Too Many Things...

Has it really been almost a year since I last posted?  Geez.  Either I just don't have time or I spend too much time staring at my son.  Well, with that said, I have a prepped a photo barf that I'm not going to stick in this post.  I will, however, stick the link to my offspring's photo barf here.  Soon, I'll get back in the groove of things.....hopefully before the summer travels hit!

Of the Patoots (even here, I'm behind....)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cragbetty/collections/72157633626980199/

Food and Garden....uh.....yeah....
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cragbetty/sets/72157644272065269/

Outpost Honey

So many thing to talk about and so little time.  First of all, we sold our nuc hive within a day.  That means Anastasia is off to a new home.  Secondly, we've got us some honey.  While Ed's mom and sister were here visiting, they did the first extraction of honey.  From that we got roughly 15 quarts.  Then a week later Ed did another extraction on his own and we got more quarts.  Total honey haul....93 lbs or 31 quarts.  And thus, Outpost Honey is born.

First extraction 6/29/2013

Second extraction 7/2/2013

Outpost Honey

Time to cook everything with honey!

Queens and Swarms

It seems like this is the year that our family of people and bees both grew!  A few days after bring our little Andrew back from the hospital (to be yakked about in another post), our hive (which survived the winter and has been thriving in the early pollen flow) decided that it was too crowded and swarmed.  That pretty much means that Ursula got unceremoniously booted from her throne.  Not to worry, she left with half the bees.  The worrisome part was that they left.  Good thing Ursula wasn’t a really good flier so they ended up on the walking path between our two gardens.  Ed came home one afternoon and saw that there wasn’t a whole lot of activity in the hive.  He took Andrew out for a walk around the garden and saw a big arse pile of bees on the path.

Needless to say, he caught the swarm (basically got Ursala, dumped her in our extra box, and got the colony to follow her).  Now we have two hives.  The daughter hive (the one with Ursala) is doing well.  The parent hive (with the new young queen - Tatiana) has yet to be proven.  However as of yesterday (5/19) Ed said he spotted some eggs.  So, the Tatiana got herself laid and is ready to populate the parent hive.  Throughout this ordeal, we ended getting a new queen (Anastasia), operating under the assumption that the parent hive might be queen less.  This is before Ed spotted brood in the parent hive.  Now we have an extra queen and are building a nucleus box for her.  Eventually, we’ll sell her and her nuc.  We’ll see.  :)

With the hive swarming, we have a lot of pollen and honey that has yet been used.  What’s neat about that is that we can probably take a few of the fully loaded honey frames and extract that.  Ed took one frame and hand extracted the comb and honey.    Half the honey hasn’t been capped so it’s pretty young honey.  Regardless, It’s pretty effing tasty. I can’t wait to taste what the capped honey taste like.

Once the honey flow starts for us….get ready for the Crack Granola production.  :)

the Swarm

First Honey

Summer House

With the rising temperature of summer here in the interior mountain region, ventilation is a must....FOR EVERYONE.  that includes me.  usually a hammock in the shade of the pine trees or a lounger on our deck works...oh wait....i'm talking about the bees...

opening up the entrance, adding an upper entrance, and rigging up a varro mite trap can serve as a way to vent the hive.  hopefully they won't "beard" outside the runway to keep cool.  (bearding is when they hang onto each other and forms something that looks like a beard)

beyond that addition for the summer, the bees are busy doing whatever they are doing....such as going in and out of the hive....and being busy.

now...where's that hammock?

the summer digs

Ursula Update

Well, the good thing is that we have a productive Ursula!  that means they bees are busy!  they have already filled up one large box (with ten frames in it) and working on filling a second large box!  we however, have not been as productive.  we have our electric fence still sitting in the garage.   at some point, we'll be putting that up to discourage the local wildlife from messing with the hive.

they's been eating the sugar syrup and gathering their own stuff.  from where?  i have no idea.  we haven't heard screams yet, so i think we're good.  we've scraped off enough burr comb (= wax) to make one little candle.  if they keep working like this, we'll need to put the honey supers on!   can't wait for the honey to start flowing next year!

inspective the frame

a brood frame

Urban Farming Craze...

ok...maybe not craze, but it's time to populate the gardens.  a list of what i have going... i've already planted garlic and onions last fall and they've winter overed pretty nicely.  the snow peas have sprouted and are now growing up (although, i'm not sure it's it's going to give peas...who knows).  the kale and chard went into the ground as seed.  the okra and jalapenos went in.  then comes the daunting task of putting 20 tomato plants into the ground.  yes, my back and my jacked up shoulder paid for it, but the kiddos are out in the pasture.   ed put the grape cuttings in the grape garden.  the raspberries are thinking about flowering.   the bees are doing their thang...

now,  i'm just waiting for the freak snow storm to ruin things.  kidding.  really, i'm waiting for the farmers market to start up so i can work on my next food project....drying stuff.  :D


oh, yeah...note to self....let's not start the seeds so early (by three weeks) next year AND let's not go crazy with the seeds (let's not have 20 tomato plants) !

kale

chard

okra and jalapenos

traffic.....

Checking up on Ursula

So, I've named our queen bee Ursula, a tribute to where the strain of bees are originally from...eastern europe.  part of the bee adventure is the weekly check up of the hive and it's royal.   we have to open the hive and inspect each frame (where the bees build their combs and do their thing) and feed.   so being the eager noobs, here's the first check up.

the bulk of the hive

bees, combs, and babies

good thing they are still around!

good news!  ed saw eggs, combs, honey, and lots of bees.  i just saw the combs and lots of bees.  that means ursula and her bees have their world order sorted and are being industrious!

PS...nobody got stung......yet.

Bees

So, bees?  Yup, bees.

sometime last year (could be right around the time of the farmer's market here) we lamented about the fact that it's too pricy to make the crack granola that we enjoy so much because of the cost of non-commercialized honey.  i think the granola would seriously turn out to be around 15 bucks a pound if i used the farmer's market stuff.  well, ed got it into his head that we should keep bees.a relatively low maintenance pet (or pets if you count them individually) that will yield food.  i guess everything that we put in the yard has a dual use.  nothing ornamental.  waste a little as possible.

we had a little bee installation gathering.  a couple of families and their kids came to watch ed put the bees in their new home.  one little girl, amelia, was particularly excited about the whole event.  she's a gal that loves bugs!  any kind of bug!  she kept wanting to hang out with the bees.  it's really awesome to see such excitement from a child over nature and it's wonders!

at the end of the day, nobody got stung and everybody went home happy, humans included.

Amelia, the future entomologist

installing the bees into their new home

the starter package of bees

ed and the fiefdom