I got my first bee gear today. A wonderful man named John gave me 4 hive boxes plus tops, a bottom and queen extruder. All pretty old and well used but in good shape. Best of all free!
It was a long but beautiful drive out to his farm this morning. I had a nice chat with him before we loaded the gear into my truck and I headed back for home. A stop at a Home Depot for some paint and other oddments ended up being very startling. When I came back out about 20 minutes later my truck was surrounded by an ANGRY cloud of hornets. apparently one of the big hive boxes had a large nest in it that had warmed up enough sitting out in the sun in the back of the truck to realize they had been moved and they weren't happy. Neither was I. Neither was the Home Depot guy who didn't want them in his parking lot. Spraying $200 worth of bee gear with pesticide was not something I was willing to do.
A heavy gust of wind shoved the hornets to one side long enough I was able to get into the truck and slam the door unstung. I drove slowly over to the far side of the lot away from everything taking the hornet cloud with me. When traffic was clear and the wind in my favor I gunned it and took off leaving most of them far behind. After that I stopped every few minutes when I found and unpopulated spot to let more boil out of the nest then I'd zoom away leaving yet more lost and upset hornets in my wake. That took care to 95% of them. A friend with a bee suit was willing to meet me on the far side of his work yard and dump out the hive. I stayed safely in the truck while he stomped the nest to paste with great gusto. I owe him beer.
There was nothing to do but celebrate the gaining of a real hive by heading for the bee stuff store! ;-) Ruhl bee supply. I bought some foundation, not all I'll need, but enough to learn how to load a frame and a hive tool. I showed a remarkable amount of self control considering all the great stuff he has that I want!!!
At home I cleaned up and repainted the now hornetless hive boxes. Cleaning old crusty frames is time consuming and best done outside on the open lawn. A warning, do not reach down and pet a cat when your hands are covered with propolis. Also the frames seem to appeal to my dogs as chew toys so they will be stored up where they can't reach them. Right now I have ten frames cleaned and filled with fresh foundation. Only 30 more to go.
I don't have bees yet, but I've spent several hours sticky with old wax and propolis, even after a shower my hands still smell good. I must be getting closer to being a real bee keeper
A chicken house without chickens.
Bee hive without bees.
A pond without fish.
It's a long time until spring when all the holes will be filled.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Learning Peoples Phobias
Since coming out to my family as a Bee Keeper I have discovered far more phobias than I had noticed before. My brother and sister in law appear to be extreme bee phobes. Both for good reasons, my sister in law accidentally inhaled a bee as a child and nearly died. My brother breaks out in hives from top to bottom with a bee sting, at least he did, he hasn't been stung in 20+ yrs, but he's unwilling to see what would happen now. A shocking lack of curiousity on his part in my opinion. ;-) Since he is my brother I've been getting a good deal of entertainment out of this phobia. If anyone knows how to send a box legally through the mail that will buzz like angry bees please let me know.
Yesterday I attended two club meetings. One was a plant group and when I mentioned bee keeping two people actually leaned away from me as if I had suddenly become contagious. I was surprised plant nuts would be bee phobes, especially anyone obsessed enough to belong to a single species club. I am assuming they will not be attending the next club picnic held at our house.
The next meeting I was bored and sitting in the back reading a bee book. When I got up to grab a drink I noticed the gal sitting near me pick up my book to see what it was, she actually violently dropped the book with a look of horror. That elicited enough interest from people who saw her reaction that I had a couple good conversations with people who liked bees. One older gentleman remembered his father keeping bees in straw skeps in Ireland.
Talking about peoples terror of the gentle honey bee usually gets someone to admit other types of phobias. A coworker won't drink out of containers he can't see into after seeing someone stung on the lip by a wasp as a child. He cannot lift a can of pop to his mouth without choking.
A friend of mine already refuses to visit my house because of the abundance of garter snakes in my yard. Something I'm quite proud of since it shows my gardens ecology to be diverse and healthy. When I told her about keeping bees I expected her to be appalled, instead she was very interested and might come visit the bees on a cold rainy day when the snakes won't be out.
A neighbor down the road who works as a construction contractor has a phobia about stepping on sharp things. He doesn't know where it came from and hasn't been seriously hurt that he remembers, but it's definitely strong. He wears steel soled boots almost all year except when boating. People running around barefoot or in sandals make his skin crawl.
I myself have am a compulsive obsessive so have several strong phobias. While I love caving and will happily crawl into a natural cave the mere idea of a dirty nasty people filthy hole is enough to send me screaming away. My husbands job occasionally sends him into steam tunnels and inspection crawlways under buildings. He takes great glee in telling me about these journeys knowing I will be curled up screaming by the time he's done.
Parasites also drive over the edge. My animals are not allowed to have fleas! The varroa mites bees get are something I'm going to have to deal with. Bees crawling on me, no problem, mites on my bees, hysteria. If they invented little combs I could pick up each bee and brush them clean of mites, well, I'd go blind and be stung to death, but I'd probably try.
.
Yesterday I attended two club meetings. One was a plant group and when I mentioned bee keeping two people actually leaned away from me as if I had suddenly become contagious. I was surprised plant nuts would be bee phobes, especially anyone obsessed enough to belong to a single species club. I am assuming they will not be attending the next club picnic held at our house.
The next meeting I was bored and sitting in the back reading a bee book. When I got up to grab a drink I noticed the gal sitting near me pick up my book to see what it was, she actually violently dropped the book with a look of horror. That elicited enough interest from people who saw her reaction that I had a couple good conversations with people who liked bees. One older gentleman remembered his father keeping bees in straw skeps in Ireland.
Talking about peoples terror of the gentle honey bee usually gets someone to admit other types of phobias. A coworker won't drink out of containers he can't see into after seeing someone stung on the lip by a wasp as a child. He cannot lift a can of pop to his mouth without choking.
A friend of mine already refuses to visit my house because of the abundance of garter snakes in my yard. Something I'm quite proud of since it shows my gardens ecology to be diverse and healthy. When I told her about keeping bees I expected her to be appalled, instead she was very interested and might come visit the bees on a cold rainy day when the snakes won't be out.
A neighbor down the road who works as a construction contractor has a phobia about stepping on sharp things. He doesn't know where it came from and hasn't been seriously hurt that he remembers, but it's definitely strong. He wears steel soled boots almost all year except when boating. People running around barefoot or in sandals make his skin crawl.
I myself have am a compulsive obsessive so have several strong phobias. While I love caving and will happily crawl into a natural cave the mere idea of a dirty nasty people filthy hole is enough to send me screaming away. My husbands job occasionally sends him into steam tunnels and inspection crawlways under buildings. He takes great glee in telling me about these journeys knowing I will be curled up screaming by the time he's done.
Parasites also drive over the edge. My animals are not allowed to have fleas! The varroa mites bees get are something I'm going to have to deal with. Bees crawling on me, no problem, mites on my bees, hysteria. If they invented little combs I could pick up each bee and brush them clean of mites, well, I'd go blind and be stung to death, but I'd probably try.
.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Missing Mama
This week is the three year anniversary of my mothers passing. You would think time would have ease the sorrow, but on some days it is if she has just left. Today while flipping through a website I ran across something silly and reached to hit the speed dial on my phone to call her. Oh man that hurt to have to stop and close my phone.
This blog is supposed to be about chickens and bees well mom gave me my great love of animals that started me on my life. She was a single parent and more times than can count we had our utilities turned off because we couldn't afford them, but we never were without animals. Dogs, cats, fish, for a glorious two years a horse. While her health was good we camped and hiked. Cheap vacations that took us out into a nature few of the kids around us ever experienced. The neighbors in any house we lived called our yard unkept, we called it naturalized! After one tiff with a neighbor we tore almost all the lawn out of the front yard and replaced it with vegetable and wildflower gardens.
There's nothing I would love more than to take a dozen eggs from my hens to mom. She'd just scramble them and burn them as usual but I know she'd say they were the best she ever tasted. Mom had a talent for destroying eggs in almost any form. I loathed breakfast food as a child. I wouldn't even eat eggs at a restaurant I thought they all tasted as nasty as moms. Mom would have adored reading my copies of Backyard Chickens. I got my love for learning about everything from her. Her jobs at doctors offices always kept us well supplied with a variety of magazines.
When my husband and I got our acreage and built a nice home mom was so happy for us. She and I spent long hours talking about what we wanted to accomplish out here. If someone offered my a winning lottery ticket or the chance to spend 20 minutes sitting on my patio with mom I'd never hesitate to choose mom. A warm summer evening with the the clover and buckwheat in bloom. Hens clucking contentedly and bees buzzing through the flowerbeds. To sit and talk about so much would be such an incredible gift.
This blog is supposed to be about chickens and bees well mom gave me my great love of animals that started me on my life. She was a single parent and more times than can count we had our utilities turned off because we couldn't afford them, but we never were without animals. Dogs, cats, fish, for a glorious two years a horse. While her health was good we camped and hiked. Cheap vacations that took us out into a nature few of the kids around us ever experienced. The neighbors in any house we lived called our yard unkept, we called it naturalized! After one tiff with a neighbor we tore almost all the lawn out of the front yard and replaced it with vegetable and wildflower gardens.
There's nothing I would love more than to take a dozen eggs from my hens to mom. She'd just scramble them and burn them as usual but I know she'd say they were the best she ever tasted. Mom had a talent for destroying eggs in almost any form. I loathed breakfast food as a child. I wouldn't even eat eggs at a restaurant I thought they all tasted as nasty as moms. Mom would have adored reading my copies of Backyard Chickens. I got my love for learning about everything from her. Her jobs at doctors offices always kept us well supplied with a variety of magazines.
When my husband and I got our acreage and built a nice home mom was so happy for us. She and I spent long hours talking about what we wanted to accomplish out here. If someone offered my a winning lottery ticket or the chance to spend 20 minutes sitting on my patio with mom I'd never hesitate to choose mom. A warm summer evening with the the clover and buckwheat in bloom. Hens clucking contentedly and bees buzzing through the flowerbeds. To sit and talk about so much would be such an incredible gift.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Friday, October 12, 2007
Why Racing Bees?
Well, I had to come up with something fast and that popped into my head. A friend's been bugging me to blog and I had to create an account to make comments on his so now I have a blog page.
A word of warning, I type dylexically and don't always catch it. I usually get all the right letters in a word just not in the right order and my spacing is frequently off.
If I do get this blog going it won't be a daily thing and it will mostly be about trying to get two projects up and running. The first is ducks and chickens for eggs. I have the coop built and hope to populate it in March. I have the order form ready to email to the hatchery on the last Friday in November cuz that's the earliest I can order chicks for March delivery. Hopefully by July of next year we'll be getting eggs.
The second project is Bees! I want bees. Probably one hive to start then two. So far the bee project has been mostly research and joining a couple bee keeping groups. It's not a cheap hobby to get into and I still have $3,000 in vet bills to pay off. :-( There's still plenty I can do and learn. I can get the critter proofed apiary set up with old fencing wire and build a couple hive tables out of scrap wood. If the husband has to work tomorrow I might just get started on that.
I'm going to the Bee keepers conference in November. The first real vacation I've had in well over a year. My dad said, "Vacation is two days camping at the beach in November with people who spend most of their free time sticky?" Hey, to me it's glorious freedom!
The racing part of Racing Bees is my love of Greyhound dogs. I have two right now and have in the past dedicated most of my life to rescuing ex-racers. More than a thousand dogs went from kennels through my house to adoptive homes. At this point in my life I am not involved in any of the organizations. I don't have the time fostering dogs requires. The 3 grand in vet bills comes form one of my dogs shattering a leg. After 6+ months, 4 surgeries, 2 trips to the ER and nearly dieing she has 4 solid legs again, hurrah! My VISA balance should be paid off by the end of 2008!
For not wanting to blog I wrote a lot. Blame it on the chocolate chip cookies I had for dinner.
A word of warning, I type dylexically and don't always catch it. I usually get all the right letters in a word just not in the right order and my spacing is frequently off.
If I do get this blog going it won't be a daily thing and it will mostly be about trying to get two projects up and running. The first is ducks and chickens for eggs. I have the coop built and hope to populate it in March. I have the order form ready to email to the hatchery on the last Friday in November cuz that's the earliest I can order chicks for March delivery. Hopefully by July of next year we'll be getting eggs.
The second project is Bees! I want bees. Probably one hive to start then two. So far the bee project has been mostly research and joining a couple bee keeping groups. It's not a cheap hobby to get into and I still have $3,000 in vet bills to pay off. :-( There's still plenty I can do and learn. I can get the critter proofed apiary set up with old fencing wire and build a couple hive tables out of scrap wood. If the husband has to work tomorrow I might just get started on that.
I'm going to the Bee keepers conference in November. The first real vacation I've had in well over a year. My dad said, "Vacation is two days camping at the beach in November with people who spend most of their free time sticky?" Hey, to me it's glorious freedom!
The racing part of Racing Bees is my love of Greyhound dogs. I have two right now and have in the past dedicated most of my life to rescuing ex-racers. More than a thousand dogs went from kennels through my house to adoptive homes. At this point in my life I am not involved in any of the organizations. I don't have the time fostering dogs requires. The 3 grand in vet bills comes form one of my dogs shattering a leg. After 6+ months, 4 surgeries, 2 trips to the ER and nearly dieing she has 4 solid legs again, hurrah! My VISA balance should be paid off by the end of 2008!
For not wanting to blog I wrote a lot. Blame it on the chocolate chip cookies I had for dinner.
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