April 22 2018

So it's been a year since I've posted anything. BFD
I've cut two finger off and had my right shoulder replaced and nearly
wore it out already. My rack holding up five of the bee hives I had fell and pert near ruined the hives. Two of them eventually died out and I got no honey last year. Last year was a bad year for the bees. Only two swarms. Both got away. So far this year I've had five swarms and managed to catch three of them put two in ten frame Langstroth boxes and the other in a quickly constructed top-bar. All three are doing good so far.
Got twenty chicks from tractor supply last year and managed to raise eighteen. The girls of the bunch are laying for us now and I am slowly working my way though the roosters. Made a smothered greasy gravy with one of the rosters day before yesterday.

June update

June 8th 2016

The new chicken yard. It's 25 feet by 25 feet should be enough for at least 20 hens and a rooster.

If you look closely you might be able to see the first five hens. They are about seven or eight weeks old, so no eggs yet. There is a rooster there somewhere. We call him number seven. He got the name because he was always the last one of our previous flock to come to the roost at night. They always packed themselves closely together so the only way to tell they were all there was to count heads. So the name stuck. Ignore that derelict lawnmower in the background. 

The bees are wide open. This view is from the southwest looking northeast. That first hive in the line looks like it could use some attention.

Yea! I will put another box and frames on top of this one in the morning. This shot was taken late in the afternoon so it looks a little worse than it really is. Not all of these bees are at the hive during the day, what with the pollen and nectar collection going on. I can hardly wait to sample some of that thick sweetness they are making in there.

The aquaponics tank is doing really good. Those are volunteer tomatoes that are starting to hang over the plant tank. And yes that is another bee hive on top of the drum next to it. I think that I have fifteen hives here, nine at brothers hose, and five more at another friends house. I had FOUR in January.  

View from the northeast looking southwest. Tree farm way in the background. They make really good neighbors.

May 5th update

It's high time that I did an update on the homestead so here goes.
Things have really started to grow around here the garden and the weeds are glad of the rains that we've had over the past three weeks. I've neglected to keep an accurate record but a close guess is about seven inches at least.
We have corn, although a small plot of four feet by fifteen, there

are some 50+ plants in this planting. Should be enough to get the summer started. We plan to put in several more of this sized plot in before the end of the growing season.

Also tomatoes actually several different types all of them heirlooms

this one is  Creole and a couple of Black Krim as well as a cherry type. A total of sixteen plants. That should keep us in 'maters for a while. 

And beets and if you look closely carrots as well in the cold frame. 

The cold frame was made of six layers of brick topped with a couple of old windows that provided a little extra warmth before

spring really started to show itself. This arrangement gives a good foot or more of loose soil for the carrots to grow in. Yea I know I really do need to to do more weeding.  It's just hard on the old backbone.

After all of the green onions have made their seed heads I'll pull them and dry them for this fall planting. These are more of a bunching onion than a shallot type. This little four by four foot area will provide for a nice long row this fall.

Here are five elephant garlic plants that I've babied for the last three years, at one point I had a large bag of  these. That is when I broke my back in an accident and these are the only ones that i have left.

If all goes well with them there should be a good sized bed this fall as I plan to keep all that they produce for seed.

These are the cherry tomatoes on the left, kinda scrawny aren't they? Actually they have only been in the ground for a week or so they will jump up here shortly. If you look closely there are eggplant on the right side of this bed.

The mulch that is seen in some of these pictures is planer shavings that I got from a local fellow who does custom flooring for folks. I can't say enough about how this works as a weed barrier. Here at the cherry tomatoes there is a layer of cardboard under four to six inches of mulch. This bed has not been weeded at all this year and the grass is just starting to creep in on top of the bed. 

Sunflower volunteer from last years crop. We use these as bird food, the chicken get their share also.

Here is one of two Burr Oak seedlings from seeds that I got from a friend that sells forest tree seeds as a business. These oaks produce acorns that are as big a extra large hen eggs. Some of the biggest acorns that I've ever seen.

This little pie pumpkin sprout needs some mulch too!

  

Here is a three seed grouping of Jubilee watermelons. Sure do love me some watermelon. Yea yea I know GRASS but I'll fix that with a one gallon can for some protection and a flame weeder and then a scoop of mulch.

Just a quick shot of the one hundred or so long row of red potatoes

BEES BEES and more BEES. The first three boxes on the stand are the Nucs that made it through the winter. I think that I posted a link to a video earlier showing me moving one of them to a full size box. I've also had to add a second deep super to each of them as they keep growing. Hive number two also has a medium box between the bottom and the top deep. It has been an exceptional hive so far this year. The other single boxes on the rack and cinder blocks on the ground are all swarms that people have called me to come over an retrieve from their yard trees, swing set seats, and other spots around their houses. So far we are up to fifteen hives here on the homestead, five hives at a friends house and four more over at brother's house. The Ligustrum shrubs across the road from here on the tree farm are in full bloom right now and the bees are going crazy. Should lead to a good honey harvest Lord willing.

We planted three Blood Bananas on the west side of the house to help with a little sun protection. These are transplants from a friends house and should really help with some needed shade once the reach maturity. 

This is what was done to most of the older homes around here to help with the sun's heat in summer. Wish that it had gone all the way to the next corner. It doesn't show in this pic but the banana trees are just to the left of this awing. Wish that it had gone all the way to the next corner. 

Mulberries are really putting on a show this year. This picture doesn't do this old tree justice. I wish that you could see just how many berries are on this thing. The birds are having a field day not sure we'll get many cause they eat them as soon as the turn red not even making it to black.

Anyone need a fig tree? Seriously. I took cuttings from some trees at the same place that the bananas came from. Out of the eighty one cuttings that were stuck in pots all except for five are rooted and are putting on new growth.
Well that's all for now, time for bed Alpo. Awww dad can't I just sleep in mom's chair tonight?

April 1st

No not April fools day just the first of the month. Things have been crazy with the bees here lately. My brother and I have collected 14 of the last 16 swarms that have been found or offered to us around here. Four of these have been from the hives that were here on the homestead and the others from folks calling or the eagle eye of my brother. He can spot a swarm hanging in a tree while driving down the road at any speed. Most of the spotting has been at low speed thank God. But it is uncanny how he does it. As close as the side of the road to as far as 100 yards out behind the house in a jumble of saplings that passes as a planting of trees for management purposes. We now have 14 hives here and 4 more at his house. Can I tell you we get from 1 to 3 swarms a day and have now for about 2 weeks. We can't even build enough boxes to keep the new arrivals happy much less the ones that have been here for a year now.
On a good note Sutherlands a store in Alexandria that has anything you want or think that you need. This is a store with anything from building materials to bluejeans. Gardening supplies to grills has started carrying beekeeping supplies. A little expensive but real handy for things that you don't want to have to make or wait on a small order for. We bought all of the deep frames and foundation that they had in stock day before yesterday. There will be more in on this coming Tuesday.
Oh yes and I have to tell that I did a bad thing this past Monday. I sold 2 single box hives to a couple of local guys without telling my brother. I had to promise not to do it anymore. He wasn't happy but it didn't last long because we caught 3 swarms the next day and the money from the sale made it possible for us to shop for supplies without having to come up with anything out of pocket.
We may start a small business building hive bodies and frames out of cypress lumber that brother's eldest son cuts and mills locally. This is what we've been building boxes out of for the last two weeks and it makes some really fine boxes. This should do away with the need for painting the bodies as well as the cypress turns to a really beautiful shade of gray left on it's own. I guess it depends on if we can produce them at a reasonable cost.
Did I mention that there is a YouTube channel involved with this blog now? If you go to YouTube.com Aand type in itsmesrd in the search window it will take you to my channel. So far there is only a few videos one on transferring a nuc hive to a full size box and one showing how to can pork. The technique used in the pork video will work for any meat that you would want to can.
Follow the link for a video of me working the bees
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mfby_wr8fw

A light frost last night

Today is the 21st of March and we had a light frost last night. The temp was 34 when I got up this morning but must have dipped lower at some point last night. The Irish potatoes at the far western end of the row show some slight damage but not enough to outright kill them. I hope. The ones at the beginning of the row show no damage at all. It's a good thing that I closed the lid on the cold frame yesterday evening or all of the tomato and bell peppers that have come up from last years seed would have surely not made it. Last Friday brother and I made a trip to Mansura to pick up his car from the mechanics shop and on the way home I picked up some transplants from the local nursery. I got 6 Cherokee purple, 6 Creole, and 6 cherry tomatoes. As well as 6 egg plant and 6 bell peppers. The ones in the cold frame are not quite ready to be put out. Funny how I always end up with too many plants and not enough space in the garden.
The corn is up and shows no damage from the frost and really is probably ready for a side dressing of fertilizer. I'll probably hit the beets and carrots with some at the same time. Ineed to hill up the potatoes also. I am going to try using the mulch that I got from the molding shop for this an see how it work out. Some of the potatoes that I planted late summer last year were planted in this mulch an did pretty good. I had several folks tell me that it wouldn't work  but the potatoes didn't seem to know that. They didn't get real big, about the size of a tennis ball, but tasted just fine.

Bees Swarm

Well I've put off posting this as long as I can. Earlier this week maybe Wednesday the Easter hive swarmed on me. It's not like they didn't give any advance warning or anything like that. We had a really wet week the previous week and there were actually bees bearded on the outside of the hive during the 4.5" that we got last Friday. I know I know what's the matter with you fat boy can't you see and understand if all the bees can't fit in the hive during a storm then they are bound to swarm.
It all started while I was putting a few bulbs in the bed next to the hydrangeas and I heard this buzzing sound. I stopped and listened for a few seconds and knew it sounded like bees. Looking over at the bee yard and there is a cloud of bees that looks like it's 15 feet in diameter floating up from the Easter hive. They didn't stop till well ensconced on a pine tree limb about 30 feet in the air. There was nothing I could do... except put the trap hive I'd been working on last week on top of a 24 foot ladder tieing another ladder to it making an a-frame monstrosity that didn't fool them for a minute.
After my wife and I got this thing up we sat down and waited. Within 30 minutes while we were watching a softball sized clump of bees fell from the swarm and exploded in flight within 10 minutes the whole swarm was 60 feet off the ground headed southeast. I tried to follow behind them with a big cardboard box in hand. Half an hour later my wife found me about half a mile from the house in the middle of the tree farm next to our place. The bees... nowhere in site.
All I can say is I'm trying to do better. I've built new boxes and installed them on the hives that John and I transferred the week before. See this link for one such transfer, five frame nuc to full sized box
Now I need to get 5 other hives down the road home and worked also.

Nuc to full size box

 Nuc to full sized box

This past weekend John and I finally moved the last of the three Nuc hives that we have to a full sized 10 frame box.
Click the link for a video.
https://youtu.be/2mfby_wr8fw
We both know now that he should hold the camera sideways to get a full frame shot. Hopefully we can post more a little later.
Beets are up.
The beets that were planted mid February are growing wide open. It took a full two weeks for them to germinate.They are an experimental planting. Just to see how late in spring beets could be planted and still make something before bolting into seed. We'll see if the planting dates that LSU suggested will actually work. The latest date they gave was the 28th of February. With our early spring, thanks Phil, I am wondering if they will make it.
I have a good collection of used bricks and several old wood framed windows. So I put together as a cold frame in the garden to get a start of tomatoes, bell peppers, and egg plants. So far only some of the tomatoes are coming up. I think that the soil isn't quite warm enough for the others.
Hope to get around to canning some pork meat today, that should be the next post.