Little House in the RedWoods- Maple Sugaring

Two Saturdays ago we placed 10 taps into a variety of Maple Trees on our property.  It was a warm day for February, so the perfect activity for our low key Saturday.  

Our Maple Tree hunt was neat because we really learned how to identify the Maple bark & branch patterns. 

The Laird read up a lot on Maple tree identification throughout the week, and led us on the walk.  He was wanted to learn how to identify trees by their bark and leaves for many years now, but never really got around to it.  With this new interest in Maple Sugaring, he learned more in a few weeks than in the years of wanting to learn.  In the midst of Winter, and a fresh layer of snow on the ground, it wasn't as easy as looking at the leaves to find our maples.  We would dig up leaves at the base of the tree for more confirmation, but we may have tapped an oak in the bunch.  Hopefully not.

We have a very large Maple right near our front porch which we are pretty confident is a Norway Maple.  That one we tapped mostly because of it's proximity to our house and ease of being able to watch the jug fill with sap.  Tree number 2 is a Silver Maple where lady Genevieve's swing is hung.  Then as we go into the woods we have what we think are a handful of Sugar Maples.  We are using plastic 5 gallon food grade buckets with metal spiles and 5/6" plastic tubing for our sap collection operation.  In addition to the 5 gallon buckets we have a number of 1 gallon water jugs hooked up to easy access trees.  

Sap's Risin'!

We had 2 days where the sap ran last week.  And we estimate that we collected about 10.6 gallons of sap from the 10 taps.  The Norway Maple near the house was basically bleeding sap out- as it was likely our most productive tree.  On the other hand, the tree we expected to give good amount of sap, the Silver Maple produced very minimally.  We removed one of the 3 taps in that tree and tapped another tree in the woods.  

Testing the evaporator with snow 

On tree tapping day, we also built and tested our simple cinder block evaporator.  Well the Laird built it, and the kids and I came out to watch him test it out.  It worked!

1st Sugaring Off Day- lighting the fire 

This past Saturday we collected our 10 gallons of sap and boiled it.  We started around 9:15am and finished off around 1:45pm.  The snow cover from the previous weekend had all melted away with the warm days.  It was the perfect day to make syrup.  We took turns managing the fire and scooping the niter off the top of the boiling syrup, and continuing to add more sap to the trays.  One comment we've received repeatedly when we share that we are going to try Maple Sugaring this year is: "Do you realize it takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup?"  

Yes.  In fact we do know this and we still want to do it! 

Maple Sugaring is about the process.  It's an activity that marks the end of winter drawing near.  It's something that gets you outside, when the cold weather easily persuades me to stay inside by the fire.  This is a process that began with reading from the internet and books we got from the library.  Then we purchased and collected materials.  And then we got outside and hunted for maple trees- and learned a thing or two.  We placed our taps and excitedly checked them daily to see what was happening.  We became obsessed with watching the weather- the same sort of attentiveness to temperatures that you have in April when you're itching to get outside and start planting seeds in the garden.  Then we get to collect the sap and boil off the water content in our home built evaporator.  It was so relaxing to be outside by the fire; similar to the feeling you get sitting around the campfire on a camping trip.  It technically took 4 1/2 hours to boil down outside, but it didn't feel burdensome at all.  It was the most magnificent way to spend a Saturday morning.  Not a moment wasted.  We loved it so much, we're looking forward to doing it again this Saturday and inviting interested friends to join us.  

Not only do we enjoy learning this process, it's been so fun to include our children and teach them things we would have loved to learn and experience as children.  We are all learning together as a family and it's the greatest feeling ever.

Adding sap to the warming pan.
The hot pan (right) is turning amber color as the water evaporates and becomes more sugar concentrated.

We yielded a whole 2 1/2 cups of syrup.  The early syrup is very light in color and taste.  They grade it as "fancy".  In our taste test comparison to Wegman's Maple Syrup, it hardly tastes like maple at all- but it was quite delicious.  So our sugar content was about 1.5%, which is lower than we expected and hoped.  

It was a pretty good first run through of Maple Sugaring this past weekend.  We still need to refine our filtering process, as our syrup still has a bit of particulate and niter settled at the bottom.  We're looking forward to opening an invitation up to friends this coming Saturday and sharing with them the joy of Maple Sugaring and what we have learned so far.  

Our Sugaring Station

Redwoodshire Maple Syrup (Fancy grade) compared with Wegmans Maple Syrup (Grade A dark)

For the Love of LEARNING

I love learning.  And I especially love learning with my children.  I love when life is our learning ground.  And so far 2018 has been filled with a handful of learning opportunities that I hope to write about along the way.

I cannot remember how or why the idea popped into my head.  But at some point in early January I mentioned to the Laird that I thought it would be cool to do some Maple Sugaring.  We have a Norway Maple right near the front of our house and a Silver Maple out back where lady Genevieve's swing is hung.  Neither are ideal for sugaring, but you can tap them for sap and boil it down.  The only thing is that the sugar content is far less than an actual Sugar Maple tree.  So we started our internet learning about Sugaring and decided we would give it a try.  It is a fairly low investment to try out.  We had to purchase some spiles (the taps), 5/16" tubing, and buckets to collect our sap.

During one of our trips to the library for story time, I asked Miss Laura to get us books about Maple Sugaring.  She brought me the few books that they had.  She then asked me if we were planning to read "The Little House In The Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Not having ever read "The Little House" books or watched Little House on the Prairie, I responded.... "Umm should we?  Would they be at lady Genevieve's interest level?"  She then introduced me to the "Little House" picture books about Maple Sugaring.  And so begins another love and another world of learning.

We enjoyed the "Little House" picture books.  And randomly on a trip to the library the following week, "The Little House In The Big Woods" just happened to be on the display near the circulation desk.  I grabbed it.  And we started reading it a few weeks ago.

Lady Genevieve and I absolutely LOVE the "Little House In The Big Woods".  So we decided to visit another local library to pick up Little House on The Prairie Season 1 on dvd.  We are 2 weeks in, and it has become our daily afternoon activity to watch "an episode".  We love it.  Lady Genevieve pretends to be Laura.  We've been exploring different activities that they do in the book like making butter... I have been making bread 3+ times a week (even for sandwiches)....  somehow I decided to make a braided rug (which we have now seen Ma Ingall's making in a couple episodes)...  tin can lanterns...

MAPLE SUGARING-  With our couple maple trees, we decided to explore our little woods and see if we had any other Maple trees.  We found a couple sugar maples right in our woods, and explored a little further and found a couple more.  It was really cool to get outside and learn to identify maple bark, branch patterns, and look for some leaves.  I got pretty good at spotting maple trees.  Winter is not exactly the best time for tree identification- however when you decide to Sugar in the middle of winter, you have no choice. This past weekend we put in 10 taps, tubes and buckets (and 1 gallon water jugs).  And with slightly warmer temperatures during the day, the sap is starting to run!  The Laird is super excited to be sugaring and had been anxious to Do something besides wait for temperatures to rise.  And now we're waiting to see how much sap we will have come the weekend.  Last weekend we also built a simple evaporator/ fire box out of cinder blocks.  We purchased 2 large 4" pans to boil the sap in.  Since we moved to Redwoodshire, we've had 4 pine trees come down.  So this activity seemed like the perfect way to get rid of the huge pile of pine tree remnants.

BRAIDED RUG-  This idea preceded our reading of the Little House books, however we have now seen Ma Ingall's working on a braided rug in a few episodes.  Lady Genevieve noticed it before I did and she said, "hey she's making a braid like you!".  I watched a few YouTube videos and was amazed at how simple the rug seemed, and how I could use my fabric remnants to make it.  I started cutting my remnants into 2 inch stripes and then braided them.  The hardest part was sewing the rug together.  Last weekend I finished my rug.  It was quite small, so it works well in front of my kitchen sink.  That rug was my test to see if I really wanted to make a large rug for my dining room.  I loved making it and how it turned out, so went on a hunt for old bed sheets.  My favorite 2nd hand store (Savers) recently closed near me, so I decided to stop into the Salvation Army store.  And to my surprise and excitement, bed sheets were only $1.99!!!!  I picked up 5 that day.  Because I am planning to make a very large rug, I decided I probably needed a couple more sheets, so I got 2 more the next week.  And then another one this evening.   At this point, these sheets are becoming a bit addicting.  I can't believe how much fabric you get in a bed sheet, for $1.99!!  This beats Joann Fabrics prices by like 100%.  And for the purpose of a rug, you really can't beat that.  This week I have been cutting all the sheets into 1.5" strips and rolling them up.  I have most all of the sheets cut into strips and am about ready to start braiding.  My first rug is cute and turned out pretty nice, however it has a few quirks to it.  After a little investigation, I found an amazing series of braided rug you tube videos, to which I learned how to make the braided rug better and hopefully it will turn out amazing this time.  We will just say that I did things the hard way, a few times over.  My color scheme is navy, white, grey, light greens & teal, and golden yellow.  The fun is about to begin.

LITTLE HOUSE IN THE REDWOODS-  This is what I think our story would be called. I just love Ma Ingalls (Caroline).  My daughter loves Laura.  I am pretty smitten with all things primitive and learning to keep life simple, as we see in the show and read in the books.  Every episode is amazing and full of a wonderful life lessons.  I love discussing what we learn from each episode.  I love making bread, and am getting quite good at it.  Making butter is just the coolest thing ever.  And we made goat cheese this past week, and it turned out amazing as well.  Better yet, we were able to use the whey in our bread and other home made foods.  It's an amazing journey of discovery.  Caroline Ingalls- where have you been my whole life?!  I learn so much from her every day.

So that's where this year has brought us so far.  I will post more details about each of these adventures, with photos and outcomes.  Loving to learn is a love of life.  That is one of my greatest desires for my children as we continue on our homeschooling journey.  In the end, it's not important that they be the smartest or the best at anything.  I simply hope that they love to learn.

Official Number for 2017

BLUE is what we paid off in 2017

Last January, after evaluating our finances and goals, we decided we were in a good place to pay down our mortgage principal.  I blogged about the proposition of that goal for 2017 here: 
I've Got A Dream.  So this year, we've been living by a pretty tight budget and we've been doing great with it.  It is so FREEING to live by a budget and know exactly how much you have to spend in all areas of life for each month.  And the reward of beating the budget each month, is adding a little extra towards paying down the principal.  Yep- most people would reward themselves with a Starbucks or something else extra ... I guess I am of a different breed- I consider it a win to pay a little more down on the mortgage;)  We've moved from "tracking our finances" with a budget, into a land of "living within our budget".  And looking back throughout the year, and doing the math-- it has paid off.
paying down or mortgage principal.  I blogged about the proposition of that goal for 2017 here: 

STATS:
From Jan. 2017 to Jan. 2018 we PAID OFF $31,276.55 of our mortgage balance!!
From 2013- we have now paid off 36.5% of our initial mortgage

Initially we started with about $127,000.  My initial hope was to get down to $110,000 on our mortgage balance.  But once we started, that hope became an daily awareness.  With every purchase, I considered how that affected our goal.  And let's just say, I refrained from purchasing A LOT this year.  That's the only way a 1 income family could make that large of a dent in paying off debt.  We cut back spending in a huge way.  Basically every dollar that came in each month was accounted for, and spent on something.  Dave Ramsey refers to this as "Zero  Based Budgeting".  So all the money is spent on something- and in our c

ase, a lot of that money was spent on "Mortgage principal".  A lot meaning, $31,000!  Yay!  That initial goal of getting the mortgage principal balance down to $110,000 then turned into breaking $100,000.  And we did it!  We're heading into 2018 at $95,276 to go.  So in 12 months we were able to trim down $31,000 of our home debt.

So if that isn't inspiring and motivating in a personal finance realm- I don't know what would be.  If you give yourself a financial goal, and you have a plan of how to reach that goal- then your money won't keep magically disappearing on you.  Because let's face it, that is exactly what happens every month when you don't have a plan.

We are still on an early pay off plan for our mortgage, however our goal for 2018 is to redirect a majority of our excess money towards a sinking fund for an exciting change in 2019!  Sadly we won't be bringing that mortgage balance down as drastically as we did this year, but we have a plan for something great in the near future.  And in the mean time, we will keep chipping away at our $95,000.

Here's to a NEW YEAR of making and achieving NEW GOALS! Happy New Year!

Are you a slave to the Lender?

This photo was of our progress a few months ago.
By the end of this 2017, the word "MORTGAGE"
will be all colored in BLUE.

If you were to really take the time to consider your financial state TODAY, how would you rate yourself on a scale from 1 to 10, of where you want to be?  A 1 would be "not at all where I want to be" and a 10 would be "doing better than I deserve".  Are you an "average" American?

-76% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck
-Average American household wastes 24% of their take home pay on consumer debt
-64% of Americans could NOT cover a $1000 emergency

Student Loans, Car payments, Credit Card debt, Mortgage....  How much does that all add up to each month?  Could you imagine changing that value from "money owed" each  month to "money saved" each month?  Now multiply that by 12, and that's what you have over the span of a year.  Incredible to think that you could have that much money at your disposal to do what you wanted with- to tell your money what to do, rather than have you money tell you where it's going.

Most people have just accepted that they will always have some sort of debt.  But that doesn't have to be you.  You could be WEIRD- and be living a life in complete financial freedom.  You could be someone who could drop $1000 at any given time to be generous and change someone else's life by helping with an emergency or need.  It's time to change the trajectory of your financial life and get free of being slave to the lender.

We are considering hosting a Financial Peace University class.  Check out the link to find out more about the 9 week lesson outline in the  FPU Preview.

If you are interested in joining the class, please let us know!  

It involves 9 weeks of class, 1.5 hours x 1 evening a week.  

MY STORY-

I was introduced to Dave Ramsey by my mom in 2004, right after I graduated from college.  She would talk my ear off about his book, "The Total Money Makeover".  I was like, "yah, yah... ok mom."  So she sent me the book.  I read it.  I was completely inspired.  I started working the Baby Steps.  I got my $1000 Emergency Fund into place and then started chipping away at my $22,000 of student loans.  I trimmed my spending down as much as I could, and was able to pay of my student loans by December of 2005.  In 18 months I was able to pay off $22,000- only working part time hours.  Once out of debt I started savings funds for different anticipated expenses like my next car, home repairs, travel...  Fast forward to today.  One year ago, 2 years into our 30 year mortgage, my husband and I refinanced our mortgage down to a 15 year mortgage and got an incredible interest rate in the process.  That was a smart move, and it only cost a little less than $100 each month.  Now we could have our house paid off in 2030, as opposed to 2043.  Who even thinks that far ahead?  But the reality of this change meant that we could have our house paid off before any of our children went to college.  But the truth of the matter is I am all about being completely debt free as soon as possible.  So we started paying an extra $100 to the mortgage right away, which would be about 1 extra mortgage payment a year.  This would cut our 15 year mortgage down by a few more years.  Cool.  But paying down debt is a bit addicting for me, and I got the Laird on board with putting anything extra we have into our mortgage.  My goal now is to make our final mortgage payment for our 10 year wedding anniversary in August of 2020.  That's less than 3 years from now!  This February, We started out with a "No Spend- Frugal February" budget.  And we've pretty much kept that pace ever since.  

It's time to change your life! Wherever you are at in your journey, movement comes from working through hard things with other people.  You will find encouragement and accountability in the area of finances.  Have a plan for your money, rather than continuing on your current trajectory.   The FPU membership kit costs $93, but there are people selling used versions (and even some new) for less on ebay.  If that stands in the way, commit yourself to setting aside $1 a day for the next 3 months.  It's a small price to pay to get on track for a better financially free future. 

 I am hoping we can start a class in January of 2018.  

Beekeeping: It's a way of life

It's been a while since I posted.  Almost 4 months to be exact.  Reason being that our family grew by a little person- which made it somewhat difficult to figure out how to get into the hive to inspect.  Since we're still quite new to beekeeping, we feel it's a tag team- 2 person job.  The Laird pulls out the bars, while I run the smoker, take photos & clean bees out of the way to put the bar back inside.  

Back in May we installed 2 packages of bees into our 2 Top Bar Hives.  This is 1 more hive & colony of bees than we had last year- our first season in beekeeping.  We made the move to get a 2nd hive last winter, in hopes of catch a swarm from our 1st colony and then having 2 hives going.  We thought this would provide a 2nd chance in case we lost a hive during the winter.  Well unfortunately, we lost our sole hive.  So we bought a package of bees, not thinking we were going to be able to get our hands on a swarm.  And then we bit the bullet and purchased a 2nd package of bees for the hive we had purchased last winter.  

Installations went well.  And things seemed to be moving right along.  Then at some point in June or July, we noticed some queen cells (meaning the bees were preparing to swarm & multiply).  One day we walked out back and saw thousands of bees flying around- what you'd imagine a swarm to look like.  The Laird, said "look at all those bugs!".  I responded, "I think the bees swarmed".  He went to get his phone to take photos, and by the time he returned, the swarm had flown off into the woods.  And that was the story of how our colony size diminished by half it's size.  Swarming in May or early June is ok, later than that just jeopardizes winter survival- since you loose half your bee population.  Not a great thing, but there was nothing we could do at that point.  The bees still had time to build up their numbers before winter and store honey.  Honey also diminishes during a swarm because they bees who will leave gorge themselves on honey reserves so they will be all set until they find a new home and are able to get back to work.  

Fast forward to last week.  We noticed queen cup cells again in the same hive, and didn't think they could possibly swarm again. The next morning I went out to check on the bees.  The queen cells were capped!  The number of bees also seemed a little lighter than usual- but I didn't think anything of it because maybe they were all out foraging.  It was a nice day after all.  Later that day, I took the kids out back to play on the jungle gym.  From 100 ft away, I glanced over to check out the bee activity outside the hive.  I noticed a dark spot on the tree branch in a pine tree behind the hives.  Immediately I wondered if the bees had swarmed to I ran over to check it out.  And this is what I saw above me.  

The Cedar Hive had swarmed AGAIN!  On the last day of August, our bees had decided to go on a suicide mission.  I immediately texted & called the Laird at work.  When he got home, we grabbed a cardboard box and set out to capture our first swarm.  It was easier than we thought.  They plopped right into the box.  We closed it up and put it in the garage.  Then we had to figure out what to do with this swarm.  We started scouring the Internet with ideas.  Could we go into the hive and kill the newly raised queens, and then reintroduce the swarm (with the old queen) back into the hive?  Should we let them go and just try to build up the colony that stayed behind?  Should we get another hive?  Should we build another top bar hive?   I checked craigslist and there happened to be a gentleman selling his beehives and equipment.  He just happened to be selling 2 homemade Top Bar Hives and a handful of Langstroth hives.  The Laird said I should try to get in touch and get one of the top bar hives, since it would cost less to buy these used hives than build one.  Communications with the seller were slow, but after 4 days in a cardboard box, and a 2 hour round trip drive, we finally had a solution for this swarm of bees.

Top Bar from Cedar Hive.
Capped honey along the top.
Worker bee brood on left side / Drone brood on right side of comb

One of his homemade top bar hives was built to similar dimensions as our top bar hives, so I purchased that one.  I was definitely going to buy one of the TBH, but then decided maybe we would get both.  Early on the morning I was set to drive out to get the hives, I thought it might be cool to get one of the Langstroth hives and eventually get a Ross Rounds kit.  The Ross Rounds are a system of getting the bees to build their comb in a circular ring, capping it, and then being able to have perfect honey comb in a plastic container.  They are beautiful.  I shared this thought with the Laird, and he agreed as has wanted to get a Langstroth hive just to learn how to do it.  

So I drove an hour away, and met a wonderful gentleman who had been beekeeping for about 8 years.  We talked a lot and I asked him every and any question that popped into my head.  An hour and a half later, I was on my way home with 1 Top Bar Hive and 1 Langstroth hive, for the cost of less than 1 hive set up.  He even loaded me up with frames that already had comb built up- so that our swarm would have a head start and be more willing to stay.  

Upon arriving home, the Laird and I got to work setting the hive up.  We had wanted to put the Langstroth hive in between our Top Bar Hives.  But when the Laird went to pour the bees in, from our very soggy 4 day old cardboard box, things were much crazier than our previous swarm and package installations.   In the 4 days that they were living inside the cardboard box, they had chewed through the holes we poked for them to breath- and could freely go in and out of the box. The bees went CRAZY, and very few of them ended up inside the hive.  Then we realized many of the bees had covered the mason jar feeder that was sitting in the spot that the cardboard box was sitting.  So the Laird brushed them into the hive.  A couple minutes later, I noticed that they had then covered the smoker!  Basically anything sitting in the spot that the cardboard box was previously position, was where they were identifying as home.  So we realized that we needed to move the Langstroth back over to where the cardboard box had been, and if they survive winter, we will worry about a better location then.  

The Laird setting up Langstroth Hive between Top Bar Hives (initial location)

Bees clustered on smoker

What an adventure.  We have no idea if the queen made it into the Langstroth hive.  We looked around for her on the ground.  The bees have gone into the hive and are busy at work, but only time will tell if there is a laying queen in there.  We will have to do an inspection in a week or so.  All that said, we are learning a lot on this beekeeping adventure and will continue to learn.  It's awesome to have 2 new hives to expand into.  Once you are keeping one hive, it only makes sense to have a handful;)

Smoker covered with bees.
Langstroth Hive relocated to the spot where the cardboard box homed swarm sat for 4 days

Drone cells with emerging bees on left/  Worker brood on right

The Laird in the midst of swarming bees

Lady Genevieve- our budding photographer

Redwoodshire homeschooling:  Living out learning

Bees at entrance of Langstroth Hive

2nd Top Bar Hive Bee Installation

We are getting pretty comfortable installing packages of bees into our Top Bar Hives.  It only takes about 10 minutes to leisurely install the bees.  Here are some photos from yesterday's installation. 

Weather conditions:  About 60 degrees F.  Light misty drizzles.  Time: 4pm.

 Here's the Laird opening the top of the package.  First you pry open the stapled down piece of wood.

The next step involves sliding the sugar syrup feeder tin out of the top of package.  Notice the black strap stapled into wood to the right of the feeder tin- this is the strap holding up the Queen cage.

If you look closely you will see the Queen (marked with a yellow dot on her back).  She is noticeably larger than the worker bees.  She is raised and then added to a separate colony of bees.  She is enclosed in a cage with a sugar plug that the bees have to eat through.  The amount of time that it takes to eat through the sugar plug, allows for the colony of bees to get accustomed to this particular Queen's pheromones.  If she were introduced without time for the bees to get to know her, they would likely attack and kill her.

 Once Queen cage and feeder tin are removed, cover the hole of the package with a towel to keep bees inside.  Then you bang the whole package on the ground to get the bunch of bees grouped together on the bottom of package.  Then you just tip and pour bees into Top Bar Hive.

Welcome to your new home Bees!  This is what 3lbs of bees looks like- which is approximately 10,000 honeybees & 1 Queen.

The other end of the queen cage has a tiny cork in it.  Our bees had been traveling up from GA since Monday evening, so they had 4-5 days to get accustomed to each other.  We just removed the cork and released our Queen into the hive.  

That's our process of installing a 3# package of honey bees & queen into a Top Bar Hive.  The important thing is to have all the tools you need before starting the process.  We bring our protective veil & gloves, hive tool, a towel, pliers, a mason jar feeder full of sugar syrup.  We included a few bars of brood comb from our previous hive- to give the bees a little head start on their work and the queen a place to start laying eggs.  This hive was installed about 2 1/2 weeks behind our first hive.  

We look forward to watching each hive progress and possibly seeing the differences between NY & GA raised bees.  First hive currently has 10 bars of brood comb built up, in a space that fits about 28-30 bars (not sure).  Already 1/3 full!

Bee Updates- A 2nd Hive

We've been busy at Redwoodshire, but probably not as busy as the bees.  A few weeks ago, one of our great Pines fell.  Fallen trees are A LOT of work to clean up.  The brother of a friend of ours recently purchased an old lumber mill, and willingly wanted to take that pine off our hands.  While he was here, we decided to take down another pine tree over near the apiary.  The Laird had already been talking about taking that tree down to create more sun for the bee hive during the cold, bitter winter months.  So with 2 trees to clean up, branches and huge chunks of trunk, we were busy.  I told the Laird he was lucky to have me as a wife;)  He asked, "Why?".  "What do you mean "why?"!  I informed him that most 34 week pregnant wives would most definitely not be helping with tree clean up and lugging wagons of brush to the woods.  But the work needed to be done, and it feels good to get a little physical exercise at this point in the game.

About a week after installing our bees, and being reminded just how much we love having them- we decided to bite the bullet and purchase a 2nd package of bees for the new hive we bought over winter.  Initially we had hoped our colony from last year would survive and just swarm into the new hive.  But with our colony loss, that wasn't possible.  And the possibility of catching a swarm was seeming more and more unlikely, as I reached out to a few contacts with no luck.  Rather than have our hive sit empty in the garage (taking up space) and waiting another year for a good honey harvest, we decided to just spend the money on another package of bees.  Our first bees we ordered from an apiary about 3 hours away.  At this stage of Spring, most places are sold out of packaged bees.  But I found a place in Georgia (where most bee packages come from) that still had packages available for shipping.  So we ordered another package, set up our new Top Bar Hive and waited patiently for the bees to arrive to our post office.

Finally, after checking into the post office in Georgia on Monday night of this week, and traveling all week through the postal service with no tracking updates.... our new bees have arrived!  I had expected the bees to arrive yesterday at the latest.  So when there were no tracking updates and they didn't arrive, I started to get concerned- especially with the holiday weekend upon us.  Where in the US were our bees?  I was pleasantly surprised at how few dead bees there were on the bottom of the package, considering they have been traveling since Monday night.  They look amazingly well.  Once we open the package we will be able to inspect the queen and see that she looks good.  We will install this package of bees later this afternoon.

Here's a photo of both hives set up, in the newly cleared space of our apiary.  You can see the tree stump between the hives.  The original hive is the darker- cedar one on the left.  The new hive is made of sugar pine and has a nicer stand- on the right.  The Laird also installed corrugated plastic roofing on both hives, to help prevent water leaking into hive.  We had a small issue with this at the end of winter, and wonder if this contributed to our hive loss.

We plan to name the hives, so we can keep straight which one we are talking about.  Any thoughts?  Now to keep all the weeds surrounding the hives in check- that will be a challenge in itself.  Planning to plant wildflowers around the apiary.... we will see how that works out.  Weeds always seem to win.

The Redwoodshire Apiary

It's been about 2 1/2 weeks since our first bee installation and the bees have been busily building their comb.  We included some bars of brood comb & honey comb we had left from last year's non-surviving bees.   That helped to give them a huge head start.  They currently have 10 bars of comb built up.  It's time to open the hive up and inspect to see if the queen is laying eggs.  That may happen today while we install the other bees, or sometime this weekend.  But the overall picture.... is that they are doing great.  We saved out a few top bars of comb to put in the 2nd hive to give this new package of bees a little head start as well.

Looking forward to taking some photos of the bees inside the hive!