New Garden Plans

Finally have an idea for the garden out front. Will be based on the picture above. Will have a double fence surrounding it. This will be the chicken moat (run). Will place a chicken coop in the back corner and place the bees in another corner. This design should keep out the deer and coons. Might use an electrified net for the inner fence this will ensure that the chickens and coons will stay out of the interior of the garden.

Plan right now is to have 8 to 10 4 by 8 ft boxes. Will repeat grape trellis on the west side of the garden much like we had in Greensboro.

Feeding Bees 7-4-11

Last weekend I was able to harvest about six gallons of honey from two medium supers. I put up 18 quarts and have started to give the rest back to the bees. This top feeder seems to work the best as the bees will line up like cattle at a feed trough.

Greensboro Garden April 2011

Going to miss this place! Have learned some great lessons and we are ready to take it to the next level. Will do more square foot gardening and less fruit trees, too labor intensive for the return you get. Have a rotation plan in mind for chickens and goats. Eric and I are going to start a meat goat operation in Tennessee. Will start small and see how it goes. Wanted to log these pictures as a reminder of what we had here.

Grape crop should be excellent again. Might not be able to enjoy them this year.

Apple tree loaded with fruit.

Strawberries that my friend Bill gave me last year. Bumper crop.

 Argos kept the rabbits and deer out of them.

Second Inspection Late Winter 2011

Great day to take a look at the home hives. Noon time temps were in the mid 60s today. Honey from from the dead-out hive is almost all gone the bees have been very good at taking it. Looks like the strategy worked.  Removed one frame from the middle of the bottom brood box of hive 1 and it was full of capped brood on both sides of the frame. Laying pattern of the queen in this hive is excellent. Top super still has plenty of capped and new uncapped honey stored. Population of this hive is great with lots of bees in both boxes. Added a empty medium super so the bees will have room when the brood hatches out. Will add a few jars of 1:1 sugar water when the weather warms back up in the next day or two. This should stimulate the bees to draw out the comb in the top super. High hopes for this hive. I will need to watch for signs of swarming and make sure they have plenty of room to expand. This hive might be a split candidate.

I had reversered the brood and super boxes on hive two a couple of weeks age. Still not much action taking place in the brood box. Still a lot of small hive beetles (SHB) in this hive. Pulled one frame from the bottom box and there was a good pattern of capped brood on the frame. Pulled another frame and tapped off the bees due to the high number of SHB. Tapped all of the SHBs out of the cells as well. Installed a beetle blaster trap in the top outside edges of both boxes. Moving this hive into the sun should help but need to control the beetles before they ruin the comb.

Hive three looks just as good as hive one. Took the half  full honey super from hive four and placed it on this hive. Did this because they looked like they needed the room. Bees all through this hive so I decided not to pull any frames. Just pulled the top super and had a look at the brood box it too was chocked full of bees. Hope that they will move into the top super as they need more room. Will monitor this hive for signs of swarming and split it if I can.

Hive four is still very weak with very few bees in the upper two supers. Removed the newspaper from between the brood box and full honey super. Only three frames had bees on them in the brood box. Saw capped drone cells and a few supersedure queen cells being constructed. My guess is the queen is weak and she is being replaced. Going to let this hive and and nature run its course. This was the hive that was re-queened last fall. Like Bill Hansen's hive at the Brown yard it looks like the queens we got last fall  may not have been very viable and or well bred.

Bee Update

Bees from all four hives have almost taken all of the honey from the Brown hive. Video Link. Weather has been great. Saw bees bringing in pollen another good sign as they do this to feed the brood. Will need to remove the newspaper and inspect hive four sometime this week.

Winter 2011 Hive Inspections

Inspected the 4 hives in the home yard today. The Brown Hive had died and I had brought that hive back to house 3 weeks ago. I opened this hive and the bees from the home yard hives have been taking the honey. Still have 5-6 frames of honey in top super.

Bees are not interested in pollen patty. More than likely they are getting all the protein they need from the honey.

Had also moved hive one to the other side of hive 2 so that they could get more sun. Hives one, two and three all appear to be doing good coming out of winter. Plenty of stored honey and some capped and open brood. Not much yet but some none the less. A good sign of things to come. Found the queen in hive three, she looked good. Reversed the brood box and medium super on hive one as most of the bees were in the top medium super. Also took top super that is full of honey from hive 3 and placed in on hive 4 the weakest of the hives. Did  a newspaper combine on this hive.
Surprised to see so many small hive beetles. Need to set some traps for them.

Eric's High School Graduation

Eric did it!! We attended a very nice graduation ceremony tonight. We received his final transcripts and he finished with a 3.95 GPA and was ranked #3 of 428. I could not be more pleased.