It's Raining Men!

It's Raining Men!

Chickens and bees again! Are you all tired of hearing about them yet? The last time we blogged, I explained that our hive was queen-less. There are so many issues that can arise from this, but the main issue is that the hive will eventually die out because the worker and drone bees will die and there are no larvae being laid to replace them. You can check out the last blog post to see a figure showing the life cycle of a queen from conception until mating but based on this figure, we knew we had to wait until the middle of June to check on the hive. If there were no signs of larvae by the end of June at the latest, we were going to have to take immediate remedial action. 

While we waited on the new queen to return from what we assumed was her mating flight,  Sam and I ordered real bee suits so we wouldn't overheat anymore! They were fantastic! Mom and Taylor watched Rylee for us while Dad geared up in our extra hat/veil and gloves to help out. 

The first couple frames we pulled out were completely full of honey! When the comb has a white capping as you can see in the picture below, the bees can no longer add more honey to that comb. It's completely full. 

Dad was a little surprised at how heavy the frames could be when they were full! Here he is holding his first honey frame!

Third or fourth frame in, and there she was! Dad was the first to spot the beauty. 

There were less frames with brood than we would like, but this just means the queen has only just recently returned from her mating flight. You can tell brood from honey because they are capped yellow and are rounded out on top instead of flat or sinking in. Fun fact, the holes that you see in the brood below are left on purpose. Bees will go into the holes and vibrate to create heat to warm the larvae. 

(If you zoom in, you can actually see uncapped white larvae on the outskirts of the capped brood.)

We also found frames that were mainly pollen. Bees use the pollen to make bee bread, the first food a bee receives (worker bees only receive bee bread for about three days) and the only food source of the queen. Bee bread is a mixture of pollen and either nectar or honey. It's cool seeing the different colors of pollen that come from the surrounding flora. 

Long story short, our hive is on the mend and has a queen again. Yay!

Now, for the interesting circumstances that we sort of happened into...it all started with me realizing that the last remaining chicken that we hatched ourselves was not only a rooster but also son of Harper (not Wilson), making him an Olive Egger rooster. Olive Eggers only lay green eggs, and their eggs are a darker green (hence the name) than your typical Easter Egger eggs. 

We'd been keeping an eye on this developing rooster (Black Copper Maran we named Teal'c) and with the exception of Harper, we thought those were the only two roosters we had since our Egyptian Fayoumi rooster was killed in the last chicken death episode. 

Then to my surprise, I noticed this buddy (Golden-laced Wyandotte) starting to show signs of being a rooster rather than a hen. So what do you know! Four breeds of rooster ready for breeding next spring. 

Well, then I was browsing the Lawrenceburg Chicken Swap facebook page and saw someone selling Ameraucana roosters for $10/rooster. I wanted the white one (we named him Piccard); Sam wanted both (we named the red one Spok). So now we can breed white, red, and mixed coloring Ameraucana's. 

Then, my cousin said a friend was giving away a Rhode Island Red rooster...for free. We have five RIR hens! Another possible breeding pair! Only he didn't turn out to be one...so now he's just a flock protector. We think he may be a Rhode Island Red x Black Copper Maran cross. We aren't completely sure.

Then I saw on the Lawrenceburg Chicken Swap Facebook Page (seriously, don't get on it if you don't want to buy livestock) that someone was giving away their ISA Brown Rooster for free...and he was gorgeous!

Only after I arrived to pick him up did I learn that it's not recommended to breed ISA Browns roosters to ISA Browns hens since they are a hybrid breed. Not sure if it's a real issue or a business ploy rumor...we may try and breed a batch just to see. Regardless, we can breed him to both our Leghorns and our Rhode Island Reds (ISA Browns are half RIR) to make prolific egg laying breeds. 

And in the midst of all of this, we get contacted by our neighbor that they have had a chicken (a runaway from our flock) show up in their yard almost everyday for the past two weeks. Fast forward the two days it took us to coordinate it showing up and us being home so that we could come catch it, and we finally caught him (after thirty minutes of chasing him through fields). That's right...him. We think we have another rooster on our hands. This one is a Russian Orloff. The one remaining Russian Orloff hen we have in the flock currently has a broken foot because Pancake stepped on her (chickens really aren't very bright). 

So we currently have not two like we thought, but EIGHT roosters free ranging with our hens. And then there's Harper--who will likely live out the remainder of his days in his bachelor pad (because he's mean and we don't want him attacking Rylee) with the occasional female visits in the spring . I caught this picture mid-crow! So far only Harper, the not-Rhode Island Red, and the ISA Brown roosters are crowing. It will be interesting when they all finish maturing. 

And for anyone counting, we can now breed: 

-Ameraucanas

-Easter Eggers

-Olive Eggers

-Black Copper Marans

-Production hens from the Isa Brown

-(Maybe) ISA Browns...

-Russian Orloff and

-Silver and Gold laced Wyandotte's (this pairing I'm actually really excited about because if you breed the Golden laced Wyandotte (GLW) rooster to the Silver laced Wyandotte (SLW) hen we have, the babies will color coordinate themselves according to sex. All the SLWs will be male, and all the GLWs will be hens!)

Be thinking about what breeds you all want next spring, because I am ready to start breeding chickens!

In other news, Matthew finished out his work term with Pancake. The best we were able to do was hold one of his front feet for little over a minute...after three weeks of working with him. I think we are going to have to give up and build some sort of livestock chute to use whenever the farrier or vet come to visit. 

Matthew also decided to take on the challenge of removing shingles from this wall in the den. We now have about a third of the shingles removed, thanks to Matthew!

Alanna came to visit, and Rylee read a book to her. It was the cutest! In wonderful news, Rylee is starting to talk more! She will now attempt "Shoowee", "Pap Pap", and "Bite". Her word count is slowly climbing!

Sam is still super pleased with the purchase of his dump trailer! He climbed on the roof and trimmed all the overhanging limbs (which was a lot). The result was that our yard looked like a tornado had gone through it for about a week (since Sam can only work on weekends). When he finally removed the limbs, he also hauled off the two brush piles on the side of the house and was motivated to also remove the wood panelling from the basement steps along with the who-know-how-many-years-worth-of decayed leaves and dirt (about 8 inches deep worth). 

Look, we have a drain!

We set up a temporary garden in the back yard and put up a fence to keep the chickens out. Just a few tomato and pepper plants that Papa had extra after starting his garden. We hated to see them go to waste, though it took us nearly a month to plant them!

We've also taken Rylee to the lake a few times. Though it's usually a fight to get her into her lifejacket or float and then another fight to get her in the water, give her about five minutes and she starts enjoying herself immensely! 

We captured this gem of a video when Rylee started singing and dancing to the end credits of the new Overboard movie. She's a mess!

Pax Domini cum spirito tuo temper sit,

Torey, Sam & Rylee

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