I could have done better.

April 26, 2016

So the other day I split my bee hives into three nucleus colonies. The weather was perfect and all seemed to go very well. I had a little screw-up with one of the boxes being damaged an the bees were able to enter and come and go as they pleased through the 1/2" gap. But with that rectified with a little red tuck tape, a Bee Keepers best friend, all was well....until the weather turned.

Since I split the bees, we have had some very unsettled weather. The actual split occurred on Sunday, and on Monday we had snow! Yes snow on April 24th. April 25th! I awoke to a slight rainy drizzle, and small ice like pellets were landing on my windshield as I drove to work. Today April 26 we had......more snow.

As I was reflecting on the poor bees and their meager clusters,  I thought there must be a better way to keep them warm and yet keep them secure in one deep Langstroth hivebox. The idea came to me that I could use rigid foam insulation to sandwich the bees in their cluster. The reflective insulation packed either side of the bees and across the top to act as an inner cover, would be perfect to keep them warm on cold days like this. As the weather breaks and they're able to relax and not have to worry about keeping the brood warm, I could remove the insulation panels and move them out towards the outside edges if the hive.

This follows the idea of a follower board that is used in the horizontal hive system. Follower boards keep all the bees in one place and not growing too far horizontally away from the brood chamber thus stranding the brood on a cold night. 

Oh well live and learn. As with all things, I have heard Joel Salatin say if it's worth doing it's worth doing again. What a crappy saying! But true. I will definitely try this next season when I split the hives again.

Great fun on the farm hope you can stop by and visit us sometime. The bees are out on the front driveway with hazelnut bushes planted around each one. Come have a look.

Bee Stoic!

What a day!

March 12, 2016

Spring has finally arrived. Even though it was s mild winter, we still ran through 6 cords of wood. And as usual, I am behind on getting it cured for next winter! Oh well one year I will be ahead. But today was magnificent! Sun and warm temperatures. It felt great to make some vitamin d.

I checked on the progress of the tree nursery and the humidity is dipping as it warms up and dries out. I really need to get on top of that. But with no rain expected all week and lots of sun forecast, I need to work on alternatives to buckets and rain catchment.

I have installed several new sites for the hazelnuts expected this spring. They are going to form a dual purpose actually tri-purpose role for me here on the farm. Number one they will act as a snow fence that I will not have to maintain, repair, take up, and put down each year. Secondly, they will act as a windbreak to my bees and also serve as a potential spot for them to rest, or collect pollen. Thirdly we will generate a nut harvest in three to five years. This eventually will be to feed hogs, or for sale. So you can see that when you layer and stack functions it's an absolutely fantastic way to prepare your farm for a future. This process can be applied to almost anything in life, if you find something that serves more than one purpose I feel you've doubled its value. I'm trying to look at things more from that angle as I move into the world of permaculture and intelligent design.

For example the manure from my horses was always a source of irritation for me; cleaning out the stalls. Now I see it almost joyfully as a source of nutrients. We buy hay from other farmers as well as take some off of our property here. That function is actually a nutrient input into the farm. Eventually I want to have the fields managed with cattle and intensive daily rotation type system as outlined by Mark Sheppard Allen Savoy and many others. That is a long way off as cattle are very expensive and require much more in the way of infrastructure.

The manure actually acts as a nutrient bank for the farm currently. I am piling it very high into a hot composting method to generate an enormous amount of usable compost for my gardens this summer, and into the fall.

Additionally, the manure can be placed as a winter mulch over your gardens. It breaks down slowly over time and the worms, grubs, insects, microorganisms and all the other flora and fauna start to decompose the manure and deconstruct into its basic minerals and compounds. That is another benefit. The only problem with this is weed seeds. Horse manure is not processed very long in the stomach of equine animals. Therefore you need to do something to germinate those seeds and get them to pop out of dormancy early so that you can clear them out and plant your annuals later. More on that in another post later.

Lastly the manure is also used when combined with wood chips from the farm and other places, into a woodpile that was generating heat for my Greenhouse; recycling the heat out of the pile into my Greenhouse using PVC tubing. It was marginally successful as the temperatures do tend to drop off rather quickly after about a month. The initial heat it produces is quite astounding as the pile was over a hundred and sixty degrees Fahrenheit for at least 30 days. This kind of heat is unfathomable. It is enough to heat your hot water tank and actually require the temperature to be dropped somewhat as that is too hot for humans to have on their skin.

So by finding multiple uses for the same product you really do increase your value of each item.

Have a great day and Bee Stoic!

Bees are doing well

I was out to see the bees last week. The temperature has been quite mild for March and I've been able to open up the hives and see what's going on. The bees have consumed all of the white granulated sugar that I put on top of their inner cover, and are hungry for more. With the warm weather, it's kind of a dilemma because they are out and active but there is no pollen available for them to pick up. I do hope the weather remains constant so that the early blooming plants start to produce pollen for them.

I'm expanding, and hopefully will get to about 10 hives this year. I'm purchasing two nucleus hives for June, and 3 new Queens for the beginning of May. With that, I should be at 8 hives,  all of them basically nucleus hives.

If I play my cards correctly, and feed them aggressively, I may be able to split three more hives before the fall. I'm working with a gentleman named Terry Langford on his hives, and I'm seeing how he is doing with them. He is a much bigger deal than I am, but focuses more on producing nucleus hives for sale. I would like to work on selling honey, until I get my number of hives up to the level where I can start to sell nucs.

On another front my green house is coming along well. I'm putting some finishing touches on it this week, and I'm looking forward to germinating some vegetables for myself, and using the greenhouse to help further the tree nursery stock.

Much of the work around the farm is going to be automated using Arduino, or Raspberry Pi technology. I'm excited about this opportunity and I look forward to sharing some of the results with you in the future.

Yellow Door Farm is waking up!