Sure we want the honey and the benefit of pollination of our garden, but more so we want to do my part to help the struggling honeybee.  Their decline is alarming…as it should be.  Some analysts predict without the honey bee we would lose 1/3 of our food supply.  Others agree that our food chain would collapse in 7 years without the bee.  Some will argue those statements, but you can’t deny the honeybee is vital to life as we know it.  So for that, we decided to keep trying.  (On a side note, most bee yards in the U.S. experienced losses last year which made me feel less like a failure.)

In early May, we drove to Jonesboro to pick up two nucs (5 frames of brood, comb, and food stores from an established colony) of Russian honeybees.  This differs from our attempt last year when we purchased Italian bee packages (just bees, no comb or brood or food stores).  With a nuc, there are already eggs and larvae and capped brood.  And the comb has already been drawn out or built…a good head start!  Most importantly, the queen is already laying.  So we just put the nucs into our hives here at Rafter4C and they went straight to work.

After a couple of weeks, we inspected the hives and were happy with what we saw.  Lots of bees!  As newbees, we weren’t sure what we were supposed to see, but Joe and I agreed it was far better than what we had anytime last year.  So we closed the hives feeling confident our colony was growing strong.  We continued to feed them sugar syrup to help them build out the comb on the remaining frames.  A week later I added a second box to give them plenty of space.  I did not want them to swarm.  Bee activity outside the hive has been strong.  It makes me happy.

Today I decided it was time to thoroughly inspect both hives.  I documented it in pictures and will share some of the highlights with you here.

These pics are good representations of the frames in the box.

This full frame is from the top (new) box of the first hive.  I am thrilled to see that the queen not only moved up to utilize the additional space we gave her, but also is laying a rather nice and tight pattern.  Notice how she did not lay eggs in some cells that are form a line?  That is where there is wire running through the foundation to provide additional support.  The queen doesn’t like to lay an egg if there is a wire in the bottom.  Smart lady!

This is from the same box as the previous pic.  Notice the tight pattern of brood again.  The “empty” cells actually have eggs and larvae in them.  I wanted to point out the nice ring of (white) capped honey that arcs across the top.  See all the bees actively working the nectar along the ring edge?

It gets more interesting when you get a close look at what is in the cells.  See the small spec of white at the bottom of the cells?  Those are eggs.

Eggs. Look Closely.

…and the eggs turn into larvae.

Larvae. Look closely.

Here you can see honey in the making.

Honey!

Here you can see the pollen in shades of yellow and orange.

Pollen (food) stores

This pic shows capped brood with distinctive large dome-shaped caps.  These cells are Drone (male) bees, which are larger than the worker (female) bees.

Capped Drone (male bees) brood

In Hive #2, I found a supersedure cell in the making.  See it right center?  A supersedure cell sometimes signals that the colony is planning to make a new queen for whatever reason.  It could be that she is not laying as well as she should.  It is currently empty.

Supersedure cell

I think this is the coolest picture of all.  In the center is a Drone bee emerging from his cell and getting his first glimpse of the outside world.  Just to the lower left of him is a Worker bee emerging from her cell.  Notice the Drone’s eyes are much larger and almost touch at the top of his head?  The worker bees eyes are smaller and more on the side of her head.  What a treat that the first thing they saw was me!

This shot is of two Worker bees working together.  One bee is cleaning the pollen from the hind legs of the other bee.  She will pack that into a cell to be used for food.I hoped you enjoyed this look into our hive.  Hopefully, they are on track to preparing for the winter and will come through strong in the Spring and provide us all with abundant honey!

The post A look inside our hives. appeared first on Rafter4C.

Meet Buck and Ramsey!  These cute little goats came to Rafter4C a couple of weeks ago and have already weaseled their way into our hearts.  While we wholeheartedly welcome them, the chickens are up in arms!  A few have stopped laying eggs altogether, surely out of protest as Buck and Ramsey took to their food, their roost, and their run.  After some coaxing, they have cozied up to their own accommodations and now call a repurposed play set their home.  And check out this awesome fence my sweetie-pie built right and tight.  Not too shabby!  Thanks babe.

When the goats came, they were only 8 weeks old and a little unsure about us.  Now Ramsey will let you hold her for as long as you like.  Buck is still a bit nervous but we have him eating from our hand.  They provide lots of laughs as they amble, buck and head-butt their way around the place.  I let them out to free range for the first time yesterday and I was pleasantly surprised that they stayed close to me and the chickens, never straying more than 100 feet from any living thing.  Buck discovered he loves asparagus from the garden (bad goat!) and cedar trees.  Ramsey wouldn’t leave the chicken food alone so I built a goat-proof chicken feeder.She was none too happy about that!  See her taking out her aggression on the girls in this video.

  Fingers crossed it lasts the head-butts.

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Our new baby girls arrived March 5th. At just 2 days old, they were one of the cutest things I have seen.  When we picked them up from the post office, there wasn’t a lot of sound coming from the box.  Worried some may have perished, I prepared our boys and “peeped” into the box.  All 8 were alive and well…and ready to get out of the box!

It was a sweet ride home.

They seemed pleased with their new, temporary home.  A brooder made of an old busted plastic bins, a cardboard box and some leftover hardware cloth.  It’s nothing fancy for sure, but serves its 6-week purpose.

The new chicks are an assortment.  1 Buff Orpington-since Puddin’ is the sweetest hen we have I thought another was a no-brainer.  2 more blue egg laying Ameraucanas, 2 Silver laced Wyandottes, 1 Cuckoo Maran, and 2 White Leghorns (since white eggs are a rarity with backyards hens).

They are 3 1/2 weeks old now and losing their fluff (*sniff) .

Ameraucana 3 weeks

Check back in a couple of weeks when I introduce them to the existing flock.

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But that’s an awfully dour way to live life.  I think of the quote, most famously attributed to John Wayne: ‘When the road looks rough ahead, remember the Man Upstairs and the word Hope. Hang on to both and tough it out.’ “

Quote by Bob Welch, editor of American Cowboy magazine, when in the April 2014 issue he began a discussion of the suffering that occurred in last fall’s blizzard to the Cattle Ranchers of the Dakotas and Wyoming.  I can’t imagine.

But I certainly see a grand metaphor of life right there in those two paragraphs.  Wisdom.

I’m not sure when naivety slipped away and dour slipped in, but it did somewhere over my 45 years.  Now I’m just wise enough to know only how damn little I know, or ever did.  It’s a wonder.  Especially in my youth.

But sure as the world will turn at least one more time, I’m finding the riddle involves not only knowing Hope is there, but also figuring out how to enjoy the suffering and perseverance required to comprehend it.

I think I’ll keep my subscription.

Thanks Bob.

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Chicken curtains!  Aren’t they the cutest?  The girls really do seem to love them.  Some of the tiebacks are already missing and curtains drawn, making me think they have “pecked” them off.

Thanks, mom, for loving the hens as much as I do.

Love,

Karen

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Future toad.

Wow!  What a great first year here on our small farm, Rafter4C!  I was looking through pictures that I took and realized that some of the best moments for me involved the smallest of things.  It was a great reminder of God’s blessings and the great joy they bring.  These things are so easily overlooked, seem so tiny, so unimportant, so trivial.   Yet, the best memories are simply in the discovery of these.

Another beautiful morning.

Good things to come…

Exploring with friends.  The best!

Stop.  Look closely and you’ll be amazed at what you will see!

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Honeybees are pollinators responsible for over one-third of our food supply. Nearly $30 billion of our US agriculture production is dependant on honeybee pollination. Essentially they produce apples, nuts, soybeans, celery, squash, cucumber, asparagus, melons, citrus fruits, peaches, berries, cherries, peaches and more.  You can even credit the little honeybee for some of our beef and dairy, which feed on things like alfalfa and clover pollinated by these worker bees.

Want to know what our world would look like without the honeybee?  Whole Foods recently removed every produce item that was attributed to the pollinators.  237 out of 453 products were removed.  That’s 52% of their produce!

 There is reason to be concerned about the loss of the honeybee because it is happening now.  The massive die-off began 7 years ago and an average of one-third of the honeybee population has died each year.  60 years ago there was an estimated 6 million colonies.  Today, 2.5 million.   That sounds like a lot of bees, but consider that California’s almond crops alone require pollination from 60% of all colonies.  Corn is close behind.  The number of bees required to pollinate these large crops limit the variety of food sources available to the honeybee, thus resulting in poor nutrition.  And poor nutrition yields weaker bees susceptible to a host of pests and pathogens. But our overuse of pesticides is thought to be the main culprit of the demise of the honeybee.

Breakfast with bees.              Breakfast without bees.

 This is why we are striving to establish an apiary here at Rafter4C.  Not to mention our hopes to provide local honey to our family, friends, and community.

 You can help too!  Here’s how:

• Don’t’ kill the dandelions (and other flowering “weeds”) too early!  Bees thrive on these flowers when they emerge from their hives in early spring.  Refrain from killing them until after the bees have moved on to other flowers.
• Feed the bees! Plant fruit trees, vegetables, berries, flowering ground cover and bushes.  See this post for a list of bee-friendly plants.
• Limit the use of pesticides!  Especially while plants and trees are flowering.  Never spray or powder pesticides on the bloom or while bees are present.  The bees will unknowingly carry this back to the hive.  Read the label.  Some pesticides are fatal to bees, some are not.
• Buy and consume local honey!  Read more here and you’ll be convinced! You’ll probably find it at your local farmer’s market and small grocers.  You can also check LocalHarvest.org for honey and many other local products.
• Establish your own bee colony.  You don’t have to live in the country either, just check with your state or local state plant board or beekeeping organization.   There are several sources on the Internet to help you, but start here if you live in Arkansas.  Also, check out my post about the many reasons to love bees & their honey.

The post If you think honeybees only produce honey, think again! appeared first on Rafter4C.

A healthy beekeeper hive.

A honeybee colony in its natural state.

WORKER bees are all female and do most of the work and are the only bees most people will see.  They are assigned jobs based on their age.

• 1-2 days old-they clean the cells and keep the brood warm.
• 3-5 days-they feed older larvae.
• 6-11 days-they feed the youngest larvae.
• 12-17 days-they produce wax, build comb, carry food and carry out dead bees.
• 18-21 days-they perform guard duty, protecting the hive entrance.
• 22-45 days-they fly from the hive to collect pollen, nectar, water and pollinate plants.

The QUEEN’s primary job is to lay eggs.  She mates only once then will lay up to 2,000 eggs every day.  There is only one queen in a hive and she will live for 2-4 years.  If she dies, the workers will create a new queen by feeding a chosen worker female “royal jelly” which develops her into a fertile queen bee.  The queen also controls the hive’s activities by producing chemicals that serve as instruction for the other bees.

The DRONES are the male bees.  Numbering only in the hundreds in a single hive, their only job is to be available to mate in case a new queen is needed.  In the wintertime the drone bees are usually forced out of the hive because food is scarce.

The honeybee hive is perennial. Although quite inactive during the winter, the honeybee survives the winter months by clustering for warmth. By self-regulating the internal temperature of the cluster, the bees maintain 93 degrees Fahrenheit in the center of the winter cluster (regardless of the outside temperature).A healthy mature hive will contain 50,000-60,000 honeybees.

Honeybees are not native to the USA. They are European in origin, and were brought to North America by the early settlers.

Honeybees are not aggressive by nature, and will not sting unless protecting their hive from an intruder or are unduly provoked.

The practice of honey collection and beekeeping dates back to the stone-age, as evidenced by cave paintings.

Honey will never spoil.  It was discovered in Egyptian tombs dating back 2,000 years and found to be unspoiled.

Honeybees are the ONLY insects that produce food eaten by humans.

80% of the U.S. crop pollinators are honeybees.

A honeybee’s wings beat 11,400 times per minute.  This makes the distinctive buzzing sounds and is how they heat and cool their hives.

2,000,000 flowers are visited to make a single pound of honey.

Honeybees will fly up to 3 miles to collect pollen and nectar for the hive.

Honeybees communicate with each other by “dancing” various complex aerial maneuvers.

Honey is the only food that has all the life substances: enzymes, water, minerals, vitamins.

The post Amazzzzing facts about the honeybee… appeared first on Rafter4C.

1.  To be sure you are really getting honey.  We all assume that the honey offered by our supermarkets is, in fact, honey.  Well, not necessarily.  Many manufacturers are filtering the honey of the pollen and beneficial enzymes which results in a product that really is no longer honey.  If you want to be sure you are getting honey, look for raw unfiltered honey.  And never imported from outside the US.

2. Imported honey, particularly from China, has been found to have been diluted with water and/or corn syrup in addition to being filtered.

3. Buying local honey supports our own beekeepers, farmers, and ultimately…the honeybees!

4. The pollen in local honey is, well, local pollen.  The same pollen that triggers your watery eyes and scratchy throat.  Although not scientifically proven, many people swear by consuming a couple of teaspoons of LOCAL honey every day a few months before allergy season will ward off any allergic effects of pollen.  Hey, worth a try!  I will let you know if it works for me this year.

We are still working on establishing our bee-yard.  Once we have strong hives producing an abundance of honey, we will offer our own local honey.  Subscribe at the top of the page to stay informed.

Thanks for reading!

Karen

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