Long live the queens!

Today I got to open the hives for the first time since I started them last week. By now, the queens and the field bees have been aquainted long enough that they are happy together. Meagan's queen was spotted doing her duty, laying eggs neatly in cells. I got a good photo of her, but didn't want to disturb her more than necessary to bother her for photos. Because Emily's queen was laying when I bought the nuc hive, I knew she was already aquainted in her hive. Today I spotted new eggs in the hive, which show she is still laying since moving to the Tennessee Renaissance Farm. I'm going to hold out until Thursday to open Taylor, so that my helper can be here to assist.

Today was also the first time I handled bees with bare hands. It's definitely a different tactile experience, and sometimes hard to fight the urge to swat when the bees walk on my skin. But no stings this time, so I'm calling it a win.

The photos have a range of things to point out:

• The very white comb is brand new. Meagan made it since the bees arrived a week ago.
  
• Meagan's queen was spotted (first photo). She has the white dot on her back, so she can be spotted easily.
• There are eggs in the cells. They are tiny (small as the tip of a pencil, they say - click on the 2nd photo, look right next to the antennae on the bee toward the middle). Eggs are not more than 3 days old before they become larvae.
  
• Cells that are capped have bees in the final stage of development from pupae to bee. Note the caps on those cells are brown and convex.
• The bright yellow in some cells is pollen. Pollen can range from yellow to brown, orange, green or pink.
• 
• Liquid in the cells is nectar that is being dried into honey.
  
• Drones can be spotted in some of the photos of Emily. Drones are much larger bees, and males. Their eyes take up most of their heads. I could tell they were living it up while they are able. Summer is looking very nice for them. The forecast for drones in the fall is not so good.
• You really have to look at the last photo in its full size. Click on it. Note how the bees are in formation. I took it as a sign that they were ready for me to put their lid back in place.
  

Dear Google,

How do I petition to have the satellite imagery of my property updated?



Thanks,
The Gentleman Farmer

Somebody that I really don't care much about once said something to the effect of, "every day in this country, with amazingly few exceptions, is better than the one before..." I don't agree with the guy on much, but blind hogs do find acorns here and there. He got that one right.

Over the past year on the Farm, every day really has been better than the one before. This week, that has been true in leaps and bounds. My last post was about starting my first two hives of bees on Monday. The next day, I drove to Hendersonville to pick up the beginning of my third hive.

This new one is a different way to obtain a hive. Basically the gentleman I bought it from split one of his hives and ordered a queen. They go in a small hive with just five frames. The benefit of buying this kind of hive is that the colony is fairly established. I read that it is about a six week head start over starting from packages like the first two. This small hive, referred to in the trade as a nuc, already has a laying queen, brood in different stages of development, and honey and pollen stores already in place. The nuc doesn't have to build up these things like the package bees. From my limited experience, these bees seem to have the best temperament of any I have handled so far.

The girls are already bringing in pollen (look at the one who's coming in for a landing on the unpainted nuc hive; the yellow on her legs is pollen - click to enlarge) and eating up the food I've put out for them in larger quantities than I thought they would at this early stage. It's awesome.

FYI, from now on, the hives will be referred to (in the order they were established) as Meagan, Taylor and Emily.

Victory on Bee-Day

It finally happened today.

This time last year, I became interested in beekeeping. Early last summer, I bought my first gear. Last fall, I got to apprentice with a real actual beekeeper after he took a spill from a ladder and had a cast on one arm. Each step took me deeper into the hobby, and none of them turned me off. Except maybe when Dan told me (as I was lifting the lid off the last hive of his that I helped with) this particular hive was "a little more aggressive" than I was used to. But I knew being stung here and there was part of the deal. I found out for sure that day that I definitely am not allergic, which ought to be the first requirement of beekeeping. This winter I ordered stuff and more stuff and assembled it all into hive parts. In January, I ordered two packages of three pounds of bees each. That's roughly 20,000 bees. Thursday I alerted the postmaster that this parcel was coming for me.

This morning he called. He'd appreciate it if I could run down and pick up the bees. Now. So I picked them up. They seemed to weigh more than six pounds of bees should weigh. At first sight, I could tell there were less dead ones in the bottom than the shipper warned is normal. I took it as a good omen. Three or four little Houdini bees had escaped, but clung to the outside of the screen. On the way home, these would fly around the car a bit, but land only on the cage where she started. Because it was still chilly and overcast, I left them in the car until the sun came out. Then the girls took respite from the sun on the back porch. A few times during the day, I fed them some syrup. They quit buzzing and enjoyed eating for a good while each time.

Finally the appointed hour came. I put on safety gear and prepared my tools. Fed both boxes of bees some more syrup. (Now was the time to get them on my side, for sure.)

Each package of bees was shipped with its own queen. Because this is a forced family arrangement among the queen and her colony, things have to be handled carefully from the start. The queen is shipped in a very small cage with a few attendants inside the box. This is to prevent the colony, which doesn't yet know her well, from killing her. The queen's penthouse cage is shipped with basically two plugs: one made of cork, the other made of candy. I removed the cork plug, and the idea is that by the time the colony eats through the candy plug, the queen and her subjects will have bonded intimately. The urge to kill the queen will be gone by then. That's the hope and prayer.

So the queen's luxury suite is installed hanging between two frames, for the time being (see photo). Then the rest of the package of bees is delicately and carefully coaxed, dumped and shaken into their new home. Frames that were removed to allow dumping space are replaced carefully. The hive is closed up. The remaining hangers on in the shipping cage are placed on top of the hive so hopefully they get the idea where their friends went, and want to go there.

Now I wait. Opening the hive before a week has passed can disrupt the ladies' bonding process and cause them to reject the queen. So next week, I'll open the hive and see how wonderfully the bees are moving in.

Tomorrow's mission is to bring home the nuc hive I have ordered from a beekeeper at Hendersonville.

Kudos to my 6-year-old nephew. Ian was the only person The Gentleman Farmer knew who was not busy when I needed help to install the bees in their new digs. (Or was he the only brave one?) Ian took most of the photos of the bees' moving in ceremony and helped put the hives back together once the bees were in place. Thank you, Bubba.

Something cool...

On the Kitchen Steps ( http://www.onthekitchensteps.com/ ) is a great blog my friend Pam sharedwith me last night. The writer, Chris W., does a great job of sharing his passion for awesome food. The thing that caught my attention was his post about butchering his own pork. Chris shares his thoughts on how people are so disconnected from their food. As a people, we generally don't put together the thought that the meat on the styro tray used to be a happy farm animal. Chris' blog is definitely worth a read.

Almost time to go out to the garden...

These are the plants that I started indoors so they will be ready to plant with a head start this spring. For the new herb garden, I have basil, oregano, dill, parsley, thyme and spearmint. I also started 2 cultivars of strawberries, some rhubarb and spinach.



Herbs




Strawberry

If they don't win, it's a shame!

Tonight was the opening game for the Nashville Sounds, and it was a blast. I took my neice and nephews. We met my sister early for a colorful dinner at Mrs. Winners and saw the game. Greer Stadium has undergone a pretty spiffy renovation since last season ended, and the team is under new ownership.

The game was just amazing. The weather was perfect. Mayor Dean threw the first pitch, and the game was on. Long story short, the Sounds and the New Orleans Zephyrs were pretty evenly matched until a long throw to first base went wild and allowed 3 runs in one inning. The Sounds rallied in the bottom of the 9th, but couldn't pull off a win.

Somehow it was all okay, I decided as we watched the post game fireworks show that proceeded with 'Rocky Top' playing on the PA. Even though our guys lost, it was a classy night out for not much money.

Hanging Hams

My best friend Rick's uncle has a special skill. Every year since Heck was a pup, Uncle Mac has cured country hams for his family. They are a special treat, and certainly a skill that not many people have, anymore. I really enjoy seeing an old-timey skill preserved and handed down. My best friend is learning to cure hams from his uncle, so he'll be able to continue that tradition in his family. What a great inheritance! And nobody had to die to get it, either.

Here's the bullet-point version of curing hams:

1. Buy some hams. The standard cut of pork is whatever they call the ham made from the back leg joints. A good butcher will make the cuts clean and neatly. Whoever cures the ham may still find small flaps of skin and fat to trim, but that's part of the process.
   
2. Around the first of January the hams go in a big wooden box in a protected place outdoors (Mac uses a shed), and there they are salted. A lot. The hams get turned and patted with more salt every 2 weeks or so. Special care must be taken to keep the hams clean
   
3. When spring comes (this part was today), the hams come out of their box. They are rinsed with scalding hot water to remove excess salt deposits. Then they are dried and patted down with a mixture of the salt cure and garlic, cayenne and dry mustard. A hole is poked in the small end of the ham (towards where the foot was attached), and a double loop of twine is pushed through.
   
4. The hams are hung in a place that experiences outdoor temperatures, but is not accessible to bugs or light. They will stay hung in this dark place until October or longer. At this point, they are country hams, ready for biscuits.
   

After we helped with curing this year's hams, we were treated to some of the ham Mac made last year, on fresh biscuits. That was instant gratification.


In no way is this post intended to be a guide or authority on curing hams. My knowledge is admittedly slim on this subject, so bone up for yourself if this is something you'd like to try.

The Buzz

Not much to tell today, but on break I talked to the gentleman who is selling me my first bees. Looks like I'll get the nuc from him and I'm having two more packages delivered around the same time.

Awesome!

Ready for a close up, with spring

So this is the third post and I'm finally adding a couple photos of the farm. These are a few I took after mowing the grass.

The first photo shows the barn and part of the hill behind the house. This photo is a good place to compare this year vs. last. There is a dry section of ground on the center right of the photo. That was the detached kitchen, before the home had one built in. There was an ancient concrete slab there until last summer. The "yard" only went to the edge of that square closest to the house, about 35 feet from the back porch. At that time, the barn was invisible through the jungle, and probably 97% of what you see in that photo was literally inaccessible.

The second photo shows much of the same swath of ground, from a perspective uphill of the barn. The corn crib is there in the center, along with a really cool tree I saved from the bulldozer.


Today is an awesome day.

I've been able to get most of the grass cut. There's alot more of it now than last year. I was wondering if I'd be able to keep up with it this year, but I think after getting today out of the way, it'll be fine.

Bees are due next week and the week after, and I'm not sure where I want to put the three hives. Time to get to deciding. That's heavy on my mind this week.

Hooray.

*tongue wags out*

What a week! I'm bushed from work, but excited about this being my first week of having 3 days off.

My to-do list for the home place next week is as follows:

• make soap - at least 2 kinds
• change oil in 2 cars
  
• build 2 corners for my fence
• cut grass if it's not too wet
• fiddle with the new camera
• set up and prepare beehives for occupancy
• the Sounds opening game is Thursday. maybe I can go if i get some of this other stuff done.
  

I'm so excited that spring is coming. It's almost overwhelming, but I'm ready for the challenges and sunshine. The past year working on the farm has been so rewarding, and I know this is going to be the year that actual farm things begin, instead of just cleaning and preparing.

Uno.

So here it is.

I've had this idea lately that I should have a new camera. I should use it to keep track of what I've been able to do so far with the farm. Later posts will get into some history on the farm, some photos, my plans for the home place (short-term and long-term). I'll also use this blog to share, vent, bloviate or otherwise annoy people. The photos I'm including are just the things I snapped with the new camera today.

This first photo is my camera at 1x, no zoom.


This one is my camera at full (10x) optical zoom. The third one is all the way out to 4x digital zoom.






I'm sure I'll play with the camera more soon.