Farm Friend Friday: After the Freeze

Amy over at Verde Farm is starting Farm Friend Friday. I became acquainted with her when we both participated in National Hug a Sheep Day hosted by my friend Sara over at Punkin's Patch at Equinox Farm. I've been looking for something like this to feature our small farm.

She says "Farm Friend Friday will be about: house, cooking, crafting, animals, gardening, photography and more. It will be a great way to meet new farm friends and see lots of different views and perspectives on farm life." How cool is that?

If you've been watching the strange weather (which I call Wonky World Weather) you'll know that Texas has been briefly plunged  back into the Ice Age. Even down here in the semi-arid desert Southwest, an hour as the crow (or, in our case, the Cara Cara) flies from Mexico, we had three days solidly frozen at 12 degrees.

 Ribbons of sap being extruded from our Frostweed (Verbesina virginica)

I'm sure to many of you this doesn't sound so terrible as you deal with this every Winter. However, we live three months of the year over 100 degrees, even attaining 117 degrees one day last summer. Truth be told, in our diurnal climate Winter consists of freezing temperatures most nights, and 60 plus degrees each day. You could say Winter only comes at night--the rest of the time we are running around in t-shirts!

The things we call coats most people would probably consider windbreakers. We have been wearing three at a time just to stay warm in this old farmhouse. Built over 70 years ago--before air conditioning was the mode--our house has little insulation and is 50% single pane glass operable windows for catching those breezes.

 This Fall photo gives you an idea how much glass we are talking about.

Fortunately we have a fireplace, because Wednesday our electricity (and thus our heat) went out for the arctic day! Living remotely as we do we are in an electric co-op. Mostly we experience outages from electrical storms that come in more temperate seasons and those don't generally last more than a couple hours, if that.

Farmer Rick took the tractor down to the creek to load kindling, but the icy hill proved too steep for traction and the wood had to be carried armload by armload. While he was laying in firewood, I made the decision to move all the seedlings from the rapidly cooling greenhouse into the living room.

Living room scene on a 12 degree day with no heat.

So, snuggled around the fire with us were four dogs, four cats, one rooster (Junior's been recuperating) and 439 plants! I feel bad that I was unable to bring in the remaining 49 chickens who usually stay warm with heat lamps, but that would have been total chaos. Unfortunately several of our roosters in Coop Two appear to have suffered some frostbite. (This morning it's looking a little better--fingers crossed).

Marco Marans showing some frostbite on the tips of his comb.

Finley the sheep is lame in a foreleg. I suspect he's been watching me break his trough ice with the sledgehammer and has perhaps tried this himself.

But I don't like snow cones!

Amazingly our lettuce which had been covered with clear plastic withstood the ordeal.

Butterhead lettuce makes it through!

I'm sure there were some losses among our honeybees, but the good news is today it's warmed above 50 degrees and the girls are coming and going from both hives and doing housekeeping.

Workers carrying out the dead after three days of freezing temperatures.

What is this object you say? Why it's a frozen cylinder of coffee grounds! No, no, we don't drink that much. We are fortunate enough to have connected with a local coffee shop and are able to compost all their grounds!

Cafe glace!

It's time to take advantage of the sun and get outside to cut back the asparagus. The first spears were already peeking through this time last year. (I hope they held off). We'll be looking forward to eating it soon!

For more farm fun visit Farm Friend Friday. (Say that ten times!)

How to Afford Your Hobbies

Like I needed one more, right? My friends were amazed when I announced I was becoming a beekeeper.

What, too bored with the garden? Not enough pets?

At a recent Beekeeper's Field Day, I learned how to make liquid soap using honey, oils, and lye. I decided I wanted to try this at home. Yes, a spin-off hobby already!

So needed to purchase a crock pot dedicated to soap making. While in the city yesterday, I was able to find a large one with two heat settings--exactly what I needed--at my favorite resale shop for just $4.

For decades I have been shopping at thrift stores. For one, I despise shopping malls, and most thrift stores support good causes--humane societies, battered women's shelters, schools for at-risk kids, AIDS hospices, etc.

I also have expensive tastes but relatively little to spend.

Even if I did, I would still shop this way because I like the treasure-hunt adventure of it. I can be frugal and stylish at the same time.

So yesterday, I scored on a summer wardrobe. Skirt, pants, two silk blouses, long-sleeved linen shirt, long and short dresses.

$12. Total. (About the same amount I just spent on an additional bee hive tool).

That's right. Pick yourself up off the floor. Twelve dollars! Throw in a $3 shirt (splurge!) for Farmer Rick (not pictured; he loved it so much he wore it to work today), and the aforementioned crock pot, I still had enough change left over from a $20 for a celebratory soda for the road home.

Now I don't feel so bad about what I do spend on beehives, garden seeds, books, and art supplies!

Welcome home bees!

Wednesday afternoon I picked up my package of bees--3 lbs, 10,000 honeybees and one queen to be exact. It was a 600 mile round trip. A package is actually a wooden box with two screened sides and a can of sugar syrup hanging down the middle with access holes for sustenance. I misted them with sugar water a couple times along the way to keep them hydrated and busy cleaning themselves. Bees are very hygenic.

They were humming along in the back of the vehicle as I made up songs about bees and flowers and how they would love their new home, crooning to them for the first hour. They settled right down. Because I arrived home at 10 p.m. I could not install them until Thursday afternoon. Installing them late in the day gives them a chance to get to know their new home.

Bee boxes are filled with frames on which the bees will build honey comb, lay their brood, store nectar and pollen, among other things. Everything in a bee hive is built so that all gaps are the exact width of a bee (about 3/8"). This is called _bee space_. If something is too narrow they will glue it shut with propolis, a sticky substance they manufacture from plant resins, and if it is too wide they will fill it with wax comb.

The foundation inside the frame is preformed to the shape of the natural comb, which helps get the bees off to a good architectural start. Because of the extreme heat where I live I chose plastic foundation coated with wax, but some people choose a beeswax foundation. The black foundation also aids in looking into the combs and seeing if eggs are being laid, crucial to the survival of the colony, as worker bees only live about six weeks.

The exterior of the boxes were primed and painted to weather proof them. Light neutral colors are recommended. I chose a honey colored yellow.

We chose a site in the middle of our property with a cedar brake to the North for protection from the Winter winds, overlooking the wildflower meadow. The spot was mowed and leveled, and Farmer Rick built the hive stand from concrete blocks and rough cut cedar. There is enough space for several hives and equipment while working.

This is the view the bees have from their front door, with the mountain just peaking over the treeline.

This was all done prior to the bee's arrival. Yesterday I installed the bees, and Farmer Rick was brave enough to photograph the event!

First, the donning of protective gear. Did I mention wearing this suit is like having my own personal sauna? That is the smoker in the foreground. It was stoked with newspaper and wood shavings several times before a longer lasting cotton fuel made for bee smoking was added.

The smoke messes up the bees' sense of smell which confuses them, since they communicate through phermones. It also makes them think their hive is on fire and usually they will gorge themselves on honey to have the strength to swarm and and find a new place to live. Eating the honey also settles their nerves.

But note, there is no honey in the package. As I smoked them they got angry. You could hear them turn their buzzing up a couple notches. I waited a couple minutes and smoked them again. This time they were really mad! I considered postponing the installation but I really wanted to get them into their new home. Perhaps I should have sung to them instead!

Notice how they've moved from all over the screen to an angry tornado shaped mob! The first task is popping the staple holding the queen's cage, then covering that with a thumb, while turning the whole contraption upside down to raise the syrup can just enough to grab it and pull it out. I could have used a third hand to do this.

With a one inch drop of the box, bees fall to the bottom (theoretically), the can is quickly removed (you get a face full of unhappy bees), bees clinging to the queens cage are shaken or brushed off, and a piece of cardboard is placed over the hole and weighted down so the majority of bees don't leave.

There's a cork at the bottom of the queen's cage that must be taken out so that the bees can lick a piece of candy over the next few days to release her. This gives them time to get to know her as their queen, since they were shaken out of a hive with a different queen.

The queen's cage is installed between two frames, hung by it's original strap tacked down.

Now for the most strange part...the package is inverted and the bees are shaken into the hive. Shake, shake, shake!

Then, shake some more! You can see that most of them are going down into the frames like good bees. But some are truly pissed off and trying to attack!

After no more bees would let loose, I capped them with the top board. Notice the entrances are blocked with newspaper. The apiary suggested this for 24 hours, letting them get used to their new home for the night. However...

There were a number of bees--maybe 200--still refusing to leave the box.



This seemed like too large a number to sacrifice, so I unplugged the front door and propped the package up hoping they would find their way in.

This is what I found in the early morning: the stragglers had moved from inside the box into a huddle on the outside corner, but still had not entered! But by noon, they had all gone inside or elsewhere. I later unplugged the top entrance (under the roof) around 10:30 a.m. to help.

I watched the stragglers go in, and others come out doing the spiral dance to orient themselves before going out to scout. Housekeeping bees dragged dead bees out the front door and slid them off the landing. So, hopefully this was business as usual. I also noted the guard bees were doing their job, running me off several times!

Next I will wait a week before entering the hive again and looking to see that the queen has been released and is laying eggs.  Stay tuned!

Sunday Stills: The Letter B

Well, I've haven't found much time for blogging lately--my time has not been my own. As one friend said, April was kind of Medical Month for us, on top of the big annual push to get the Spring gardens in. I've also continued to substitute teach almost daily for the school since Farmer Rick returned, on top of my own private guitar students and advertising clients. My life is the picture of busy.

Right now every inch of our property is covered in wildflowers. The Bluebonnets have been spectacular!

Next week I will be traveling 600 miles round trip to pick up my honey bees. My hive kit arrived today and my bee suit arrived last week. With temperatures already ranging into the 90's it will be more like my personal sauna!

I'll be painting the hive boxes this week and getting everything set up for my 10,000 new pets. Not that there wasn't enough to do around here already!

For more on the Letter B visit Sunday Stills!