EXPANDING THE BEE'S

We are learning that bee keeping can be very interesting!!!

A couple of weeks ago Mickey got a phone call saying a man had a swarm of bees on a wheelbarrow that he wanted someone to come and get because they had attacked the ranchers dog.

When Mickey arrived this is what he found. Now us not being either farmers or ranchers this was not exactly what he was expecting the wheelbarrow to look like!!!

The swarm is lodged between the wheel and the fender on this red side.

Here is an enlarged view. Usually the swarm can be captured by shaking the object they are clinging to but in this case, because of the way they were lodged between the wheel & fender, the only way to remove them was to reach in and push them out with your hand. Of course he was suited up with gloves & veil.

After safety placing the bees in the nuke (a smaller bee hive with only 5 frames in it) and removing his gloves & veil he was stung once on the chin and another bee flew into his ear, but thankfully did not sting Mickey and he was able to get it out.

SO... with a new swarm of bees Mickey has to build 4 medium supers.

Each super contains 8 of these frames. This is to make room for extractable honey.

Mickey's original bee hive he purchased in 2008 was expanded to 2 hives in 2009 and is now expanded to 4 hives. His intention is to only maintain 4 hives from this point forward.

1st HONEY HARVEST - 2010

Have you ever noticed it seems like you have either nothing to post about or so very much that you can't seem to get it all done? Well, I'm in the trying to get it done mode at the moment. Which in short means life around our place is very busy and with this post I'm happy to say productive.

Here is Mickey, out in the garage, with his honey extractor. This picture shows him scraping off (or decapping) the comb from one of the honey frames which will be placed in the extractor. Then he works hard manually cranking the extrator and that spins the honey from the frame. You can see the spout with the bucket under it to the left. The honey comes out of that and through a large sieve, which you cannot see, in the top of the bucket. The results below is pure, rich honey.

The bottled production. We got 18 pints and 4 -1/2 pints from this first extraction.




Here's my "honey" as he looks over the jars of honey we have just filled from this first production for this year.





The luscious bottled and capped pure honey from Mickey's bees - who he calls "his girls"!!!! Yes, it's as delicious as it looks.

These results are pure satisfaction!!!!

and

OH - SO TASTY

SPRING IN OUR BACK YARD

Mickey's two bee hives.

If you remember them from last year they are taller now because he's added another super to compensate for the heavy flow of nectar and pollen. This also gives the bees more room to work in and hopefully more honey!!!!

Adding the final touches to the raised beds.

Planting 6 new strawberries in one of the 4' raised beds. He had already planted Kentucky Wonder pole beans along the metal webbing to the left.

Four planted one two to go!

The markers for his two rows each of Salad Bowl lettuce, Redhead lettuce & spinach. (one not in picture) These are in the 8' raised bed.

Four tomato plants. Two to produce in 52 days, one in 72 days & one in 82 days.

This 4' raised bed has green onions & radishes planted. You can see the radishes are already popping up.

One side of the strawberry bed behind our fence. These were planted last year.

The other side of last years strawberry bed.

Wish I'd have taken a before picture of these beds. They were covered with weeds and we spent several hours this morning weeding the bed. Just so happy they came back after the hard winter we've had. They have LOTS of blooms on them......Y-U-M!

S-O-S !!!! Can you see the 3 holes in the dirt?

Can you see the holes running bottom to top in this picture? I've posted these because some "thing" is getting into the yard and digging these holes. Mickey has no idea what it is. Do any of you have any idea or any suggestions as to what he can do about this?

Our covered with blossoms Snowball plant.

Spring & seed time with harvest to follow. What a wonderful time of year.

How many of you are planting a garden this year? What kind of things are you planting?

FIRST HONEY HARVEST - 2009

David & Mickey had harvested the honey from one of Mickey's hives when David arrived from California Friday.

Monday afternoon we finally found time to finished putting the honey into jars. We take the raw honey, straight from the 1 1/2 plastic ice cream buckets and strain it twice. The first time through a large metal sieve and the second time through a woman's nylon hose!!!

Here Mickey is in the process of pouring the twice sieved raw honey into the jars.

There are all the jars we got, before the caps have been put on them.



Here they are all capped and ready to sell and give away. I gave a small 1/4 pint jars to my Tuesday evening Bible Study gals.

We ended up with 15 1/2 pints from the 20 lbs. of honey. Various size bottles as follows: 12- 1/4 Pint, 8- 1/2 Pint, 8 Pint & 1-8 oz Bear. It is so beautiful and tastes ......well yummy!!!!



Mickey was going to help Ronnie with his honey extration on Wednesday. Before they did it Mickey put these 4 cleets to help hold the extractor in position better.







Mickey had made this little table, prior to he & David doing the honey to lift the extraction up to a more comfortable position. Mickey thinks of everything.

The extractor in place against the 4 cleets.

Mickey & Ron in the process of extracting Ronnie's first few hives.

DAVID'S HOME - if only for 3 days :o(

Friday, July 31st, David arrived from San Francisco for a big celebration.

Picking him up at the air port.


First thing we did was go get Marc and go out for lunch. What a joy for this mom & dad to get to have lunch with BOTH of their sons. These two are so close ..... which naturally delights us parents.

After lunch we came home and David got to help his dad harvest honey.

David is holding up one of the frames loaded with honey.

Mickey is instructing David about cutting off the honey comb. You can see it piling up in the tray below.

Two of the scraped frames have been placed in the Extractor. David is working the crank as Mickey is holding the extractor down.

Oh the joy of seeing that pure honey filling the bucket.

Here is the first bucket full of the unstrained honey. We ended up with 1 1/2 of these ice cream buckets full. Total weight was 20 lbs.

The work is over and the process completed. Look at the pure joy in David's face as he observes this bee on his finger.

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I live the most interesting and exciting life!!!!!!! Meet "Bear".

David's home, which I was so excited about and over joyed.......but this Blue Heeler, named Bear, also arrived that evening to spend a week. WHAT?!!!!! Mickey had failed to ask me, or tell me, that he had offered to keep him for some friends of ours who were going on vacation.

When Mike & Mikey brought him in they explained if he was a human he would be described as being bi-polar!!!! Now we are scheduled to have 19 people for a dinner on Sunday, in our small house, for a much planned celebration that Mickey & I have been working hard on all week. I was not prepared to add a bi-polar dog into this mix!!!

Also, I knew that we were getting to meet my blog friend, Lisa, and her family and had a gillion, well quite a few other. places to be and errand's to run on Saturday.

Was I happy???? NOT!! Was I mad at Mickey? No!!! I wanted to be, but how do you get mad at someone who is just so incredibly nice and kind that he is always willing and wanting to help others out......even dog sitting a bi-polar dog?

You have to understand that I am not a dog lover in the first place. I don't hate dogs, I just don't particularly care for them.

Bear was running all over the house....that is except when he was jumping on something, or chewing on something....like Mickey's foot in this picture.

Mike told us that Bear slept at the foot of their bed and might try to jump on the bed. This is where my foot went down HARD. I am not having Bear sleep in our bedroom. David, who is a cat lover.....he has 3 of them, and a lover of all animals said Bear could sleep in his room with him. Wheeeeee!!!!!

One more thing to add to this "mix". A water line broke a couple of blocks from us and all the water in the neighborhood was shut off. This occurred around 4 p.m. until the middle of the night. So couldn't even wash up the super dishes, take a bath, etc.!!

The next morning around 7 Mike called, from the road, and wanted to know how we'd done with the dog. I put Mickey on the phone and he said, "We're doing fine." Then Mike said their grown daughter, who was suppose to make the trip with them, did not get to go after all and would be picking Bear up around 9:30 a.m. Praise God!!!!!!

Here are my two "monkey's" eating their banana's and "Seeing no evil" and "Speaking no evil". I am definitely "hearing" only the good report........I have had a reprieve of a week with Bear.

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Tune in tomorrow to find out what the BIG Sunday celebration was all about.

BEE HIVE - Supers

I posted this picture last week showing Mickey working on his 2 new Super's to add to the 2 Bee Hives he has. I am showing just one again to show the process.

Here is one of the finished supers. Mickey built two of the boxes, that look like drawers, first. Then he gave them each 2 coats of white paint. Next he assembled the 8 frames that go into each super. After the frames are assembled then he adds a sheet of wax foundation which is the foundation for the cells which the bees will "build out" and fill with honey. Then the finished Super, as you see in the last picture, goes on top of the hive.

I have posted the Pineapple Banana Nut bread recipe I baked the other day at Hands & Hearts.....for HIM frugal blog. Hope you'll come by and have a look. It really is a moist, yummy recipe.