Spring Bee Hive Inspection

As a beekeeper, I do regular inspections of my hives. I try to minimize the amount that I break into the hive, because I feel that, for the most part, bees do fine without human intervention.

This hive wintered over, and it was a nice warm day, so I decided to briefly check in on them. I kept it short because they don't like their babies getting cold.

They seem to be thriving. They are bringing in lots of pollen, which means the Queen is laying eggs. When I start seeing drones (male bees) I will split the hive into 2 hives. Bees do this naurally by swarming. A swarm happens when the hive gets too crowded. When they swarm, half the bees take the old Queen and fly away to a new location, leaving half the bees in the hive with a new Queen. That is how bees replicate and expand.

If you see swarming bees in the Tacoma and greater Pierce County area, give me a call 253-732-3434. I will come get them and give them a good home.

A look at the Secret Garden (greenhouse)

I was harvesting from our makeshift greenhouse today, and thought that I would post photos. 

We make the greenhouse by bending cattle fence panels over the raised bed and cover with clear plastic. I planted lettuce, chard, tatsoi, and bok choi last August. We have been harvesting and eating these greens all winter. Now that it is warming a little they are growing new leaves. 

When I opened the end to look in today, it was really warm in there. I wanted to climb inside and heat up. The outside temperature here is 45 degrees.

I planted seeds in there 10 days ago, and the new plants are coming up. They will be protected from frost. 

Interestingly, I have not watered all winter until today. Condensation kept it like a rain forest in there.

My honey bees kept landing on the opening and checking it out. They liked the water and the heat.

The Honey Bees are Flying!

Checked on the hives today and the bees were really active. It looked like the activity of a summer day. I love the intense buzzing sound of a busy hive.

Honeybee Swarm removal

Spring is coming! As the weather warms up, the honey bees will swarm. They are very gentle when they swarm and don't want to hurt you. Please call/text me if you see a swarm. I will remove swarms in Pierce County Washington for free! 253-732-3434.

Pierce County Washington

Tacoma, Lakewood, Fircrest,  University Place, Gig Harbor

Escapees

 I went into the chicken yard to collect eggs and dump the kitchen waste into the compost bin. I wasn't paying attention and left the gate open. You can see that the hens all siezed the opportunity to run out into the yard and patio.

 Normally, I don't allow them out because they scratch and make messes and eat everything. I made a few attempts to round them up and put them back, but they were hard to catch and were having such a ball eating weeds and grass that I let them hang out.

They have killed every plant in sight in their. Believe it or not it was a fully greenyardfull of grass when we put them in there. They turned it into a barren moonscape with their scratching and earing every last living thing.

This is Baby, our broody hen. Broodies just want to sit on eggs all day, it is a natural thing chickens do in the wild. This has mostly been bred out of t because they stop producing when they are broody. Baby didn't get that memo. She is broody often, but she is terrible at it. Note in the photo that all the wggs are in the other box. There are no eggs under her, I checked. Broody hens can be mean as they are protective of the eggs and will peck you if you try to gather them from under their bellies.

Just Peachy

The canning season is about to start and I know there must be others out there like me, hovering around fruit stands and farmers markets, waiting for the harvest season glut of fruits and vegetables to start. Waiting for that time in the season when the produce comes fast and furious, is plentiful and sold by the crate. That is when those of us with a preserver's soul start buying the seasons bounty in a frenzy, after months of careful planning and recipe research on the internet.

I have been dreaming of  canning spiced peaches for months. An older gentleman, the husband of a friend, mentioned his plans for putting up some spiced peaches during an evening out back in early July. Ever since then I have have had delicious thoughts of indulging in a peach filled larder all winter. Spiced peaches over vanilla ice cream especially appealed, particularly since the thermometer hovered over 100 degrees, and 54 days has passed with no rain in Seattle, a record breaking year.

That time is not upon us yet for good peaches, despite it being mid-August.  I know this because I have been to several  local farmers markets and some in the hot eastern part of Washington, where most of our fruit is grown. They have peaches, but they are still hard and are not the preferred Freestone variety. These ones are cling peaches, so named because they cling to their pits. The Freestone peaches won't be in for a couple more weeks, so says a farmer at a fruit stand in Cashmere, Fruit Central USA. I bought a box of the cling peaches, just because the craving was so strong, and as  I was in farm country, stopping for a box was mandatory in my book. I will try them and see what torture it is to wrangle out a resistant pit. We shall see how it goes.

Greg doesn't want me to make  the only peaches that I put up the spiced ones. He wants some plain ones, just like he had in his childhood. I am obliged to do this, because like him, I have has a fondness since childhood for canned peaches in delicious sugar syrup. The home version of these being far superior to the mass produced version found on grocery market shelves. My hope is that more people learn the traditions of preserving the harvest so they can enjoy the burst of flavor that follows when you open that jar.

Blowin' in the Wind-Chores Around the Coop

I love the smell of wood chips. It was sunny out and Greg managed to catch  the rays of sunshine in this photo. He's so arty.

Hauling the chips out to the coop.

This drawer comes all the way out so we can empty it out and clean it. We dump it out in the chicken yard and they love to scratch in it.

The top perch had fallen down, Greg re-hung it and shored it up.

And he fixed the front side of the nesting box that kept falling off. Its all back together and looking good.