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Music: A Don’t Hug Me Christmas Carol

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Music: Kelly Brock

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(To our international listeners, the bumper music isn’t meant to incite or insult you. It’s meant as a rubuke to the policies of our current leadership that I feel have strayed far from their intended role.)

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Music: Lou Watson

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A sizable swarm in a tree

One of my hives threw this swarm on a warm saturday afternoon. I eventually managed to hive it up, but I missed the queen the first time around.

On my second attempt, I managed to locate the queen and put her in a screend box. Knowing they won’t abandon the queen, I left them to their own devices and came back later that night to pick up the cluster. Easy peasy.

Tiger Blood
Video on Swarming and Swarm Traps
Udderly EZ Milker
Radation Map
Info on doing spring hive splits
Whitepaper on Varroa management in honey bee colonies from NCSU(.PDF)

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Music: Baba Brinkman
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Come see us at In Farm Heritage Days!!! Sept 17-19!!
Buy our stuff at Cosmic Connexion

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Music: The Rabbits, Bill Crosson
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Cosmic Connexion

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Music: Natalie Germann, Vicki Larnach
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Brooks 1
The last time I checked on this one, I thought it was a goner. No queen, and tons of drones. Multiple eggs sloppily laid – all pointed to a laying worker. To my astonishment, I opened the box this morning to find the number of workers increasing and a working queen laying out a pretty solid egg pattern. How that happened, I have no idea. None. I’m grateful, but perplexed. Added 1/2 a megabee patty and 1/2 gallon of syrup.

Brooks 2
Still a dead out.

Brooks 3
Brood in various stages, but didn’t see queen. Added 1/2 patty megabee and 1/2 gallon of syrup. I’d like to see this one put more stores on.

Brooks 4
Pretty good and perfectly staged for the fall honey flow. The top deep is full end to end with perfectly drawn, empty comb. Same regiment as the others with megabee and syrup. Saw some eggs in the top super, but nothing significant. Most of the action seems to be down below.

Brooks 5
One of the strongest hives. I saw several bees still working honey in the honey super I left on from the spring. Didn’t see a need to add any supplements at this time.

Nuc 1
Pretty much the same as last time. 3 strong frames of bees. I split the brood nest with a frame of freshly drawn comb from Brooks 4 in hopes that the queen would expand her laying. Same addition of megabee and syrup.

Brooks 6
Looks really good. Chuck full of bees and honey. Didn’t add any syrup, but they did get 1/2 a megabee patty.

Brooks 7 and 8
These are doing okay, but are going to need to beef up before winter. Each had 4-5 frames of bees and mediocre stores. Added syrup and megabee. These two may get combined – possibly with the Nuc thrown in too. Wintering Nucs can be challenging.

We’ve managed the mite levels pretty well this year, but I’m going to try using one of the essential oil based varroa treatments this fall to knock the mites down more than just using a powdered sugar program. Probably looking at apilife var.

Muscadines

Listener feedback show with some swanky new bumper music!.

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Music: The Rabbits, The Gruff
Call the Pollin Line: 740-5-MYFARM

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Some background:

The Peachtree City yard is no more. There was only one hive there, and while it was pretty robust in terms of overall health, it was not productive at all – nothing in the super in the spring. I suspect that was largely due to another sizable bee yard being less than a mile away. So I moved it to the Brooks yard, which is actually at my house. I’m thinking that and the Woolsey yard will be the only ones going forward for the foreseeable future.

So without further delay –

Hive updates –
Brooks 1
Popped this one open and there were tons of drones – which generally means one of two things – a laying worker or a drone laying queen. I didn’t see the queen, but I did see eggs sloppily laid. I believe it to be a laying worker – indicating that the hive has been queenless for a while. In either case, the hive is doomed unless it’s requeened. Unfortunately, requeening a hive with a laying worker is difficult. There were two queen cells – one of which was capped, but under the premise of a laying worker and the time it takes a queen to hatch out, there is very little chance that those cells have fertilized eggs in them. My intention is to do a shook swarm and requeen it. The idea behind a shook swarm is that you take all the bees out to field a few hundred yards away and shake them off the field. The idea is that the laying worker is too heavy to fly back and she gets left out in the field. When the rest of the hive returns, a new queen cage is in there and hopefully they take to her.

Brooks 2
Dead out. This hive is toast and filled with wax moths. This was a hive that deaded out before and I restarted with a few frames from a nuc. It concerns me that it’s croaked twice so I suspect some kind of contamination in the wax or hardware. I don’t have enough bees to restart it right now and time is running out to get a new hive going and prepped for the fall. We’ll see. If I do get it going again, it will be on all new hardware and foundation – and will probably used only to combine with another smaller hive.

Brooks 3
Looks ok, but should be in much better shape. Found the queen, but she was very small and gimpy looking. Gonna requeen this one.

Brooks 4
This one looks good – solid brood nest with a good egg pattern. It’s a single deep, and it starting to get some honey in the super. Probably wouldn’t hurt to requeen this one before the fall honey flow to beef up production going into the fall. This one may be a candidate to combine with Brooks 3 later on.

Brooks 5
Solid colony – probably the best looking of the bunch. There were ants in the jar super which I moved out.

Brooks 6
This is the former PTC hive, and is doing better already – showing alot of honey storage in the 2nd deep and even some storage in the honey super. The only problem is that the foundation strips in the honey super have gotten all wonky since the spring so they were building comb all over the place. I pulled the super and am going to redo the foundation on the frames before putting it back on there.

Brooks 7
This one looks pretty good for a single deep started in late summer. There were about 5 solid frames of bees and a large consistently laid broodnest. With a little feeding, this one should beef up by the fall.

Brooks 8
Just about the same as Brooks 7, but with fewer bees. Gonna start feeding these to get them beefed up for the winter.

Nuc 1
This was a split from a colony that was requeened, and was later used (unsuccessfully) to bolster the population of Brooks 2. It’s presently got three frames of bees with a 2 frame broodnest so I think it’s recovering well.

Burning AFB Infected Hives

Join me on my way down to Baxley to pick up some bees. The first in a series of shows where we focus entirely on bees and beekeeping. We go over some interesting breaking developments in beekeeping amd discuss some of the microbial pathogens that our bees have to deal with.

Gardener’s Apiary
Baxley, Georgia

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Music: James Larson, Gaia Consort
PodCast Call in Line: 740-5-MYFARM

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Phoenix Rooster

We take some great feedback. Jams, jellies, marmalades, and preserves, oh my! Farmstead updates. Chicken Incest! And we talk some about some of the fundamental answers to the question ‘why?’

Links
Henderson’s Handy Dandy Chicken Chart
Young Harris Beekeeping Institute
Fresh South Market
Nature’s Harmony Farmcast

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Music: James Larson, Gaia Consort
PodCast Call in Line: 740-5-MYFARM

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Chaugg's Swanky Chicken Tractor

Join us for spring updates, great feedback, possum adventures, raised beds, window boxes, and other small scale farming techniques.

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Music: James Larson, Gaia Consort
PodCast Call in Line: 740-5-MYFARM

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Salvaged Comb

A really disjointed podcast this week as I try to cram in some content between trips to the bee yard. We talk about swarms and how to get geared up to be on the local swarm list or even to do a small cutout.

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Music: James Larson, Gaia Consort
PodCast Call in Line: 740-5-MYFARM

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Garden Harvest

Laura and I take some feedback, pontificate spring preps, talk about gardening, beekeeping, and other springtime activities. Laura would like to apologize for mistakenly referring to the Brandywine Tomato as a “Rutgers”.

Links from the show:

Roy’s Alaskan Homestead Blog
Ison’s Nursery
Murray McMurray Hatchery

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Music: James Larson, Gaia Consort
PodCast Call in Line: 740-5-MYFARM

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I’ll also be putting honey supers on these hives. It takes a while for the bees to “get” that their hive has changed sizes and move up into the super. We’ve already got a light nectar flow going, which will quickly pick up in the next few weeks, so I want them up in there drawing comb ahead of the game.

My supers have top entrances too. I’m a big fan of top entrances for two reasons. They provide additional ventilation, but the air isn’t pulled up directly through the broodnest, and it gives the foragers a direct route to the honey stores – meaning they don’t have to walk all the way up the inside of the colony to get where they’re going.

http://www.draperbee.com/webcam/beecam.htm

Honey Harvest

This one goes out to our beekeeping friends. A full hour on springtime beekeeping practices and even a small taste of swarm management.

Links
Alaska Urban Farmstead
Increase Essentials by Dr. Larry Connor
Northern Kentucky Beekeeper
Beekeeper Linda’s Excellent Blog
Gardener Apiaries

Music: James Larson, Gaia Consort
PodCast Call in Line: 740-5-MYFARM

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PTC Hive
This hive is in awesome shape. It had been a month since I last visited this hive and the bees had hardly touched the Megabee patty or the sugar syrup. This is good because it tells me that they have a viable food source. Indeed they were storing honey on both sides of the brood nest. The only thing blooming right now is Red Maple, so I’m assuming that there is ample forage available.
The brood nest was good sized spanning 6 frames with brood in all stages of development. Brood pattern was pretty solid as well. Forager traffic was high considering the temperature (low 50s).
I removed one of the division board feeders and changed the syrup in the other one. I also added another megabee patty.

Woolsey Hive
This hive is also in great shape. Both feeders were empty, and the megabee patty was completely consumed. Broodnest was a good size (spanning 5 frames to the depth of the super) with numerous eggs and larve in solid patterns across both sides of three frames. There were also new honey stores over the brood nest, indicating that this hive had also found early forage.
I removed one of the feeders and added another megabee patty.
Spotted 8 small hive beetles in this one. I’ll be adding a beetle trap on the next visit.

Note: Many beekeepers would question the approach of adding pollen and syrup while the bees have available forage, but it is not unusual (especially during the spring build up) for a hive to completely consume its stores over a few days of bad weather trying to feed the expanding brood nest. We still have nights in the 20s so I look at taking these steps as insurance. If they don’t need it, they’ll just leave it alone in favor of available forage. But if they do need it and it’s not there, the hive could suffer.

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Red Maple Flowers

I somehow talk Laura into doing another show where we throw out some updates on the dog, seed starting, and the bees. We take some great feedback, including an actual voicemail! We finally wrap the show up by reading some of the better ads out of the market bulletin.

Ison’s Nursery
Georgia Framers and Consumers Market Bulletin

Music: James Larson, Gaia Consort
PodCast Call in Line: 740-5-MYFARM

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Proposed changes to the city ordinance dealing with the keeping of agricultural animals on city properties has agitated bee and chicken keepers.

Burgh Bees, a 375-member nonprofit, has put out a “call to action” via e-mail for attendance at a public hearing before the city planning commission at 2 p.m. Feb. 16 “to show how many beekeepers and beekeeper supporters there are” in the city. The hearing is at 200 Ross St., Downtown.

Legal wording currently is confusing and leaves room for abuse of privilege, city officials have said. But bee and chicken raisers say the proposed changes could create unintended ill-effects.

The hearing is the public’s chance to offer input, said Joanna Doven, spokeswoman for Mayor Luke Ravenstahl.

“We support urban farms and groups like Burgh Bees,” she said, “but we have to make sure we are balancing their interests with the safety needs and concerns of other residents.

“There has been a disconnect between what is and isn’t allowed, so we need an ordinance that clearly outlines how we should proceed.”

Under current law, residents must get a variance to raise chickens on properties of less than 5 acres or if their lots don’t allow 200 feet between the coop and a property line, but it’s vague as to whether a five-animal limit means pets are included. In addition, enforcement is driven by complaints.

A proposed 15-foot setback from any property line and 2,500-square-foot minimum per hive would in effect ban beekeeping in many of the city’s dense neighborhoods, “where our members have been safely keeping bees for years,” said Meredith Grelli, founder and director of Burgh Bees.

Full Article – http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10039/1034293-53.stm

Brooks 1 – Bit the dust. The pollin patty was about 90% intact, and there was still syrup in the feeder. The (now dead) cluster was down to the size of a fist so I can only imagine that they never warmed up enough to break cluster and get some grub. Pisser.

Brooks 2 – Looks really good. Patty was completely consumed and feeders were empty. Cluster spanned 5 frames and was the depth of the super (bees were active all the way to the bottom of the frame). Brood pattern was very good, with larve in all stages of development. Added 2nd deep using drawn comb from the now deceased Brooks 1. Put 2 patties between hive bodies and topped off feeders with 2:1 syrup.

Brooks 3 – In good shape. Patty was completely consumed. Both feeders were empty. Cluster was large – spanning 6 frames. Brood pattern looked good with brood in all stages of development.
Maintenence Needed: The top deep super is rotting out on the left side and needs to be replaced.

Brooks 4 – Still Dead.

Brooks 5 – Similar to Brooks 3. Patty was consumed and both feeders were empty. Topped off both feeders with 2:1 syrup. Cluster was large and busy spanning 6 frames. Lots of brood. Added another patty on top bars.
Maintenence Needed:Screened bottom board and bottom deep need to be replaced.

I’ve read over on Linda’s Beekeeping blog that the Red Maple is already blooming. We have some red maples and I can’t report that, but they look darn close. Time to get the honey supers ready – fingers crossed.

Anyone who has ever popped the top off a pissy hive during a dearth can tell you that those bees know exactly where your face is.

Bees can learn to recognize human faces, or at least face-like patterns, a new study suggests.
Rather than specifically recognizing people, these nectar-feeding creatures view us as “strange flowers,” the researchers say. And while they might not be able to identify individual humans, they can learn to distinguish features that are arranged to look like faces.

The results suggest that, even with their tiny brains, insects can handle image analysis. The researchers say that if humans want to design automatic facial recognition systems, we could learn a lot by using the bees’ approach to face recognition.

Link to Article

May I help you?

Our first 100% listener feedback show. Wow!

Links:

Megabee
Radiologists Making Soaps
The amazing Dervaes Family
Jack Spirco’s The Last True Form of Revolution podcast episode from The Survival Podcast

Music: James Larson, Gaia Consort
PodCast Call in Line: 740-5-MYFARM

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All in all the hives looked pretty healthy. The cluster was a pretty good size and they seemed pretty defensive when I opened the top ( I guess I would be too!). But that’s a good sign. I didn’t want to linger with it being so cold out, but it looked like all the hives still had what looked like plenty of capped stores. It’s too early to say of course, but I’m hoping that I can come out in the spring without any losses. (fingers, toes, and elbows crossed!)

Honey Run Apiaries has some good reading on how to make pollen patties in case you’re curious.

till next time…

Our Former Rooster, Drumstick

Uno, Dos, Tres, Catorce! For nearly an hour, show 14 finds me taking our inaugural voice mail, almost making it through the feedback without botching someone’s name, bidding farewell to our rooster, looking forward to Inman Farm Heritage Days, skirting the law.. maybe, and pontificating on the idea of setting up an outyard. Thanks for listening!

Cool Link:
Inman Farm

Music: James Larson
New PodCast Call in Line: 740-5-MYFARM

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Peaches and Cream Soap

Boy howdy have we been busy around here. On the way back up from Jekyll we stopped at Dickies Farm and picked up a few bushels of peaches. Needless to say that on top of everything else we’ve spent our spare moments canning and soaping. And what do we have to show for our efforts? Well there’s the peaches n’ cream soap pictured above. There’s also peach jam, peach butter, peach salsa, and ginger peach jam (amazing!!). My dining room table is covered in mason jars.

Canning stuff is hot work. I can only imagine what it would be like in the dead of a south Georgia summer without air conditioning as it was back the day. I also managed to bang out some more lard soap which turned out really nice thanks to a tweak I made to the recipe.

The bees are doing ok. I’ve lost 3 hives this year, but the remaining colonies seem to be thriving. Go figure. I’ve got several hive updates to post as well, but will get around to those as I am able.

More later…

Goats Milk, Lavender, & Oatmeal Soap

The Ocho!

On this BubbaCast we go over some tech-geeky stuff that you can do to help the political freedom fighters in Iran.  We take some emails, talk about what’s been going on, celebrate the launch of the new store front, and talk about basic cold-process soapmaking.

Music: James Larson

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One of the perks of keeping bees is that your plants get heavily pollinated.  Here’s a blackberry bush that sits about 100 feet from 7 hives in my back yard.  It never had a chance.  We’ve already picked pounds of berries off this plant, and it looks like it’s not giving up anytime soon.

I’m thinking blackberry jam!  Yummy!