Gilsum Rock Swap weekend

This weekend, we headed to the Gilsum Rock Swap in Gilsum, NH. What the heck is a rock swap?
http://gilsum.org/rockswap.aspx
It's a place where crystals, jewelry, geodes, minerals, and everything geological are found. It's the next town south from my mom, so we thought we'd make a weekend out of it.

I never thought I'd finish packing and organizing the house to leave, but finally we limped out around 1:15 on Friday afternoon. First it was a quick stop at my grandfather's house. He's in his mid 90s and still lives in his house, but he has a caretaker. Mom takes a shift for the caretaker once a week so he can get a day off.

Then we drove to Marlow, NH. That's where my mother lives. It's a pastoral town of 747 as of the 2000 census. Mom moved there in 2006 or so, so I guess that makes it 749!! She lives on an old farm in a house that they've been building for a long time. Every time we visit they've made progress. In addition to the house, there's one big garden and several small gardens, and a barn and chicken coop housing three alpacas, a donkey, a geriatric horse, and a couple dozen chickens.







I cooked for the family on Friday night, chicken stir fry with farm vegetables. Yum!!!

Saturday morning, we headed to Gilsum for the Swap. What a cool place!

There were tons of booths with minerals and jewelry and everything "rock" you can think of. We watched a young girl pick out a geode and have the man crack it open with a heavy chain.

There was a collective gasp as we all heard the CRACK and then it was time to peek in. It was BEAUTIFUL inside!!


My little one took a shine to the egg-shaped opals.



At lunch we sat with these two older gentlemen, one of whom turned out to be a medicine man from a nearby Native American tribe. He offered my mother a stone and prayed over the stone - with her holding it. It was a magical experience!

After we were done, we had a treat at Walpole Creamery. Their ice cream is delicious!!

Finally, it was time to head back. There were farm chores to complete!





We discovered just how crazy the chickens are. You see, although they have this beautiful and spacious chicken coop with lovely nesting boxes, they don't use the boxes. Not a SINGLE one of 'em.


We had an old fashioned Easter Egg Hunt that afternoon, finding eggs in the craziest places...the grain bucket, behind the water trough, in the hay bucket, under the horse ramp...here's one of the hens sitting on four of them.


All in all, we got an even dozen.



Dinner by me again, my brother headed over. This time it was Southwestern style salad on Taco Pizza Shells. It was a big hit!! Later, we headed to my brother's house to socialize a little bit. He lives in Alstead, NH, a small town that was devastated by flooding in the fall of 2005. Mom lived in the house he now lives in, actually, when the flood happened. If you go to the following link, go to the link for #5 (Alstead) on the map, and look for pictures of the white church with the red brick bottom, the house is about five lots up the hill from that church on the other side, walking distance to the "village bridge." It was a trying time but boy, that little town is so resilient.
http://home.comcast.net/~heidi.quinn/AlsteadFloodPage.htm

This morning we headed back home, tired but happy. It was quite a fun weekend!!

Ooooh, that smell!

Last night when I got home from work, I went to check on the girls. I always do, make sure they're up and about, see what they're doing, see what color pollen baskets they've got on for the day :). Well, last night I was still a good five feet from the hive when the smell stopped me short. It was a VERY GOOD SMELL, the smell of fresh honey!! I was very surprised to smell it so strongly though. On Beesource.com, people say it's an indication of a good honey flow. They say to listen for the "roar" of the bees curing the honey at night. Could it be? One week of rain and now a good honey flow? At any rate, it took every fiber of my being not to crawl in there and sample. Goodness, it smelled exquisite. I wish you could post smells on the web, I'd love to share it.

I was going to wait to check them until next week, but now I'm wondering if I should just lift off that inner cover and make sure they've got enough room to grow. I am itching for that first super to crown my deeps!!

What on earth? 06/19

Do bees get sick of the weather?

I don't know, but I had a moment of panic a couple days ago. It was one of those rare moments (as it seems lately) where the rain stopped and it was actually pretty nice. I was in the back yard with the kids and the dog, and my husband walked in to the yard using the gate by the bees...and stopped to look at them. He called me over. "What are they doing?" he asked.


Yikes. I had no idea, but they looked for all intents and purposes like they'd had enough of this weather, they were packing their bags and heading for LA.

My next door neighbor calmly told me they looked like they were swarming. I think it shaved five years off my life.

I ran into the house and started to post on beesource, a forum that is dedicated to beekeeping worldwide. But wouldn't you know, this guy from Philadelphia posted pretty much the same question!! He had the same issue, bees in three hives crowding the bottom boards. Several people had responded with different theories and asking questions. Had he seen supercedure cells? Did they have room to grow (empty frames) in there? I started to feel better...most people thought it was the weather, and he IS on the same coast.

The next morning, he'd posted again. Two of his hives had swarmed. I don't think I'd ever suited up so quickly.

I proceeded to rip apart both hives (carefully, of course). No evidence whatsoever of supercedure cells and plenty of room for them. I felt bad...they were pretty crabby, as though they were saying "Look lady, I don't know what your problem is but we have ONE day of sun in a week with no more in the foreseeable future, so move it...we have honey to collect!" I've actually never seen them that crabby. I still don't know what they were doing, but I didn't like it one bit!!

Brad's inspection 06/17

Brad is another friend we met in bee school. He actually lives two minutes from my house. I've not been able to catch up with him since he hived his first beehive, a nuc. I was very eager to see how his hives were coming along. They seem to be coming along quite nicely, although Brad reports that his nuc can be rather ill tempered compared to his package bees.

Here's a nifty dark drone we spotted alongside the ladies. Aren't they just so different in size and shape from the girls? This one was very striking with his dark bands.
Because the nuc came with existing frames, he's got five frames in his bottom chamber that are more weathered than any of the package frames. Here's a good picture of some propolis, that gluey tarlike stuff that the bees like to paste everywhere to fill cracks and spaces:


Here's another frame with a good pattern. Can you tell this frame is a new one? Isn't it amazing, the difference between this one and the one above it?


This section of comb was hanging from the bottom of the frame. We both kind of said, "What is THAT?!"


I think the answer is that it's drone comb, but just the fact that it's below the frame makes me a little nervous. That's where the bees build any supercedure cells (as in new queens).

Here's a closeup of that weird chunk. See the larva they are just about to cap?


Here's a great closeup of the larva. We believe they're drone larva.



His bees were making me laugh, because even when the cover came off, they were clambering to get into the little hole on the inner cover. Seriously, girls, you can use the bottom OR the top, it's much easier!!

Bring out your dead!! And other bee hygiene facts

Someone at work a couple weeks ago asked me if my honey was FDA approved. I tried to keep a straight face. And then someone else asked me if it was safe to buy farmstand unpasteurized honey. It's a legitimate question!!

No, my honey will not be FDA approved. Why? Read on...

Yes, it's safe to buy honey. Why? Well. There are many reasons.

First of all, honey lasts forever. Sealed honey has been found in Egyptian tombs, still in edible form.

Secondly, honey is fungus and bacteria resistant. Some people actually use honey to swab on cuts, much like Neosporin or Bactine.

Thirdly, honey isn't processed. It's spun out of the frames using a centrifugal force, allowed to settle so any sediment (bits of honeycomb, etc.) falls to the bottom, and put in a bottle for your consumption. It's pure.

There are warnings not to feed honey to babies, but that is for the same reason that you shouldn't feed them peanut butter or strawberries; they could develop an allergy or have an allergic reaction.

Finally, honeybees are VERY hygenic. They don't like anything to be in their hives except themselves and their honey and pollen. Sandy says that she put in some sweet fern fronds (which is an organic way to combat the ants which sometimes lurk around the hives), and witnessed the bees carrying it out the next day!! They don't even poop in their hive. They take it outside. My kids are amazed that bees are "potty trained." If you see evidence that bees are going in the hive, there is usually a problem. Winters are tough for them. YOU try holding it for weeks on end!!

I snapped a photo to illustrate this the other day. Another thing that is not allowed to lurk around the hive is carcasses. I've seen bees pick up their dead comrades and fly them out of the hive a few times, but I was messing around in the hive and actually got to snap two of them finagling a dead bee into one's grasp so they could move her out of the hive. First, they actually cleaned off any pollen she had on her (recycling!).


Then one of them got underneath her to grab her and fly her off. Look at her poor little tongue hanging out, she's dead...

Disaster in brood chamber #2 06/07/09

Today was a disaster. Well, nearly a disaster anyway. At Sandy's inspection last week, she had thrown her second brood chambers on already. Joel put his on a week ago. Mine hadn't gone on until the 3rd of June, four days prior to when this post occurred. When I threw on the second chamber, I couldn't find the staple gun to finish the frames (you have to lock the foundation in), I couldn't find the pins you use to attach the foundation to the sides of the frame, and I was in a hurry so I wouldn't be late to pick up my older daughter from school. Even though you're supposed to go at LEAST a week between inspections, I decided I wanted to peek into that second chamber just to make sure things were going ok.

I'm glad I did.

Apparently, the tacks I used in lieu of staples were NOT a feasible substitute. I was missing pieces of frames, the foundation was all mangled and warped, and completely out of the frames in several instances.


Problem was, the bees were now in the second chamber and working on a couple of frames. Egads.

So what was supposed to be a short inspection lasted about an hour and a half with my fixing the frames as best I could. I located the staple gun and the pins and pulled the frames one by one, shaking the bees off it as much as I was able to before working it.

In some cases the bees actually tried to fix the problem themselves by fusing the foundation to the frame. This had mixed results. Half the built frames had burr comb on them.



These are the pins that go in the sides of the frames. They are kind of a pain in the neck to put in (especially on frames where the bees and/or cells and/or honey are already plentiful), but they do keep the foundation in place much better.


I thought this was cute...it was a solitary pollen-filled cell in new comb.


In the end, it was fixed, I didn't get stung, and I felt much better about the second chamber. But boy am I glad I went in to inspect!!

Bristol Bee Workshop 06/05

We weren't sure it was going to happen due to the weather (ugh, has it really been awful weather all month!?) but we had our first workshop at a fellow beekeeper's house. Her name is Beth, and Joe, one of our instructors in class (the one that scared the bejeebers out of us when he announced a "quiz" based on our reading...he was kidding!) led the inspection.

Beth is NOT a first year beekeeper. She's got several hives, including a new package and a nuc, but the most impressive hive was the giant hive!! Check out the little gadget to the left of the hive Joe is working. It's this frame holder that you drape over the side of the chamber that holds the frames you pull. I want one. It would make life a LOT easier.



Joe worked all the hives, saving the big one for last.
He pointed out the drone comb, which was enlightening and comforting because Joel has the same thing on his hive (I haven't seen a single drone cell yet).


Joe also showed us a frame with a good "pattern" on it. You're supposed to see capped honey on the top, then a band of pollen, then brood (or empty cells if they have hatched and the queen hasn't filled them yet).

Then, because the hive is obviously giant, he taught us how to perform a "walkaway split." I will not be able to articulate it well because I don't remember the whole thing, but basically you are splitting the hive in two so it doesn't swarm, so you can create a queen, or so you can build another hive. Joe basically pulled a bunch of frames with fresh eggs, larva and honey, brushed off all the bees (to make sure the queen was NOT on the frames), and stuck them in a chamber on top of this screen gadget called the queen excluder (because the queen can't go through it).

The nurse bees (the "babysitters") make their way back to the brood, you move them with one more frame of fresh eggs from the old hive, and they make a new queen from those eggs.

After a while the bees started getting very irritated in the big hive, and they started to beard. What a sight!





It was very informative. One of the big things I noticed was the speed and efficiency with which Joe worked. I am always trying to get through inspection without killing any bees (go ahead, ask me how many times that's happened), but he just didn't worry about it. Another thing I noticed was that he didn't worry so much about a little bit of burr comb. I usually scrape every last speck out of the hives when I'm in there. He just lets it go unless it's really an impediment.

Sandy's Bee Inspection 05/30

Today, Joel and I went to our friend Sandy's house to see her work the bees. She has 8-frame beehives, which is another way to combat the heavy weight of the brood chambers. Even an 8 frame deep weighs significantly less than one with 10 frames.

We joined her husband and older son on the inspection. At first, her husband didn't even wear a veil. He's VERY brave!!

The first thing Joel and I noticed about the hives was that she has a LOT of burr comb. Burr comb is pretty much comb put where you don't want it to be - below the frames, between the frames, sticking sideways out of the frames...etc. The class leaders kept telling us that burr comb should be removed at all costs because it "causes problems" later on. I suppose those problems are that the bees will lay in it, put honey in it, and of course if you have a big wedge of burr comb holding two frames apart, the bees will fill up that space with MORE burr comb. Ugh. But yeah. Poor Sandy had a LOT of burr comb, both in her hives and that she's already taken out during previous inspections.

In the second hive was the biggest burr comb I've ever seen. Her husband pointed out that as she tilted the frame, it hung from a small strip at the top, so she decided maybe we'd better remove it. Unfortunately it had brood (babies) in it, capped larva (which means they're three weeks or less from emerging) but it was still better to remove it.


It was at this point that I got this sudden surge of courage and I helped her take it out and lay it on the ground. It was kind of sad, because her older son pointed out the bee that was trying to hatch (and most likely did not without help from her family). Those of you that know me know that I HATE killing most things, so it was difficult. But her death wasn't a complete loss. I was able to snap some pretty cool pictures that look like an emerging adult bee.


Those capped cells to the left, by the way, are what honeycomb looks like with capped larva in it.

Thanks, Sandy, for sharing your hives with us!!

Plato's Harvest Volunteer Day 05/23/09

I may have mentioned that I belong to a CSA. It stands for Community Supported Agriculture. It's my second year of splitting a share with a friend and I LOVE it. Dave Purpura owns Plato's Harvest in Middleboro, MA, and it's not only organic, delicious and plentiful, it's a beautiful place to go.

This year Dave's renting a piece of farmland on the Soule Homestead property. It's a historical piece of land in Middleboro. It helps him expand his size and variety of crops. Only problem is, there's no electricity or running water, and it's literally in the middle of noplace, so they have become very creative.



Shareowners were invited to a volunteer planting day on May 23rd. I had my African sister Joanita visiting us for the weekend, and she came along too. We hiked to the plots, and proceeded to plant tomatoes all morning. Dave plants his in a way nobody had ever heard of before. He digs trenches and lays them on their side, covering most of them with soil and bending up the top carefully. This way there are more roots grown, which makes for a stronger plant.


After we planted the tomatoes, we watered them. How do you water a large farm in the middle of noplace with no running water, you ask? It was the coolest thing to watch!! Dave loaded up his tractor with cisterns of rainwater. He attached hoses to them, laid the hoses flat, and then hoisted the bucket to start the water flowing with gravity. Voila! Instant water pressure!

After we watered, we were treated to a delicious roast pork (roasted on the grill while we planted) with lots of homemade fixin's. We sat in the grass next to the field and dined like kings. It was a really neat experience!!