Cabin Crafted

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  • Bees, so many, many bees

    The hives owner (Son 2) purchased screen bottoms with slide out boards for the hives. He thought that is what he had purchased initially, but the hives came with a solid bottom base piece. Yesterday, my spinning friend/bee mentor came over to help me examine the hives and install the new screen bottoms with out the slide out boards for the warmer weather. We had the smoker but never lit it. The spring bees are so mellow, but busy. Lots of pollen pants on the girls as they flew into the hives. They are making honey in brooder frames so excluders and honey supers will soon be added. All the hives were active, we found 3 of the queens and evidence that all 4 have active queens. Every hive has a Queen cup or two that require watching. The hives look healthy, a few hive beetles that we smushed, no mites (knock on wood). She again gave me so many suggestions to make life easier for the bees and for maintenance. The bottom slide out boards need a rim to pull them from the slots as they will get stuck in otherwise so that will be done before they are installed late fall. She suggested a small vent slot in back end of the spacer to aid with ventilation. When the supers are added and the spacers are removed to place them, those slots will be cut. It would be nice if I had a battery powered jig saw, but mine has to be plugged in. Also she discussed a syrup feeder style that slips into the brood box like a frame that holds a gallon of syrup so it doesn’t have to be made quite as often. I don’t know what you do when it isn’t needed, I guess replace it with another frame. I am still using quart jars that sit outside the front of the hive.

    Just before she came over, one of their hives swarmed, high up into the trees. While she was here, a second swarmed and her husband said it settled on their electric box so he set up to capture and move them as soon as she arrived home.

    Before she arrived, one of the overstuffed 2 gallon bags of frozen tomatoes from last year was dumped in a sink of warm water, the skins slipped off and dropped in a big pot to simmer with herbs and seasonings while we worked. Two and a half hours later, there was a nice pot of pasta sauce awaiting. We had spaghetti and salad, a pint was frozen and 4 more pints were canned after dinner and put on the shelf to begin resupplying our canned goods. I have plenty of lids this year and need to begin to gather jars as the honey is going to need jars as well, and my supply is just about what I use to can sauces, salsas, and jams in each year.

    The hens are producing about 8 or 9 eggs a day. One of the Marans thinks she is an ostrich and lays super jumbos that don’t fit in a carton and one of the Easter eggers often produces “oopsies” a tiny egg that is only an egg white.

    And it is definitely asparagus season, cutting many spears each day to enjoy and share.

    This week has brought news of the loss of two of our acquaintances, one was a neighbor who has been in very poor health for a number of years. He was my age. The other from my childhood. He was a son of the director at Shrine Mont when I was a child visiting there in the summer, about 11 years my senior, he was a teen and young adult then, later he became the director that replacing his Dad, and the father of the current director. I was told that he also had been in poor health for a while.

    And the news this week included the deaths of two young college athletes, both good students, who took their own lives. Suicide is a topic that demands more discussion. As a retired school counselor, experiencing the suicide of a few students over the years, it is difficult to discuss, but it must to save the lives of people in distress.

  • The Pin Cushion

    With the onset of Covid and advancing age, there have been many vaccines administered in the past months for protection. With 4 Covid vaccines and boosters, a pneumonia vaccine, and the two vaccine series of shingles shots, I feel like a pin cushion. Most of them didn’t bother me except for a sore arm, but the second Covid shot and the second booster, both made me feel yucky. Today I got the second shingles vaccine and first off, that injection burns and often causes the recipient to feel poorly. We will see. Another reaction I get with every vaccine, also the three times I have had imaging dye is a metallic taste that lingers for several hours. But hopefully, protection levels are higher at this point.

    We have been experiencing very warm weather and the lilac has blossomed with it’s delightful scent in the front of the house. Behind the house, the first Bearded Iris have bloomed and they are the grape iris that are not only light purple, but smell like grapes. Soon the other iris colors will bloom, then later the Dutch Iris and then the day lilies. Some of the deck pots and the small annual garden have been seeded with Cosmos and Coreopsis, a half barrel awaits the herbs that were removed from the hydroponic garden, but more potting soil needs to be obtained first.

    It amazes me that those two iris that couldn’t be dug out have come up between the stones being set for the patio. Most of them are not bound in by stones.

    Tomorrow will be about 20 degrees cooler than today and will remain in the 60’s during the day for the next 10 days or so. Fortunately, there are no freezing nights in the forecast, hopefully no more for the spring season. Mother’s day is the target date for planting out the tomato and pepper transplants and seeding out the rest of the garden.

    Water has been set up for the bees so they can drink without drowning. With the boggy bottom of the sink hole, they may discover that as well.

  • A Bee-utiful day

    The weather is glorious and we took a walk, followed by a visit with my local bee keeping friend and her husband as they did their post winter box inspections. That was delightful and a bit overwhelming as we asked questions and got answers, they offered other information, showed us around. I am glad we live where we do as their property doesn’t have a flat spot on it that they haven’t created themselves. To the point that many areas are being made into gardens so it doesn’t have to be mowed. They also don’t have a lot of open space for sunshine and they are only a few miles from us, less as the crow flies. One of my issues was how quickly the bees are emptying the feeders, and they suggested switching to quart jars instead of pints.

    Once home, new batches of syrup were started and the son that got us going and is the official owner of our hives called for an update and he answered more questions. I hope my feeble brain can hold all this information. As we were talking, he walked back to check on his two hives and his feeders were empty too, so I passed on the suggestion of quarts.

    Because we haven’t had rain in a few days, the hoses were moved around and the back garden was watered. And the little garden built last year over the septic clean out received a bird bath half filled with rocks so the bees can find water and not drown. To keep the chickens out of that bed as seedlings of flowers are beginning to germinate there, a section of old fencing was cut as a cover with a hole in the middle to allow the birdbath base to fit through.

    After dinner, it was still bright sunny and hot, but the bee garb was donned, the quart jars of syrup loaded into a large bucket and the bees were fed. They were pretty agitated that the empty feeders were removed, but calmed back down when the larger feeders of syrup were placed in the hive openings.

    The very novice bee lady.

    What couldn’t be captured with gloves through the veil net was a picture of the cloud of bees circling the hives and me. This turned into a bee filled day and is quite an adventure. I had read that the hives could/should be different colors or decorated, so some of the remaining boxes are going to get painted and decorated before they are installed on the existing boxes. I need to get some acrylic paints and get creative.

  • Bee Help

    Part of the excitement of this new project is the help that is offered by near and far friends. Friends I have met through this blog and friends that I have met through other friends. The local one, recently introduced to me by a spinner friend, with her husband has 14 hives and she was excited to see our set up. She came over yesterday and made a few suggestions. One was to lower the bottom strand of the electric fence as it was high enough for skunks to go under it without touching it. She said a skunk would scratch at the front of the hive at night, causing bees to come out to examine why and get picked off as they left the hive.

    Last night after dinner, bee jacket and veil put donned, fence equipment box hauled down to the enclosure and the electric fence reworked with strands 6″ off the ground, 14″ off the ground, 30″ and about 42″. This should discourage most of our local predators. There are now 4 strands instead of 3, lower and closer together. If I can figure out how to use the volt meter, I will test it’s strength.

    When the enclosure was reached, all 4 feeders were empty and the hives were very active. After fencing was finished, syrup was made and the feeders filled. The activity at the hives was encouraging and many of the bees were out foraging. Soon it will be warm enough and they will be settled in enough that the feeders can be removed.

    She also suggested placing a brick or rock on top of each hive. That didn’t get done today but will tomorrow.

    The distant friend from the blog has offered many suggestions on predator deterrent and winter feeding, providing a website link and all that has helped and will help as I move forward with this project.

    I did learn that that the bee suit is very hot when the outdoor temperature is above 70f. I can just image what it will be like come August. But the bees are very docile. I have filled their feeders from behind the hives twice, reaching over to pull the feeder to fill and today mowed a 10 foot wide path in front of the electric fence both with no protection on and no bees bothered me.

    None of this would have been possible without our youngest son asking to put hives on our property and teaching me how to work with them between his trips up here to check on them.

    Our local teenage grandson came today for riding mower lessons after farmer’s market. It was nice having most of it done while I stayed on the porch or in the house. Since this was his first time, I did the “difficult” parts, the steeper embankments, orchard, around obstacles, and the section below the garden that used to be garden and is very rough. He did a great job and seemed to have fun zooming around the yard.

  • Crazy Weather and Bees

    In spite of 3 nights of freezing temps and graupel coating the deck two mornings, the bees seem to be thriving. They have emptied their pint syrup feeders twice already. Today I purchased 20 pounds of sugar. I don’t think I have bought that much sugar cumulatively in the past decade, but they need the 1:1 syrup until they are fully established and the weather settles in. They will feed in the winter too, but there are online recipes for making sugar bricks that are placed in the hive for their consumption during cold weather when they can’t fly about and there is no pollen available. Since the bricks have to dry thoroughly and as this is a fairly humid area, the making of the bricks will begin during the summer, dried, and stored in airtight containers for winter feeding. This is a good use for a dehydrator, but we don’t have one.

    After the frigid three days, the temperatures have moderated and this weekend it is going to feel like summer and return to near freezing nights part of next week.

    The asparagus are producing, peas, sugar snap peas, and potatoes are sprouting. There is a fair amount of spinach, and more goodies are coming to the Farmer’s Market each week now. The hens are being generous enough to share with family.

    It really seems like spring is here for real. We are still about 3 weeks from last average chance of frost, but the potted herbs and tomato and pepper starts are spending more time on the back deck.

    The week had two living history events with tours from local schools to the museum. We had about 100 sixth graders yesterday and a smaller group of 4th graders, scheduled for tomorrow that has had to be rescheduled due to illness among the teachers of the school. I love these events. For yesterday’s event, I set up in the “loom house” an original log cabin from around 1768. The original Newbern community along Wilderness Road was what today we would call a planned community. The residents were required to build a 16 foot square home with a fireplace and a storage/sleeping loft along the road. Many of these original homes can still be seen by placement of windows, though mostly now covered in siding and all expanded. The museum property also has the original German barn that has been restored, several other original buildings, and a reconstructed summer kitchen with a loft. The loom house is next on the renovation schedule, it will get a new roof and the chinking repaired, the chimney also repaired, though “real” fires are not being burned in any of the fireplaces, many have electric logs to simulate fires. Only about a dozen students and a teacher at a time could be in the house with me as the loom and a bed take up most of the space. The loom has enough space around it for a single file of students to stand and still leave enough room for me to set up the small quill wheel. Though not a lot of spinning gets done in the length of time, because each class had to be split in half to fit them inside, history of where and how the fiber to make their clothing was obtained and processed, lessons on fiber preparation, spinning, weaving of tapes and fabric and how family members were all involved in this process. Types of fabric made and how it was used, why certain fabrics were used for particular items. And personal grooming during the period. Kids are either fascinated or repelled by some of the information, and they are all left with the question of whether they would like to return to that lifestyle.

  • A most excellent day

    Thursday night, Son 1 arrived late and Friday was spent with him, as he made some repairs for us and we all took a walk. Friday in time for dinner, Son 2, a granddaughter , and the bees arrived. We visited, unpacked the pallet of boxes, frames, suits, and other accouterments needed for raising bees, and I found out that the two hives I thought we were starting with was actually 4 hives.

    Hubby and I had purchased a post, ground rod, and pavers (for two hives) earlier on Thursday.

    This morning, the work began, first pulling a huge pile of Autumn Olive bushes, clearing the space to set up the electric fence to surround the hives, and the guys pounded in poles and dug in the post while I goffered for them and prepped Easter Eve dinner for 10. When the post were set, I strung the electric wire and they determined that the charger wasn’t generating sufficient current to deter bears.

    Daughter, her kiddos, her friend and his daughter arrived and we had a scavenger hunt style Easter Egg hunt for the kiddos. The two younger ones had clues from one egg to the next, finally to an Easter basket of mostly crafts. The two teens and Son 1 had escape room type puzzles to solve to move them from egg to egg and finally to their baskets. Son 1’s prize was Easter dinner, a huge spread with lots of delicious food, ham, roast beef, au gratin potatoes, green beans, asparagus, deviled eggs, rolls, and a honey cake with strawberries and whipped topping.

    After we gorged, Sons 1 & 2 donned the bee keepers garb and moved two of the nucs down to install two of the hives. I sat at a reasonable distance and watched, one of the nucs had allowed a lot of bees into the net sack around it and that batch was angry, but settled nicely once their queen was in the hive. The second nuc may not be as healthy, though they did find the queen.

    Sons at work in a cloud of angry bees

    Then I got my jacket, gloves, and veil and Son 2 and I installed the third and fourth hives, he did one and showed me, then I did one. They were both healthy hives, though we didn’t see the queen in the last one, there was evidence of one.

    Me setting up a hive while supervised.

    These two were much calmer, but wow, what an experience to be setting up the hive with the swarms of bees surrounding you. He has two more nucs to take home tomorrow to set up two more hives there.

    Today was great, all three kids, some of the grands, good food, good company, and a brand new experience and addition to the farm.

  • Poor Pup

    Ten years ago we purchased an English Mastiff pup and picked him up in March of that year at 8 weeks old. Two weeks later, we drove back to Pennsylvania where he had been purchased and brought home a beautiful, almost all black German Shepherd pup from a different breeder. The Mastiff is now an old man that needs help to get to his feet. The German Shepherd developed a neurological disorder at about 14 weeks and by 16 weeks was in so much pain and almost totally immobile that we had to face euthanizing our beautiful puppy. Not wanting the Mastiff to grow up alone, we sought another pup and on our way to visit our daughter in Florida that summer, met and paid for another German Shepherd pup, picking her up on the way home and she was 16 weeks old already. She is a pretty pup, but has always had emotional and physical issues. Though sweet and good with children and other animals, she is fearful of large men, terrified of bikes, skateboards, scooters, or other things on wheels. And fearful of people with walking sticks or canes, though she is better now than when she was younger.

    About 8 years ago, she developed an infection that the vet said was not uncommon with female German Shepherds that might or might not be treatable with surgery, but couldn’t be done until the infection was under control. So for the past 8 years, she has been on and off antibiotics to treat the infections. About a month ago, it got bad again and she needed vaccines, so back to the vet. This time they treated her again with the oral antibiotic, but did an anaerobic culture that showed a couple of bacteria that would not respond to the less expensive oral antibiotic she was on, so after two weeks of being on it, they ordered Euroflox and a box of syringes and taught me how to give her subcutaneous daily injections, scheduled for a month to 6 weeks. After about 2 weeks, though she patiently sat while it was given, we became very concerned that there was a crusty spot every place an injection had been given and lumps in several places. Back to the vet, injections stopped, she now has fasciitis and a major skin infection probably due to a reaction to the antibiotic that was prescribed. After getting her scruff trimmed, the wounds soaked in betadine solution then rinsed off, she is now on oral antibiotics to treat that and a topical antibiotic as well. The poor girl has never been truly well and now must be miserable. She goes back in another week for a recheck to see if the skin is healing and the inflammation is subsiding, though they said it would look worse before it gets better. The oral antibiotic is two huge pills twice a day and the only way she will take a pill is in a “meatball” of dog food. I’m guessing that will upset her stomach to go along with the other issues. Poor pup.

  • Not Lost

    But not much to report. The huge family Easter Eve dinner has been reduce by a handful due to familial conflicts, but all three of our grown children will be here. Only 3 of the grands, though Easter egg hunt baskets had already been purchased. The ones for missing grands will be sent home with their Dad. The beehive set up is still on board and Son 2 will arrive with the bees, a suit and veil for me, and feeders for the two hives until they are free to roam the property. He says they will go for the dandelions first. The native bees love the Dead Nettle which is prolific. Fruit trees are blooming, lilacs are about to, Redbuds are blooming, so soon there will be plenty of pollen for them. It is already in the air and granddaughter local and I have already had to begin our daily antihistamine.

    This is one of the Thanksgiving cactus plants. Both are in full bloom again. Never since they were introduced to the house have they fully bloomed twice in one winter/spring.

    The hydroponic that was planted with basils is not doing well. One plant is thriving, the others molded. Perhaps it was not fully rinsed after cleaning it out. More basil and other veggies will go in a starter tray soon. The peppers are ready to move into 3″ pots which will free up that unit for salad greens. The herbs that were transplanted into pots are thriving, but move in and out of the house depending on the daily weather. It continues to flip flop between warm days and nights to cool days and cold nights and we are currently in one of the cool periods. The tomatoes have gone in and out with the herbs.

    Yesterday, I was reboosterized (as Son 1 said) and this one hit me harder than any of the other vaccines with body aches, chills, and a massive headache for about 14 hours. It finally subsided after my third nap yesterday enough to prepare dinner, do evening chores, and finish knitting the second mountain hat for the museum. In two weeks the second Shingrex is scheduled and I understand the side effects will be similar.

    The peas and potatoes are not showing signs of appearance yet and one of the hens got into the garden and tried to scratch up the potatoes. A few wheelbarrows of compost need to be added on top. We are looking forward to spring veggies, but even the asparagus are still not showing.

    This year’s spinning challenges have been to earn Bingo cards, up to two a month and that doesn’t appeal, so not a lot is getting done. Some spinning, mostly when a passenger in the car, the hats for the museum knit, and a scarf from some of my handspun is also being knit.

    It took a few attempts to get the hat design workable, but two have been added to the two “Swiss flag” ones for the museum gift shop.

    Perhaps, more attention to the construction details should be made so the pattern can be published. It might sell at events at the museum. Or a pattern with yarn and button as a kit.

  • Flip flop

    Day before yesterday was 74f, yesterday was 43f, cold and windy, today back into the low 60’s. The greenhouse was closed up night before last after it was well watered by the rain to protect the tender greens from a dip to below freezing last night. And reopened to enjoy today’s sun and warmer temperatures.

    The peach tree seems to have survived the 4 below freezing nights this week, the Asian pear blooms, maybe not, but the second one hasn’t bloomed yet, so all is not lost. The plum has blooms, the apples haven’t bloomed yet.

    There still has not been a hummingbird sighting, still not evidence of peas or potato sprouts, though the peppers in the hydroponic are thriving and the basils are developing.

    Today’s Farmer’s Market was back to the early summer hours and the favored veggie producers are back so some goodies have been ordered, other goodies will be selected once there.

    This afternoon, daughter and company will come over to help me with a job and she and I will prepare Empanadas and Tostones. When they are made, there must be company due to the labor and quantity. The Empanadas are based on the recipe used at Columbia Restaurant in Florida where I first had them when visiting friends and daughter who lived there at the time. The first one I visited was in Tampa, then on the pier in St. Petersburg (though I think that location is no more). Most frequently, it was the one on St. Armand’s circle in Sarasota. Good memories from all of those visits. One trip with daughter and grandson on a solo visit there, we had lunch and I purchased two sizes of hand blown glass tumblers, and since I had flown there, the glasses were taken to a packing/shipping store for them to package them up and mail them home for me. Those glasses will probably be on the table tonight.

    On Thursday, a spinner friend came over, brought a neighbor of hers who wanted to learn to spin and is a bee keeper. She did get lessons and is quite good already, and much knowledge was shared on beekeeping and setting up the hives. My spinner friend is a bird watcher and we watched the mixed flock of little birds that pop in to our feeders in the back garden and the wild turkeys strutting and puffing up in the south field. The day would have been perfect for porch spinning, but it was too windy so we brought it in to the living room to visit and have spinning and beekeeping lessons. A beekeeping book has been downloaded and a beekeeping class is being sought out. So a new friend made, hopefully a mentor as sons and I embark on the beekeeping endeavor.

    This morning, we saw the evidence of deer overpopulation as 14 deer crossed our upper field grazing as they moved across, then 6 of them settled in the shade under our pines. If there are that many before fawn season, there are too many in this area. This is the result of the natural predator’s being killed off in the past century and limited hunting. With the chronic wasting disease spreading throughout Virginia, there may be even more limited hunting. I hate to see the herds become ill, but they need to be thinned out or disease and lack of sufficent food will take a toll.

  • Greens for the win

    Though it was still slightly below freezing this morning, the day is warming and tonight staying above freezing, so very tentatively, the greenhouse was opened. All of the spinach and Komatsuma look great! It never got quite as cold as they predicted, staying above 25 f. The next 10 days of forecast only drop the temperature barely below freezing one night. With rain due on Thursday, the peas, sugar snap peas, and potatoes were planted today. The lettuce starts will go in the greenhouse and it will get watered again.

    The potatoes that I had left from last year’s crop looked like Medusa on the shelf in the basement. This is what is left after filling the bed with some small sprouting Russets, some variety of gold (Vivaldi, I think), and these Kennebecks.

    Now we wait. Nothing else but the lettuce starts and maybe some radishes can be sown until early May. There is still some clean up to do, moving trellis fence posts out of the paths where they were dumped when the beds were cleaned up a couple of weeks ago. Removing the parts of the last cedar box that was in the corner around and under the compost pile. The pile needs to be turned and the coop cleaned and added to the pile. It is beginning. The bee hive parts are on a wooden pallet. If a couple more can be located, the compost can be in a bin, not just a pile. Hopefully, soon there will be asparagus.

    The bee set up is planned for Easter weekend. Son 1 is coming to assist Son 2 in the project and I will do what I can to assist and learn. The charger post will be purchased soon and if I can’t find the ground rod that was here, one will be purchased as well. An inventory of insulators made to be sure there are enough to do the job. It is exciting that we will have hives on the farm.

    With both men here and daughter living nearby, we can have a dinner with the whole gang.