HoneyBees- week 2 update & 1st Hive Inspection

Memorial Day marked 2 weeks since we welcomed our swarm to the Top Bar Hive at Redwoodshire.  We've been watching them daily through our observation window, and they have been very busy.  At day 12, we did our first hive inspection.  Unfortunately we only took a couple photos, because we were focused on inspecting the comb- which was territory completely unknown to us.  And it seems as though we probably made a few mistakes in the process- though nothing hugely detrimental.  The inspection went well and was so fascinating.  We were blindly going about it, as we noted what we saw, but were not entirely sure what everything we observed was.
Check it out:  The dark golden filled cells are stores of pollen.  The light cells are filled with a clear liquid, or empty.
DAY 12- Hive Inspection

And the Laird spotted the QUEEN!!  He's been talking about needing to find the queen, to which I always responded with cynicism because there are thousands of bees in the hive.  But sure enough he spotted her-- which made us both quite pleased.  We have a queen!  I think we spotted some eggs within the empty cells, though we are not entirely sure.  On our next inspection, hopefully we will spot some larvae or capped brood cells.  

DAY 15:  Observation- Spotted the queen through the observation window- though I didn't have my camera to take photos.  Check out the bee entering the hive-- notice the pollen filled back legs!  I can't believe I got such a cool photo.  The bees are quite active today.

There are 9 good sized bars of comb visible.  I spotted 2 smaller combs started on bars 10 & 11.  About 1/3 the length of the hive is filled with comb- as our TBH can fit 30 top bars.  

  

In other news, our Queen Anne Golden Raspberries survived the transplant and have sprouted leaves.  Of them, 9 out of 11 plants are thriving!  The red raspberry row is growing like crazy, and is covered with blossoms and berries.  And the blueberry blossoms have started becoming berries as well.  It's our third season, and it's going to be the best one yet!

News in chickens:  One of our little Amerucana chicks, Belle appears to be sick with Wry Neck.  We're researching in on the internet and doing our best to remedy her condition-isolation from other chicks,  baby vitamins & tuna in water.  She seems to be doing slightly better, but is still under the weather.  Queen Mother & Diana have been enjoying their days free ranging in the yard, while the 4 little Marans are getting used to the coop.  We finally finished securing the run below the coop, and they are utilizing that as well.  The Laird is trying so hard to get that garden planted, but with re-fencing the garden, finishing up the chicken coop, bee business, yard clean up....  he's a bit behind.  The garden is taking a toll due to all the other projects before us.  Hopefully this weekend we will get everything in and planted.

This is all the news fit to print at Redwoodshire.  Bees, chickens and berries.  

The Lusty Month of May- Chickens, Bees & Berries

So much has happened in the past 2 weeks!  We have added some ladies to our flock of chickens. The Laird's friend gave us 2 of his Copper Maran laying hens, plus 4 month old chicks.  Our hens are named, The Queen Mother & Diana.  Within the first 24 hours of having them at Redwoodshire we had 2 different escaping events- but thankfully they both returned and we are wiser in the ways of these chickens skills.

We have a double brooder set up in the dining room.  The newest princesses (on the right) are: Mulan, Pocahontas, Jasmine & Tiana.  When the weather warms up a bit, the Copper Marans (right) will head out to join Queen Mother & diana in the coop.  The little ones will head out shortly after that.  We still have to secure the chicken run, shingle the roof, & install the windows.

 Our original chicks are growing so quickly.  Their feathers are so beautiful!  We currently have 4 different breeds of chickens- and because the Americanas can lay different colors, we may have 4 different color eggs in our collections.  We will have to wait until they start laying to see what color eggs Cinderella & Belle will produce.  The other chickens will range from dark chocolate brown, to light brown.

   

Here are some blossoms on a blueberry bush.  It's the 3rd season for these blueberries and it looks like it's going to be an amazing year.  Both baby apple trees are slowly but surely growing and getting better looking with each passing year.  

It is swarm season, and the Laird's friend also caught us a swarm from one of his hives.  Two weeks ago, his bees swarmed for the first time this season.  Despite his best efforts to catch them for us, they swarmed and found one of this other hives that was empty because the hive didn't make it through winter.  Yesterday they swarmed again (multiple times) and he was able to capture them in this box.

The Laird brought them home, and together we donned our veils and gloves and a good flashlight and headed for the hive.  Both anxious to remove the lid and get to work- we set to work.  I lifted the lid.  The Laird flipped the box, and banged the bees into the hive.  Then we quickly replaced the top bars.  The darkness made it difficult to see what we were doing, but we're hoping the queen made it into the hive.  There are a number of bees still lingering in the nuc box.  Now we just watch and wait, and then watch some more.  And take a few photos too! Really looking forward to the awesome opportunities that bees and chickens will lend towards my photography.

Our Top Bar Hive has a sweet observation window.  We are able to open it up and see what they are up to.  Day 1- the bees are mostly  clustered in the corner & near one entrance.  Some bees are still clustered on the nuc box.  There is some activity outside of the hive.

Things are very exciting here at Redwoodshire.  We read lots of books about bees and chickens over winter, but have had to get the books back out to refresh our memory.  In addition to the livestock, we've been harvesting first fruits of rhubarb & asparagus.  We added 10 Queen Anne Golden Raspberries to our 3 year old Red raspberry row.  Not sure what this first year will amount to, but I have heard that the Golden Raspberries are amazing.   We are very grateful for the help we have had from friends who are helping us enter new territory of homesteading (chickens & bees).  I hope we can be those kind of friends to eager learners in the future, once we have skills to offer.

Raspberries Galore!

Summer 2014

This is our 2nd season of raspberries here at Redwoodshire and it's the best we've ever had.  Our old house didn't have good sun, and therefore the plants didn't do well.  We planted our Raspberry row in the Fall of 2013.  Then we built the trellis in the summer of 2014.  This Spring (2015) many new canes grew and filled in the gaps between all the individual plants we had originally planted. As the photos demonstrate, the plants looked about the same in early Spring as they did last Summer.  By the first picking in June, the new canes had shot up and filled our Raspberry row right up.  It's difficult to tell where our original plants were. I highly recommend ever-bearing raspberry plants.  They produce a light crop at the end of June and early July.  Then in mid- September they produce a huge crop!  We picked 3 quarts of berries last week, and today another quart.  It's absolutely amazing!  Organic home grown, fresh picked raspberries- can't get any better than that.  We're hoping to spread some of our plants into a second row to make room for all the new canes that will come next Spring, and thus eventually increase our yield.  I am also eager to plant a Queen Anne Golden raspberry, as soon as I can find a place to purchase them.  We may have missed our chance for this year.

Spring 2015

We had no idea how quickly raspberry plants spread.  Honestly raspberries are somewhat as easy to grow as weeds!

Fall 2015

 As can be noted from the photos, our trellis needs a little help.  We need to counter balance the tension outside of the posts with some sort of contraption.  In researching growing grapes and different trellises, I suspect we will fix these when we are building grape trellises sometime in the future.  For now, it is what it is.

"If you build it, they will come"... Our Garden Emerges

One of the things we are most excited about our beloved Redwoodshire is the opportunity to have a real garden and learn a lot about gardening along the way.  Previously, we lived in the city and had a mini garden in our tiny backyard.  We maximized that space as much as the sun would allow, and were able to get plenty of green beans for eating and freezing, a few zucchini, sufficient tomatoes, a few wild strawberries and a small portion of raspberries.

Raised planter at our old house in the city

We constantly battled the reality of huge trees blocking all of the sun over our yard.  There wasn't much we could do about that, so we started focusing on partial sun/ shade plants- hosta, hydrangea, fern, trillium, mayapples...  At the time, there was a junk pile at the back of our driveway that was an eye sore for many years.  An old broken down motor cycle, weeds, trash containers, scrap wood.  Finally, we decided to clean that corner up and build a raised planter for more shade plants.

 So fast forward to Redwoodshire .  We love the land, and are making the house into something we love as well.  One corner of our 5.8 acres is home to a 3 tiered garden.  We are in the process of cleaning it up, as the previous owners hadn't lived here for 2 years.  When we moved in, you'd think the previous owners had figured out a way to harvest weeds and had hit the jackpot about something that could be done with them.  We'd never seen weeds this tall before.  The truth is that the previous owners were avid gardeners, both vegetable and landscape.

Mid-summer weed garden
We we're told there was a garden in there somewhere

Late Fall weed garden
The Laird excitedly testing his new machete

Early Spring garden
Mid (tilled) & Lower (untouched) garden tiers

In addition to the garden, we have somewhat of a very old overgrown fruit tree orchard.  We have a huge Asian pear, fruit-less Bartlett pear, an over grown old apple  (with 3 varieties grafted together), and a few sweet and sour cherry trees.  Recently we discovered 3 more unrecognizable apple trees growing on the edge of the woods.  This past weekend, we planted 2 new apple trees, Honeycrisp and Macintosh.  In the fall we transplanted our raspberries from the city house, into a 30ft. row of 10 plants.  We also planted 6 blueberry plants in our newly designated "Blueberry patch".  The Laird has been excited to start asparagus, so he did that this past weekend as well.  

The Raspberry Row

Brand new raspberry shoots-
Seems to have survived the transplant & brutal winter

The blueberry plants were nibbled on by the deer, so they will be stunted.  We have since put up some wire cage around the smaller plants, in attempts to protect what is left.

Baby apple trees- Honeycrisp (foreground) & Macintosh

The new Rhubarb growth

Rhubarb a little further along

Perennial plants are the best.  All of the above are perennials and grow back each and every year!  Rhubarb, blueberries, raspberries, asparagus, and apples.  Initial investment and work is high, but they will continue to produce (if well cared for) for many years to come.

"If you build it, they will come"  ~ Field of Dreams

As is true for every gardener, if you build up a luscious garden, it is guaranteed that the animals will come.  In the city, we battled crazy little squirrels that liked to eat our homegrown tomatoes and garbage dive for pizza and various left overs.  At Redwoodshire, we will be tested and tried by the multitudes of animals wanting to come visit our garden.  The Laird is making plans to build a fence around the garden to protect it from the deer.  

Apparently we not only grow food, we grow bunnies too!  As we were doing some clean up around the barn 5 days ago, we discovered this little nest of baby bunnies- 5 in all. 

day of discovery

four days later

Well this is just the beginning!