It was starting to look iffy. I reached over and picked up Miranda-chicken.
(Let me stop for a second to tell you that the chickens have developed enough distinct personality and looks for us to give them names. They have been named for myself and my three dear friends in honor of the fact that when we get together we sound like a bunch of clucking hens. They are named as follows: Stacy-chicken, Miranda-chicken, Gina-chicken and Autumn-chicken. I do not know if it is luck or transference but ever since we named them a week or so ago, they have begun to take on the personality qualities and behaviors of their namesakes, it is extremely funny.)
Miranda-chicken is in the middle of the flock size wise and she is one of the calmer birds. I held her up to the waterer and reached out with my thumb to press the ball. Water immediately welled up on my digit and she excitedly began bobbing her head. I thought, “Awesome! This is it, she has got it.” I set her down and she immediately began to peck the grass where the water had fallen. Ok, so they are not going to be brain surgeon chickens. I sighed. How did I get them to realize they needed to tap the ball to get the water?
The good thing about Miranda-chicken’s interest in the grass under the waterer was it sparked everyone else’s curiosity too. Cats’ curiosity has nothing on chickens’. Those girls cannot stand the thought of someone getting something they are being left out on. They will cluck and squawk and steal and just generally throw a fit trying to get something someone else has. So everyone crowded under the waterer where the drop had disappeared. Amidst this maylay the waterer was inadvertently jostled several times. This resulted in a series of drops falling from the spout. Now the real hilarity ensued, picture four ugly chickens bobbing their heads trying to catch water droplets.
This went on for quite some time. I kept tapping the ball thinking eventually one of them would realize where the water was coming from. Quite some time later one of them accidentally hit the ball with the side of their beak. When she realized that water came out she then began trying to drink from the side of her mouth, not exactly the most efficient means of consuming water, since when she opened her beak to let the water in the majority of it promptly slid out the other side. She became the functioning water dispenser for the other chickens who promptly lined up underneath her and began drinking greedily. That did not last too long. When she realized everyone was getting something she was not she quickly began pecking at their heads. Okay back to square one.
So I pulled them away from the waterer and stuck a raisin in it. The raisin allowed for a slow drip of water to come out. I hoped that once one of them realized there was a raisin there they would start to peck at the ball thus releasing the water and learning to drink from the dispenser. No such luck, these chickens, who are absolutely mad for raisins, ignored that raisin and the water dripping around it like it had the plague. SIGH.
I seriously thought I was going to have to return to Green’s waterer in hand and admit defeat. I was already contemplating tossing out the gerbil waterer and catalog ordering a traditional waterer so that I would not have to face complete humiliation in the feed store, when: one of the chickens in a staggering half mad chicken fit ran beak first into the waterer. Realizing there was a raisin there she promptly pulled it out and ate it while water dripped on her head. When she realized there was water she began pecking her beak into the dispenser. Eureka! She got it. Of course everyone else quickly followed suit assuming she has something they wanted and there was quickly a run on the water dispenser. Yay! Victory! So that is how the chickens learned to drink from the gerbil waterer. They poke the tip of their beak against the ball and that releases the vacuum allowing water to flow into their mouths. It keeps their water fresh and clean and provides a greater source of water than traditional trough dispensers.
Thursday night after all the construction and the drama Fred, the chickens and myself were exhausted. So we put the chickens in their house, closed up all the doors so they would not accidentally fall out or be eaten by anything, and went to bed.
Friday morning we headed out to see how they had faired through the night. We found them huddled in a tight ball under the warming lamp fast asleep. So much for “getting up with the chickens” apparently we get up way before the chickens even think about leaving their nice warm digs. We removed the panel blocking the door to the ramp which leads to the yard inside their pen. I moved their food and water down into the yard hoping this would coax them down the ramp and into the grass. Um, no such luck. After we had tried this for several minutes we then tried putting one chicken down in the yard hoping the others would realized where she was and head down after her. This did not work either. In fact, this resulted in some seriously traumatized chickens all standing in one corner, albeit on different floors and peeping their little forlorn hearts out.
Then we tried to move two chickens into the yard hoping that with even numbers up and down someone would make a decision to reunite the flock with everyone either moving back into the house or down into the yard. More peeping ensued. We put a Hansel and Gretel trail of raisins on the ramp. No go. We finally resorted into taking the chickens into the yard, putting them on the ramp and then reaching them up through the hole in the floor to be reunited with their sisters. The chickens treated this like a David Copperfield-esque illusion of epic proportions, the onlookers being completely amazed and stunned every time one of their sisters appeared through the magic hole in the floor but this still did not convince them to try the ramp.
Finally we gave up and put them back in the house leaving the door to the floor open so if they chose to venture down they could. Friday was a damp soggy day though and when we came home from all our adventures we found the chickens exactly where we had left them only significantly more hungry and thirsty since the food and water had been in the yard all afternoon. We moved the food and water back up into the house, gave them a few treats and shut them back in for the night. It is now a little after seven thirty on Saturday morning and it is raining buckets. We have not headed out to check on them yet but I guarantee there is no hurry considering the cool temperatures and the damp weather they will definitely want to spend the day in their house. We will go out in a bit to make sure they have food and water and that the warming light is working.
So that brings you up to date on the chickens and their stressful lives at Chicken University but it probably does not do much to explain the title of this blog or the opening sentence. Yesterday we had to go to town. We needed an estimate on some care repairs and we needed a new inspection sticker. This was pretty much an all afternoon ordeal so we dropped the car off, had some coffee, caught a movie and goofed around town. After we picked the car up we figured we would grab some Indian food for dinner. The Indian restaurant does not open until five so we had about an hour or so to kill. We decided we would head over to the feed store to pick up another waterer and a new leash and collar for the dog.
While we were there wandering around the coveralls we heard “peep peep peep” we walked over to the bucket and saw one tiny little chick peeping its heart out all by its lonesome under the warming light. It was teeny and bright yellow more round then our girls and with a funny looking beak. It immediately took a liking to Fred and came over to the edge of the bucket. Fred stooped down to read the tag attached to the side. It was a special order slip for three turkeys. A turkey? Ok, that explained its funny looking beak. Fred immediately put the kibosh on turkey ownership but as we walked away from the bucket it began to forlornly peep again.
I asked Fred how bad could it possibly be? We could keep it in the tub for a week or two then toss it in the coop with the chickens. Fred said no. The little baby turkey increased its desperate pleading peeps. Fred started to crack. I said go find the chicken lady and see what she says. If it would not hurt the chickens and the chickens would not hurt it then what was the harm. We had decided to get a turkey. Fred went off to find her as I perused the hats. Fred came back with a despondent look and the chicken-lady in tow.
“You don’t want that turkey,” she said.
“Why is it sick? Is something wrong with it?” I asked.
“Um sort of,” she hedged.
I pressed. That was not a good enough answer for me. And anyone who knows me knows I specialize in special needs animals. Even the vets pawn off damaged stragglers on me. She finally told me it had a double breast. I was confused. Was this some kind of turkey birth defect that left the poor thing seriously deformed? I did not really care if it was especially ugly, I mean what turkey is pretty, right? I told her as much and she finally came clean and told me it would not live past a year old and if it did we would have to kill it. WHAT?!
Apparently the term “double-breasted” is not a birth defect at all. Instead it is a man-manipulated, i.e. genetically mutation breeding trait that causes a turkey to be born with the muscle tissue of the breast being twice as large as what nature intended. This means that around or before the time the turkey reaches one year old its breast tissue will become so large that its legs will break under the weight. I am sorry this is cruel and I am sure this is not what God intended when he gave man stewardship of the Earth. This to me is a lack of responsibility and a prime example of the wretched gap we have put between ourselves and our food sources.
Please think about this when you buy your turkeys this Thanksgiving. No animal should be bred for the ultimate fate of breaking its own legs. If we all say no, if we all make smarter, more educated more compassionate choices then there will be no market for this cruelty and if there is no market for it then breeders will have to bend to the will of the consumer and stop doing things that are so atrociously cruel.
Needless to say, we left the feed store without the poor little doomed turkey and in a stupor of depression over man’s lack of a sense of responsibility and cruelty to the animals in our care. As we half heartedly drove toward the Indian restaurant Fred exclaimed “oh no!” I thought great what now? Are we driving up on an accident? As Fred pointed and I looked down in the road their lay a half grown dove in the middle of the intersection. At first we thought it was dead, struck by a car, but then as we looked we could see it blinking and its head moving from side to side. It was terrified.
Fred did a U-turn and went back, he had to do a few more tricky car maneuvers (I was sure someone would run over it before we got back) before we pulled back up to the intersection. He stopped the car and turned on the flashers. I jumped out and scooped the baby into my hands. While Fred blocked traffic I ran across the street and placed the baby in the grass neatly tucked under some shrubbery. It did not appear to have any broken wings and looked as though it may have been learning to fly and either stunned by a car or landed in the road and became terrified. I put it there hoping its mother was close and would tend it.
Seeing as how we were down town I do not expect there were lots of cats or dogs running loose to eat it before its mother could come, however, on our way home we took an extra take out box and decided if it was still there it must be hurt and we would take it home to tend it. It was no longer there and I am choosing to believe its mother came for it. (Please do not rain on my parade with any opposing theories!)
So as you can see we had an adventurous few days surrounding all things avian. We will be at the Kanawha Valley Sustainability Fair today at the ReStore diagonally across from Green’s. We will be there manning the KVBA booth so please stop by and see us. There will be lots of great information and lots of good food.
Thanks for reading,
Much love,
Autumn
Fred finished up the chicken coop on Thursday, working his butt off to get it completed, well more like two fingers and several layers of skin, and surprisingly, he was completely done before dark. It is fully equipped with two nesting boxes (which the chickens will not need for some time), a perch (which they will need sooner, although they do not quite understand that yet) and three doors (one with a ramp into their “yard” of their coop, a big one for mucking the house, and one for access into our back yard.) It is quite the palatial mansion of chickendom.
So instead of bringing the chickens back into the bathroom after spending the day in the yard of the coop, which had been our original intent, the chickens spent Thursday night in their new digs. Just before sundown we settled them in the house of their coop and watched them furiously eat their pine shaving bedding as fast as they could. Everything I have read seems to indicate that pine shavings make the best liter because they reduce odor and are very absorbent. A friend warned me early on that cedar shavings, while they smell great, can be deadly to chickens causing some kind of respiratory disease. No one mentioned a word about the chickens ingesting their bedding?!
I am at a loss as to whether or not eating the pine shavings will be harmful. Eventually, after the newness wore off, they settled down and started acting a little more normal (for chickens) and only occasionally picked at their bedding choosing their food dispenser instead. I had spent most of the afternoon, while Fred finished coop construction, trying to train my flock to drink from a gerbil waterer. One of the many reference books said that this was the cleanest way to provide lots of fresh drinking water for the girls and it keeps them from running through their water or filling it with bedding and droppings.
This was a seriously hysterical exercise. To begin with I placed their water dish, the waterer and their food bowl all in close proximity within their yard. I took the box of raisins and sat down in the yard with them. Let me tell you these chickens would make terrible spies they would sell their grandma to the devil for a box of Sunmaid. I coaxed the chickens over to me with raisins and then I started tapping on the ball in the tube of the dispenser so they could see and taste that there was water there. I held my finger out with a few drops of water on it (this got my finger soundly pecked). Then I reached back up and tapped the ball a few more times. The ladies looked at me with puzzled chicken amusement. They obviously think I am insane.
At this point I considered admitting defeat. The chicken-lady at Green’s, who has been extremely helpful and full of good advice, pretty much laughed at Fred when he told her why I wanted a gerbil waterer. She said chickens do not have tongues so drinking out of one of those would be nearly impossible. Fred had bought a traditional trough waterer which I promptly made him return. I would prove my vast chicken training skills and I would keep my coop marginally cleaner by training my chickens-of-superior-intelligence to drink from the gerbil waterer. It was starting to look iffy. I reached over and picked up Miranda-chicken.
(Let me stop for a second to tell you that the chickens have developed enough distinct personality and looks for us to give them names. They have been named for myself and my three dear friends in honor of the fact that when we get together we sound like a bunch of clucking hens. They are named as follows: Stacy-chicken, Miranda-chicken, Gina-chicken and Autumn-chicken. I do not know if it is luck or transference but ever since we named them a week or so ago, they have begun to take on the personality qualities and behaviors of their namesakes, it is extremely funny.)
Miranda-chicken is in the middle of the flock size wise and she is one of the calmer birds. I held her up to the waterer and reached out with my thumb to press the ball. Water immediately welled up on my digit and she excitedly began bobbing her head. I thought, “Awesome! This is it, she has got it.” I set her down and she immediately began to peck the grass where the water had fallen. Ok, so they are not going to be brain surgeon chickens. I sighed. How did I get them to realize they needed to tap the ball to get the water?
The good thing about Miranda-chicken’s interest in the grass under the waterer was it sparked everyone else’s curiosity too. Cats’ curiosity has nothing on chickens’. Those girls cannot stand the thought of someone getting something they are being left out on. They will cluck and squawk and steal and just generally throw a fit trying to get something someone else has. So everyone crowded under the waterer where the drop had disappeared. Amidst this maylay the waterer was inadvertently jostled several times. This resulted in a series of drops falling from the spout. Now the real hilarity ensued, picture four ugly chickens bobbing their heads trying to catch water droplets.
This went on for quite some time. I kept tapping the ball thinking eventually one of them would realize where the water was coming from. Quite some time later one of them accidentally hit the ball with the side of their beak. When she realized that water came out she then began trying to drink from the side of her mouth, not exactly the most efficient means of consuming water, since when she opened her beak to let the water in the majority of it promptly slid out the other side. She became the functioning water dispenser for the other chickens who promptly lined up underneath her and began drinking greedily. That did not last too long. When she realized everyone was getting something she was not she quickly began pecking at their heads. Okay back to square one.
So I pulled them away from the waterer and stuck a raisin in it. The raisin allowed for a slow drip of water to come out. I hoped that once one of them realized there was a raisin there they would start to peck at the ball thus releasing the water and learning to drink from the dispenser. No such luck, these chickens, who are absolutely mad for raisins, ignored that raisin and the water dripping around it like it had the plague. SIGH.
I seriously thought I was going to have to return to Green’s waterer in hand and admit defeat. I was already contemplating tossing out the gerbil waterer and catalog ordering a traditional waterer so that I would not have to face complete humiliation in the feed store, when: one of the chickens in a staggering half mad chicken fit ran beak first into the waterer. Realizing there was a raisin there she promptly pulled it out and ate it while water dripped on her head. When she realized there was water she began pecking her beak into the dispenser. Eureka! She got it. Of course everyone else quickly followed suit assuming she has something they wanted and there was quickly a run on the water dispenser. Yay! Victory! So that is how the chickens learned to drink from the gerbil waterer. They poke the tip of their beak against the ball and that releases the vacuum allowing water to flow into their mouths. It keeps their water fresh and clean and provides a greater source of water than traditional trough dispensers.
Thursday night after all the construction and the drama Fred, the chickens and myself were exhausted. So we put the chickens in their house, closed up all the doors so they would not accidentally fall out or be eaten by anything, and went to bed.
Friday morning we headed out to see how they had faired through the night. We found them huddled in a tight ball under the warming lamp fast asleep. So much for “getting up with the chickens” apparently we get up way before the chickens even think about leaving their nice warm digs. We removed the panel blocking the door to the ramp which leads to the yard inside their pen. I moved their food and water down into the yard hoping this would coax them down the ramp and into the grass. Um, no such luck. After we had tried this for several minutes we then tried putting one chicken down in the yard hoping the others would realized where she was and head down after her. This did not work either. In fact, this resulted in some seriously traumatized chickens all standing in one corner, albeit on different floors and peeping their little forlorn hearts out.
Then we tried to move two chickens into the yard hoping that with even numbers up and down someone would make a decision to reunite the flock with everyone either moving back into the house or down into the yard. More peeping ensued. We put a Hansel and Gretel trail of raisins on the ramp. No go. We finally resorted into taking the chickens into the yard, putting them on the ramp and then reaching them up through the hole in the floor to be reunited with their sisters. The chickens treated this like a David Copperfield-esque illusion of epic proportions, the onlookers being completely amazed and stunned every time one of their sisters appeared through the magic hole in the floor but this still did not convince them to try the ramp.
Finally we gave up and put them back in the house leaving the door to the floor open so if they chose to venture down they could. Friday was a damp soggy day though and when we came home from all our adventures we found the chickens exactly where we had left them only significantly more hungry and thirsty since the food and water had been in the yard all afternoon. We moved the food and water back up into the house, gave them a few treats and shut them back in for the night. It is now a little after seven thirty on Saturday morning and it is raining buckets. We have not headed out to check on them yet but I guarantee there is no hurry considering the cool temperatures and the damp weather they will definitely want to spend the day in their house. We will go out in a bit to make sure they have food and water and that the warming light is working.
So that brings you up to date on the chickens and their stressful lives at Chicken University but it probably does not do much to explain the title of this blog or the opening sentence. Yesterday we had to go to town. We needed an estimate on some care repairs and we needed a new inspection sticker. This was pretty much an all afternoon ordeal so we dropped the car off, had some coffee, caught a movie and goofed around town. After we picked the car up we figured we would grab some Indian food for dinner. The Indian restaurant does not open until five so we had about an hour or so to kill. We decided we would head over to the feed store to pick up another waterer and a new leash and collar for the dog.
While we were there wandering around the coveralls we heard “peep peep peep” we walked over to the bucket and saw one tiny little chick peeping its heart out all by its lonesome under the warming light. It was teeny and bright yellow more round then our girls and with a funny looking beak. It immediately took a liking to Fred and came over to the edge of the bucket. Fred stooped down to read the tag attached to the side. It was a special order slip for three turkeys. A turkey? Ok, that explained its funny looking beak. Fred immediately put the kibosh on turkey ownership but as we walked away from the bucket it began to forlornly peep again.
I asked Fred how bad could it possibly be? We could keep it in the tub for a week or two then toss it in the coop with the chickens. Fred said no. The little baby turkey increased its desperate pleading peeps. Fred started to crack. I said go find the chicken lady and see what she says. If it would not hurt the chickens and the chickens would not hurt it then what was the harm. We had decided to get a turkey. Fred went off to find her as I perused the hats. Fred came back with a despondent look and the chicken-lady in tow.
“You don’t want that turkey,” she said.
“Why is it sick? Is something wrong with it?” I asked.
“Um sort of,” she hedged.
I pressed. That was not a good enough answer for me. And anyone who knows me knows I specialize in special needs animals. Even the vets pawn off damaged stragglers on me. She finally told me it had a double breast. I was confused. Was this some kind of turkey birth defect that left the poor thing seriously deformed? I did not really care if it was especially ugly, I mean what turkey is pretty, right? I told her as much and she finally came clean and told me it would not live past a year old and if it did we would have to kill it. WHAT?!
Apparently the term “double-breasted” is not a birth defect at all. Instead it is a man-manipulated, i.e. genetically mutation breeding trait that causes a turkey to be born with the muscle tissue of the breast being twice as large as what nature intended. This means that around or before the time the turkey reaches one year old its breast tissue will become so large that its legs will break under the weight. I am sorry this is cruel and I am sure this is not what God intended when he gave man stewardship of the Earth. This to me is a lack of responsibility and a prime example of the wretched gap we have put between ourselves and our food sources.
Please think about this when you buy your turkeys this Thanksgiving. No animal should be bred for the ultimate fate of breaking its own legs. If we all say no, if we all make smarter, more educated more compassionate choices then there will be no market for this cruelty and if there is no market for it then breeders will have to bend to the will of the consumer and stop doing things that are so atrociously cruel.
Needless to say, we left the feed store without the poor little doomed turkey and in a stupor of depression over man’s lack of a sense of responsibility and cruelty to the animals in our care. As we half heartedly drove toward the Indian restaurant Fred exclaimed “oh no!” I thought great what now? Are we driving up on an accident? As Fred pointed and I looked down in the road their lay a half grown dove in the middle of the intersection. At first we thought it was dead, struck by a car, but then as we looked we could see it blinking and its head moving from side to side. It was terrified.
Fred did a U-turn and went back, he had to do a few more tricky car maneuvers (I was sure someone would run over it before we got back) before we pulled back up to the intersection. He stopped the car and turned on the flashers. I jumped out and scooped the baby into my hands. While Fred blocked traffic I ran across the street and placed the baby in the grass neatly tucked under some shrubbery. It did not appear to have any broken wings and looked as though it may have been learning to fly and either stunned by a car or landed in the road and became terrified. I put it there hoping its mother was close and would tend it.
Seeing as how we were down town I do not expect there were lots of cats or dogs running loose to eat it before its mother could come, however, on our way home we took an extra take out box and decided if it was still there it must be hurt and we would take it home to tend it. It was no longer there and I am choosing to believe its mother came for it. (Please do not rain on my parade with any opposing theories!)
So as you can see we had an adventurous few days surrounding all things avian. We will be at the Kanawha Valley Sustainability Fair today at the ReStore diagonally across from Green’s. We will be there manning the KVBA booth so please stop by and see us. There will be lots of great information and lots of good food.
Thanks for reading,
Much love,
Autumn
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Bathroom Chickens
Ok, I will admit it. Our bathroom is really starting to stink! The weather has been so bad for the past week that it has been impossible to finish the chicken coop and we cannot put the chickens out in it until all the little cracks and crevices are sealed. I would be devastated if we had made it this far in our chicken raising career, only to have our flock decimated by some predator. We originally intended to have three chickens, we bought four because everyone we talked to and all of the books assured us that you normally loose a quarter of your flock in the beginning.
Well it has been a month and frankly I am happy to say that my chicken raising skills must obviously be better than my beekeeping skills. We have yet to kill a single chicken. I think that is quite an accomplishment considering the vast number of bees I’ve killed with my murderous beekeeping ways. When we got the chickens four weeks ago they were teeny tiny little balls of fluff, you could easily fit two of them in the palm of your hand. Now they are slightly larger than an extremely fat pigeon and ten times as ugly. Sufficient to say the teen age years are equally as detrimental to chickens as they are to pubescent band geeks. Fred says they look like miniature vultures. I do not know what they look like. Half plucked, moth-eaten, over loved ducklings? Needless to say they are no long the tiny fluff balls we brought home from Green’s.
This is evident in their ability to pop up out of their box at their whim and the copious amounts of chicken dookie soiling the paper every day. They are constantly jumping up on the edge of the box, teetering momentarily on the lip then careening wildly with flapping wings either to become wedged between the wall of the box and the bathtub or to ungracefully plop to the bathroom floor. This is follow by panicked squawking from the escapee and her fellow inmates left behind. It is like once they have “flown the coop” so to speak they are in a new kind of panic being exposed to the whole new world of the bathroom. After squawking wildly for several minutes a deathly hush will fall over the whole flock, like they are all afraid to make another peep. I walk in, pick up the offender and gentle put her back with her sisters. She is momentarily frozen and then the joyous reunion peeping begins and her sister’s welcome her back to box world with much fluttering about and wing flapping.
They are truly hysterical to watch. As they get older they become more and more tame and less and less terrified of the world around them. Especially if there are raisins involved. I think they would do just about anything for a raisin. Two of them will now sit in the palm of my hand or perch on my finger if there is a raisin involved. They are also wildly curious about anything anyone might be eating or drinking in their vicinity. If you get near the box with even the appearance that you might be holding something edible they will all stretch their necks out and come to the corner peeping and looking and vying for attention. They are also undeniably curious.
This is amusing because for the first couple weeks of their lives they we completely terrified of everything. I was quite certain that one of them would surely expire from a heart attack simple from me changing their paper. Now they come to my hand and peck curiously at my bracelets and rings, they are fascinated with blue nail polish and squawk indignantly when they realize the hand is not bearing raisins. Really the absolute funniest of their antics arise from their raisin lust. They will snatch whole raisins from your fingers than run maniacally around the box unable to stop long enough to eat their snack for fear one of their sisters will snatch it.
One brave and greedy little chicken will snatch the raisin then run full tilt circles around the box making strangled cries of triumph while being chased by her three siblings desperate to snatch the prize from her beak. This usually continues for several seconds as the raisin is passed from chicken to chicken until it is finally torn into small enough pieces to be eaten on the run. And the first raisin is always the most prized, even if other raisins are offered or tossed into the box. The chicken with the initial raisin has the boon that everyone else wants. They are like jealous little children constantly afraid they are being left out.
Speaking of jealous little children, my eighteen month old niece loves the “bock bocks” as she calls them (chicken is apparently to difficult to pronounce, seeing as how when I say “chicken” she gives me her trade-mark daddy-scowl and stoically corrects me “bock bock om,” she is very patient with my lack luster learning skills although it obviously frustrates her to no end) however she has no intention of sharing the raisins with them at all. It is beyond hysterical to watch her totter into the bathroom to peer over the edge of the tub, clutching a box of raisins. The eager chicks line up at the edge of the box peeping and trying to get a better look at her and the bounty. She giggles and coos and hold out a raisin, and as soon as a chick gets close enough to possible grab it, she squeals and shoves it in her mouth as fast as possible. What can I say? The kid likes the bock bocks but not nearly enough to part with her raisins!
So here we are, with a stinky bathroom filled with four pullets quickly outgrowing their quarters and no finished coop in which to house them. Fred is out piecing the chicken wire on as I type but the unpainted part of the coop has become so sodden in the torrential rains of the last week that there is no way it can be painted until we have had a few days of sunshine to dry it out. So we are in a holding pattern with stinky bird in a too small box until we can get the coop completed. And it has to be completed before we can put them out. If you read the chicken books (and I have, probably too many of them) there are any myriad of predators out their just waiting to devour the chickens. I think the absolute worst were the raccoons that will bite off the chicken’s heads and leave the little corpses spread around the coop or the rats that wait till the chickens fall into their sleep stupor and then gnaw off their feet! I have been having nightmares about mutilated chickens since I finished that chapter a week ago.
We have definitely decided to install a night light inside the coop. We are looking for one that is solar powered that will charge through the day and put off a soft glow at night. We do not want to make the coop so bright that the chickens cannot rest but chickens apparently go into almost a comatose state in complete darkness. This is why they roost and prefer roosts higher up off the ground. Although chickens have very little means of self defense to begin with, apparently, in this state of stupor they have none and will not even attempt to evade a predator or to squawk and warn of intruders. Several books I have read indicate that putting a night light in the coop will provide the chickens with enough light to allow them to become mobile in self defense if faced with a predator.
I was also surprised with how little noise the chicks really do make. Several people have asked how we sleep with the chickens right there in our master bathroom. But really after the sun goes down, they quite down and go right off to sleep. If someone gets up in the night to use the bathroom they may peep a little out of curiosity but mostly they just turn around and drift back off. They have really been quite easy to care for and, contrary to several of the things we were warned of, they are not mean or standoffish nor are they unbearably filthy. The do smell but it is not their fault. The birds themselves do not have an odor but where they are currently housed in such close quarters their litter constantly reeks and needs changing. They are still using shredded newspaper, however, when we move them to the coop we intend to switch to pine shavings.
From what we have read and been told pine shavings will help control odor and are extremely absorbent. We are going to use the deep liter method which will hopefully result in less time mucking out the coop and will also insulate the floor and help teach the chickens to “scratch” or hunt for their food using their feet to dig around. So far the chickens are quite entertaining and although I will not miss the smell I will miss their bathroom antics.
Come back to read about their adventure of moving out and living on their own.
Much love,
Autumn
Well it has been a month and frankly I am happy to say that my chicken raising skills must obviously be better than my beekeeping skills. We have yet to kill a single chicken. I think that is quite an accomplishment considering the vast number of bees I’ve killed with my murderous beekeeping ways. When we got the chickens four weeks ago they were teeny tiny little balls of fluff, you could easily fit two of them in the palm of your hand. Now they are slightly larger than an extremely fat pigeon and ten times as ugly. Sufficient to say the teen age years are equally as detrimental to chickens as they are to pubescent band geeks. Fred says they look like miniature vultures. I do not know what they look like. Half plucked, moth-eaten, over loved ducklings? Needless to say they are no long the tiny fluff balls we brought home from Green’s.
This is evident in their ability to pop up out of their box at their whim and the copious amounts of chicken dookie soiling the paper every day. They are constantly jumping up on the edge of the box, teetering momentarily on the lip then careening wildly with flapping wings either to become wedged between the wall of the box and the bathtub or to ungracefully plop to the bathroom floor. This is follow by panicked squawking from the escapee and her fellow inmates left behind. It is like once they have “flown the coop” so to speak they are in a new kind of panic being exposed to the whole new world of the bathroom. After squawking wildly for several minutes a deathly hush will fall over the whole flock, like they are all afraid to make another peep. I walk in, pick up the offender and gentle put her back with her sisters. She is momentarily frozen and then the joyous reunion peeping begins and her sister’s welcome her back to box world with much fluttering about and wing flapping.
They are truly hysterical to watch. As they get older they become more and more tame and less and less terrified of the world around them. Especially if there are raisins involved. I think they would do just about anything for a raisin. Two of them will now sit in the palm of my hand or perch on my finger if there is a raisin involved. They are also wildly curious about anything anyone might be eating or drinking in their vicinity. If you get near the box with even the appearance that you might be holding something edible they will all stretch their necks out and come to the corner peeping and looking and vying for attention. They are also undeniably curious.
This is amusing because for the first couple weeks of their lives they we completely terrified of everything. I was quite certain that one of them would surely expire from a heart attack simple from me changing their paper. Now they come to my hand and peck curiously at my bracelets and rings, they are fascinated with blue nail polish and squawk indignantly when they realize the hand is not bearing raisins. Really the absolute funniest of their antics arise from their raisin lust. They will snatch whole raisins from your fingers than run maniacally around the box unable to stop long enough to eat their snack for fear one of their sisters will snatch it.
One brave and greedy little chicken will snatch the raisin then run full tilt circles around the box making strangled cries of triumph while being chased by her three siblings desperate to snatch the prize from her beak. This usually continues for several seconds as the raisin is passed from chicken to chicken until it is finally torn into small enough pieces to be eaten on the run. And the first raisin is always the most prized, even if other raisins are offered or tossed into the box. The chicken with the initial raisin has the boon that everyone else wants. They are like jealous little children constantly afraid they are being left out.
Speaking of jealous little children, my eighteen month old niece loves the “bock bocks” as she calls them (chicken is apparently to difficult to pronounce, seeing as how when I say “chicken” she gives me her trade-mark daddy-scowl and stoically corrects me “bock bock om,” she is very patient with my lack luster learning skills although it obviously frustrates her to no end) however she has no intention of sharing the raisins with them at all. It is beyond hysterical to watch her totter into the bathroom to peer over the edge of the tub, clutching a box of raisins. The eager chicks line up at the edge of the box peeping and trying to get a better look at her and the bounty. She giggles and coos and hold out a raisin, and as soon as a chick gets close enough to possible grab it, she squeals and shoves it in her mouth as fast as possible. What can I say? The kid likes the bock bocks but not nearly enough to part with her raisins!
So here we are, with a stinky bathroom filled with four pullets quickly outgrowing their quarters and no finished coop in which to house them. Fred is out piecing the chicken wire on as I type but the unpainted part of the coop has become so sodden in the torrential rains of the last week that there is no way it can be painted until we have had a few days of sunshine to dry it out. So we are in a holding pattern with stinky bird in a too small box until we can get the coop completed. And it has to be completed before we can put them out. If you read the chicken books (and I have, probably too many of them) there are any myriad of predators out their just waiting to devour the chickens. I think the absolute worst were the raccoons that will bite off the chicken’s heads and leave the little corpses spread around the coop or the rats that wait till the chickens fall into their sleep stupor and then gnaw off their feet! I have been having nightmares about mutilated chickens since I finished that chapter a week ago.
We have definitely decided to install a night light inside the coop. We are looking for one that is solar powered that will charge through the day and put off a soft glow at night. We do not want to make the coop so bright that the chickens cannot rest but chickens apparently go into almost a comatose state in complete darkness. This is why they roost and prefer roosts higher up off the ground. Although chickens have very little means of self defense to begin with, apparently, in this state of stupor they have none and will not even attempt to evade a predator or to squawk and warn of intruders. Several books I have read indicate that putting a night light in the coop will provide the chickens with enough light to allow them to become mobile in self defense if faced with a predator.
I was also surprised with how little noise the chicks really do make. Several people have asked how we sleep with the chickens right there in our master bathroom. But really after the sun goes down, they quite down and go right off to sleep. If someone gets up in the night to use the bathroom they may peep a little out of curiosity but mostly they just turn around and drift back off. They have really been quite easy to care for and, contrary to several of the things we were warned of, they are not mean or standoffish nor are they unbearably filthy. The do smell but it is not their fault. The birds themselves do not have an odor but where they are currently housed in such close quarters their litter constantly reeks and needs changing. They are still using shredded newspaper, however, when we move them to the coop we intend to switch to pine shavings.
From what we have read and been told pine shavings will help control odor and are extremely absorbent. We are going to use the deep liter method which will hopefully result in less time mucking out the coop and will also insulate the floor and help teach the chickens to “scratch” or hunt for their food using their feet to dig around. So far the chickens are quite entertaining and although I will not miss the smell I will miss their bathroom antics.
Come back to read about their adventure of moving out and living on their own.
Much love,
Autumn
Monday, May 17, 2010
Harvest Time
Harvest Time
Saturday was a beautiful day, the first in a while, not marred by beastly humidity or rain. Fred was off work and we were about 4 days overdue for hive inspection and maintenance but weather and time had been against us all week. On days when it cleared off enough to get in the hives we were only left with mere hours, or less, before the bees return. This is barely enough time to open one hive let alone three. The state inspector was once again put off for another week because inspecting hives in the rain is both dangerous (for yourself and your stock) and futile (the hive would be unbearably crowded with put upon bees in a bad temper). So we found ourselves, once again, frustrated through the week and antsy to get a look in our hives.
When Fred got home from work on Friday it was after five p.m. and nearing the time when the last straggling workers would be returning to the hive with their bounty. Fred came in the house shouting for me to “come here”. I assumed “here” was somewhere outside considering he promptly banged back out the door he had come in. Any of you who are my friends on facebook already know that Friday had been a trying day. After a muggy hot walk to the insurance agency Louie had crapped out on me and refused to take another step, forcing me to bribe him with a cheeseburger and call my dad for a ride home. I was pooped, had just lay down and was in no mood to play hide-and-seek with my husband.
When I got my shoes on (My neighbors were appalled, I’m sure. My outfit consisted of the remnants of my walk: a dirty sports top, camo-cargo shorts and socks, and the only shoes close to the door: Mary-Jane crocs.) I went outside to locate Fred. I found him in the building scrambling into his beekeeping gear and fooling around with the smoker. “Huh?” was about the only thing close to coherent that came out of my mouth. He advised me that he thought our original “small” hive had swarmed. Sure enough, I looked over, and, seeing as how this was the first really sunny day we have had, may have muttered some serious grumblings against the spring rains under my breath. How could they have swarmed? It had been raining for days. Bees cannot fly once their wings are wet so on rainy days they mostly stay close to the hive.
I was aggravated. The bees were heavy around the mouth of the hive and bearded on one side of the entrance. Bearding is what the bees do when the hives become too hot or crowded, or they have already decided to swarm. They come outside of the hive and cling together draping in front of the hive and resembling a man’s beard. This allows them to cool off and to be instantaneously ready to leave when the queen does. Fred’s panic was caused when he pulled in from work and the bearding was visible from the driveway. I told him to calm down. If they had swarmed they would not still be there clinging to the hive and the possibility of them swarming that late in the evening was slim. I figured we at least had until Saturday morning but just to be sure we took a look around the surrounding trees and buildings looking for the cluster of a swarm. Thank goodness we did not find any because I am not entirely sure what we would have done.
Normally when bees swarm what happens is they leave in a group following tightly behind and around the queen and usually their first maneuver is to go straight up to the highest, nearest point and cluster there, either to wait out the night or to regroup before looking for new shelter. Some beekeepers clip the wings of their queen to ensure never losing a swarm. What happens then is the queen who is preparing to swarm comes out of the hive and promptly falls to the ground, where ultimately she dies. The bees that were swarming with her will go out from the hive some distance but when they no longer smell her pheromones they will eventually return to the hive and re-assimilate.
We think this may have been the case with our hive. Apparently what we were watching was not our bees preparing to swarm but instead returning to the hive after a failed attempt to swarm. Let me pause to say this hive was newly supered last week so there is an empty box on the top and plenty of room for the bees, however once nature has taken over and the bees have begun to make preparations to swarm there is little to nothing that can be done to prevent it. We believe the old queen had either had her wings clipped or injured at some point which also makes us think we had actually located her during one of our earlier hive checks. We had found a large bee with what appeared to be damaged wings but we were unsure if she was the queen because at that point in time we were unaware of the practice of wing clipping.
We got down on our hands and knees in front of the hive in the encroaching darkness and began to search around to see if we could locate the former queen. I do not know what exactly we thought we would do with her if we did find her. I suppose we would have simple put her out of her misery and kept her for comparison sake late on. You see, there would be no reason to return her to the hive the new queen would have already hatched and would kill her anyway. We could have tried to put her in a new brood box but since her swarm had already returned to the ranks it would be unlikely they would come back out and join her in a new location, so it is probably best that we could not find her in the tall grass in front of the hive. We did find a couple of dead drones which may have been from the new queen’s mating flight but we did not see our former queen.
The politics of the hive frequently ring with the echoes of the Elizabethan royal court or the Biblical adventures of the Old Testament. There are coups, there are murders, there are mass exoduses, there are violent overthrows, and there is a veritable drama of operatic proportions always afoot in the hive. So now our small hive has a new queen, or so we in our novice skills believe. We think the former queen’s army has been assimilated almost bloodlessly and we, as beekeepers, are thankful to not loose yet another part of another hive. We put our tools away and headed in for the evening.
Saturday morning dawned with beautiful sunshine and mild temperatures. We had an appointment early in the morning to take a look at some property in Frame and then we planned to systematically go through each hive, checking for all the keys “ingredients” and for any pest or predator that may have invaded. We got home a little later than planned but got in the hive about one o’clock. The super on the hive we believed tried to swarm was still mostly empty which meant there was plenty of room for the returning masses, as we moved down into the other supers and the brood box we found plenty of everything: bees, drones, brood, larva, honey and pollen. It seemed like all was well. We were not (as usual) able to locate the new queen but we saw definite signs that there is a new queen there were several hatched and partially hatched queen cells.
Which brings me to another quandary; I am not entirely sure how we missed those queen cells during our inspection last week. (Or I should say I missed them, Fred cannot be blamed for that hive because I went through it myself before he got home from work.) It is supposed to take twenty-one days total to rear a new queen, from egg to hatchling, I was in the hive approximately eleven days ago and did not see those cells. I think I know what I am looking for but obviously I still have a lot to learn. We systematically went through every hive inspecting each super, brood box and frame. Although we are still unable to locate our queens our hives look healthy and all three show signs of having a queen i.e. there is fresh brood in each and the bees appear to be gathering honey.
I am also proud to announce that this past Saturday we made our first harvest! Not of honey, so do not get too excited, but of wax. Earlier this week while we gave our presentation to the Girl Scout troop of Dunbar we were able to have a look at some of the wares of our fellow beekeepers. The treasurer of the KVBA brought with him a box of molded beeswax. Now we knew that beeswax has a great value for many things from lubricating sewing thread to making cosmetics, what we did not know was that it was prudent to keep every small scrap of wax for our harvest!
The treasurer of the KVBA told us he never throws away a piece of wax, instead as he inspects his hives he takes all the little scrapings and puts them in a jar to later be melted down and poured into a mold. He then sells those chunks of wax alongside his honey at the fairs and festivals and in his own little shop. Genius! I hate to throw anything away and this is right up my alley. So on Saturday Fred and I got a little box and carefully hoarded every tiny scrap of wax. I am happy to say that when cleaning the edges of the frames and the edges of the brood box and pinching off any hatched queen cells we collected about a cup to a cup and a half of wax. Now I have not had time yet to try my hand at melting it down and straining it of odd bee bits but I am looking forward to doing that this evening.
We brought our little treasure inside and left it on the kitchen counter over night, mistake. We woke up to find ants feasting on the tiny bits of honey clinging to the wax. So right now the wax is sitting outside waiting on me to finish up this blog and get busy.
~
For those of you who are curious the Girl Scout meeting went wonderfully! We could not have asked for a more attentive and interested group of young girls. They enjoyed our little demonstration of how beekeeping works and they also enjoyed tasting various types of honey provided by the president of the KVBA. We had a great time and were invited back to do a future demo on making beeswax lip balm.
Thank you all for reading and stay tuned for my foray into cleaning and molding beeswax,
Much love,
Autumn
Saturday was a beautiful day, the first in a while, not marred by beastly humidity or rain. Fred was off work and we were about 4 days overdue for hive inspection and maintenance but weather and time had been against us all week. On days when it cleared off enough to get in the hives we were only left with mere hours, or less, before the bees return. This is barely enough time to open one hive let alone three. The state inspector was once again put off for another week because inspecting hives in the rain is both dangerous (for yourself and your stock) and futile (the hive would be unbearably crowded with put upon bees in a bad temper). So we found ourselves, once again, frustrated through the week and antsy to get a look in our hives.
When Fred got home from work on Friday it was after five p.m. and nearing the time when the last straggling workers would be returning to the hive with their bounty. Fred came in the house shouting for me to “come here”. I assumed “here” was somewhere outside considering he promptly banged back out the door he had come in. Any of you who are my friends on facebook already know that Friday had been a trying day. After a muggy hot walk to the insurance agency Louie had crapped out on me and refused to take another step, forcing me to bribe him with a cheeseburger and call my dad for a ride home. I was pooped, had just lay down and was in no mood to play hide-and-seek with my husband.
When I got my shoes on (My neighbors were appalled, I’m sure. My outfit consisted of the remnants of my walk: a dirty sports top, camo-cargo shorts and socks, and the only shoes close to the door: Mary-Jane crocs.) I went outside to locate Fred. I found him in the building scrambling into his beekeeping gear and fooling around with the smoker. “Huh?” was about the only thing close to coherent that came out of my mouth. He advised me that he thought our original “small” hive had swarmed. Sure enough, I looked over, and, seeing as how this was the first really sunny day we have had, may have muttered some serious grumblings against the spring rains under my breath. How could they have swarmed? It had been raining for days. Bees cannot fly once their wings are wet so on rainy days they mostly stay close to the hive.
I was aggravated. The bees were heavy around the mouth of the hive and bearded on one side of the entrance. Bearding is what the bees do when the hives become too hot or crowded, or they have already decided to swarm. They come outside of the hive and cling together draping in front of the hive and resembling a man’s beard. This allows them to cool off and to be instantaneously ready to leave when the queen does. Fred’s panic was caused when he pulled in from work and the bearding was visible from the driveway. I told him to calm down. If they had swarmed they would not still be there clinging to the hive and the possibility of them swarming that late in the evening was slim. I figured we at least had until Saturday morning but just to be sure we took a look around the surrounding trees and buildings looking for the cluster of a swarm. Thank goodness we did not find any because I am not entirely sure what we would have done.
Normally when bees swarm what happens is they leave in a group following tightly behind and around the queen and usually their first maneuver is to go straight up to the highest, nearest point and cluster there, either to wait out the night or to regroup before looking for new shelter. Some beekeepers clip the wings of their queen to ensure never losing a swarm. What happens then is the queen who is preparing to swarm comes out of the hive and promptly falls to the ground, where ultimately she dies. The bees that were swarming with her will go out from the hive some distance but when they no longer smell her pheromones they will eventually return to the hive and re-assimilate.
We think this may have been the case with our hive. Apparently what we were watching was not our bees preparing to swarm but instead returning to the hive after a failed attempt to swarm. Let me pause to say this hive was newly supered last week so there is an empty box on the top and plenty of room for the bees, however once nature has taken over and the bees have begun to make preparations to swarm there is little to nothing that can be done to prevent it. We believe the old queen had either had her wings clipped or injured at some point which also makes us think we had actually located her during one of our earlier hive checks. We had found a large bee with what appeared to be damaged wings but we were unsure if she was the queen because at that point in time we were unaware of the practice of wing clipping.
We got down on our hands and knees in front of the hive in the encroaching darkness and began to search around to see if we could locate the former queen. I do not know what exactly we thought we would do with her if we did find her. I suppose we would have simple put her out of her misery and kept her for comparison sake late on. You see, there would be no reason to return her to the hive the new queen would have already hatched and would kill her anyway. We could have tried to put her in a new brood box but since her swarm had already returned to the ranks it would be unlikely they would come back out and join her in a new location, so it is probably best that we could not find her in the tall grass in front of the hive. We did find a couple of dead drones which may have been from the new queen’s mating flight but we did not see our former queen.
The politics of the hive frequently ring with the echoes of the Elizabethan royal court or the Biblical adventures of the Old Testament. There are coups, there are murders, there are mass exoduses, there are violent overthrows, and there is a veritable drama of operatic proportions always afoot in the hive. So now our small hive has a new queen, or so we in our novice skills believe. We think the former queen’s army has been assimilated almost bloodlessly and we, as beekeepers, are thankful to not loose yet another part of another hive. We put our tools away and headed in for the evening.
Saturday morning dawned with beautiful sunshine and mild temperatures. We had an appointment early in the morning to take a look at some property in Frame and then we planned to systematically go through each hive, checking for all the keys “ingredients” and for any pest or predator that may have invaded. We got home a little later than planned but got in the hive about one o’clock. The super on the hive we believed tried to swarm was still mostly empty which meant there was plenty of room for the returning masses, as we moved down into the other supers and the brood box we found plenty of everything: bees, drones, brood, larva, honey and pollen. It seemed like all was well. We were not (as usual) able to locate the new queen but we saw definite signs that there is a new queen there were several hatched and partially hatched queen cells.
Which brings me to another quandary; I am not entirely sure how we missed those queen cells during our inspection last week. (Or I should say I missed them, Fred cannot be blamed for that hive because I went through it myself before he got home from work.) It is supposed to take twenty-one days total to rear a new queen, from egg to hatchling, I was in the hive approximately eleven days ago and did not see those cells. I think I know what I am looking for but obviously I still have a lot to learn. We systematically went through every hive inspecting each super, brood box and frame. Although we are still unable to locate our queens our hives look healthy and all three show signs of having a queen i.e. there is fresh brood in each and the bees appear to be gathering honey.
I am also proud to announce that this past Saturday we made our first harvest! Not of honey, so do not get too excited, but of wax. Earlier this week while we gave our presentation to the Girl Scout troop of Dunbar we were able to have a look at some of the wares of our fellow beekeepers. The treasurer of the KVBA brought with him a box of molded beeswax. Now we knew that beeswax has a great value for many things from lubricating sewing thread to making cosmetics, what we did not know was that it was prudent to keep every small scrap of wax for our harvest!
The treasurer of the KVBA told us he never throws away a piece of wax, instead as he inspects his hives he takes all the little scrapings and puts them in a jar to later be melted down and poured into a mold. He then sells those chunks of wax alongside his honey at the fairs and festivals and in his own little shop. Genius! I hate to throw anything away and this is right up my alley. So on Saturday Fred and I got a little box and carefully hoarded every tiny scrap of wax. I am happy to say that when cleaning the edges of the frames and the edges of the brood box and pinching off any hatched queen cells we collected about a cup to a cup and a half of wax. Now I have not had time yet to try my hand at melting it down and straining it of odd bee bits but I am looking forward to doing that this evening.
We brought our little treasure inside and left it on the kitchen counter over night, mistake. We woke up to find ants feasting on the tiny bits of honey clinging to the wax. So right now the wax is sitting outside waiting on me to finish up this blog and get busy.
~
For those of you who are curious the Girl Scout meeting went wonderfully! We could not have asked for a more attentive and interested group of young girls. They enjoyed our little demonstration of how beekeeping works and they also enjoyed tasting various types of honey provided by the president of the KVBA. We had a great time and were invited back to do a future demo on making beeswax lip balm.
Thank you all for reading and stay tuned for my foray into cleaning and molding beeswax,
Much love,
Autumn
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