All About them Bees

Posted by OfWoodandEarth May 18, 2024

All About them Bees

All About them Bees

Farm wise, April was all about the bees! We contacted a lady who lives here in Harrodsburg in an 1800s farmhouse that she and her husband are trying to restore. They have a hive that had taken up shop for more years than they knew of in between the plaster wall and the outside of the house. They said if we could move the bees, we could keep the bees! We had some experience removing the bees from our own house (read about it, here), so how could we say no?

We used Sam's thermal camera to get an idea of the location and the size and after deciding we were confident we could do it, we came back the next day with all our bee stuff! We scheduled last minute child care (thank you, Pippa and Heike!) and then spent about five hours removing a MASSIVE hive from an old farmhouse.

Just like last time, Sam and I split the tasks. He cut the comb from the wall, and I framed it with rubber bands into the empty frames.

There were SO many bees! The hive was super massive, spanning between two wall joists. One section was about eight feet long, and the other section was about five feet long.

You could tell they had been theres for years upon years. At the bottom of the comb, there was probably a foot or two of dead, decomposed bees. It was crazy!

There actually wasn't that much honey. Most of the comb was brood comb and pollen.

It was really difficult to cut the comb off of the plaster ridges.

We did our best to look for the queen, but we didn't end up finding her.

Good news is that whenever we shook bees into the boxes that held the new frames, they stayed! So we were pretty confident that she was in there somewhere.

We got as many of the bees out as we could, boarded then up in the new hive, and headed home! We ended up with one deep and one medium super (10 frames each) with brood, pollen, and honey, and 1 full deep with empty comb.

The next morning, Sam fashioned this screen to keep the bees in but allow them to go outside the hive to fan it if needed. We needed them to stay in the hive for a few days to reprogram their home location in their internal GPS system.

Then we got to work leveling the wagon we wanted to use for our new bee yard! The kids had a fun time riding the ATV while we worked.

I got to practice my tractor driving skills, and Mena Grace got to go for her first ride on the tractor!

Here's the new bee-yard! We like it a lot better than the old location. It's in the shade, and it's still close to the wild plum grove.

The very next day, we had a swarm come to one of the boxes we hung. So now we have two swarms and a new colony! All are doing great! We will give the swarms a couple weeks to settle in and let the queen start laying brood. Then we will move them 3+ miles away for a couple weeks and then move them back to the farm!

I melted down all the scrap comb we couldn't fit into the frames and started rendering the wax. I'll make more chapstick when I finally get it cleaned!

We also purchased a "yard vacuum" for the farm!

I'm excited to suck up some grass while we mow to be able to feed it to the animals that don't get the benefit of being free-range (i.e. the meat chickens, turkeys, and pigs when they are in the farrowing pen). This fall, we will suck up all the leaves to make compost for our garden!

The kids also helped me make a ton of wildflower jelly to be able to sell at the craft fair this upcoming fall. This round was violet jelly.

I love how vibrantly pink the violet jelly always turns out!

We also finally put the broken deep freeze to use! We separated Moana and Kevin into their own pens so that we could increase their feed without increasing the feed of the Kune Kunes.

On the family side of things, we took the time to slowly get back into our usual routines with a new baby.

And we made plenty of time for some family excursions. Here we took a field-trip Friday to go have a picnic at the fort! More specifically, the big tree!