Bee keeping - inspecting the hives this morning

The queen has just been marked with blue paint. Blue represents year 0 or 5. In this case this queen is a 2015 queen.

Bees busy at the entrance of one of the hives.

A box of new supers with starter strips in the frame, ready to be put on one of the hives. I use starter strips now in brood and super frames. I feel it is more natural for the bees to draw their own cleaner wax. It is cheaper. It allows allows me to harvest cut comb honey. In the brood nest I feel it is cleaner to regularly replace all the comb. Its allows the bees to draw cells to a more natural smaller cell size and it makes cutting out queen cells much easier.

Bees bringing in pollen at one of the poly nuclei. 

The queen on the frame. She has green paint on her which is partially worn off. Under the green paint is red paint as she is a 2013 queen. I put on extra paint last year while inspecting this hive as the red paint was almost gone.

I am not too sure of the proper name for this, but at our bee association we always call it 'the crown of thorns'. A young queen has been found on this frame and I trapped her under the crown of thorns so that I could mark her with paint. I also use this to isolate a queen if I need to move her or if I'm manipulating the hive and I'm worried about crushing the queen.

This hive is for honey production. It has twelve frames of brood and two boxes of supers. The number of bees is immense and we hope to get a good honey harvest from this hive. Since we have started to move to poly hives, we have noticed that the queen will lay out to the outside frames, as very little heat is lost and they build up very quickly. I am now phasing out wooden hives in favour of these poly hives. 

This hive has drone comb on the corners of the frames and several empty queen cells. I am checking this hive weekly for occupied queen cells, as I expect it to make plans to swarm soon.

May musings

Life is busy on our little farm at the moment!

I am on a few weeks leave from work and it has been great to catch up with the house, the animals and of course the children.

The weather has been very poor for the month of May. It has been cold and wet with poor grass growth. I hope to get a good honey harvest this year so a few weeks of hot temperatures will be necessary.

My attempted queen rearing using grafted larvae was a failure. The bees rejected the grafts by removing the larvae. I have three hives now with hopefully young queens. I will check them today to see if they have started to lay.

Our elderly wolfhound had a surprise pup two months ago. He is a Irish wolfhound x German shepherd named Fionn. We were quite shocked to discover the pup one morning, as the mum is ten years old and never had a litter previous.

We have our herd test this evening for the cow and calf. The calf is sold and will leave the farm in the next few weeks. 

The magpies are stealing the hen eggs from the coop. It infuriates me as all that is let is a mess of broken eggs in the nest box each evening.

I'm keeping them locked in until noon at the moment but when I return to work they will be let out early and I expect we will have no eggs again.

The pigs are doing well. We need to fatten up the two younger pigs and send them to the freezer. When the calf is gone, there will be plenty of milk for the pigs.

Getting ready for the beekeeping season

After a quiet bee winter, I always get a little excited about the pending season.

I make plans and goals for the season ahead and try and education myself further about how to go about achieving those goals.

With bees you can never learn enough as there is always more to learn, and books can only teach you so much.

So this year I intend to try queen rearing by grafting. It will take a few years to get comfortable and with good success rates but I will give it a go. 

I ordered extra bees supplies this week and made up the grafting frame yesterday and painted three poly nucs. Today I will paint two new poly national hives.

The weather is cool and damp with daytime temperatures at about fourteen degrees. Too cool yet but that is promised to change over the next few weeks.

I have three good hives after the winter. I lost a full strong hive. And when I checked them when there was just a handful of bees left, I found no queen.

She was a new 2014 queen and somehow failed or got lost/died and the hive slowly died out over the winter.

New calf

Our new calf has just arrived. A lovely heifer!

MamaMoo is doing great and let me hand milk a few litres of beastings to save incase we need it.

Her bag is very tight/full and it give her some relief.

Isn't she cute, we are delighted to have a heifer aax. 

Spring update!

It's been too long since I last posted.

I am really busy with work and study at the moment. It will remain like this until May, when I have some leave to take.

I leave for work when it is dark and come home when it is dark, so hubby is dealing with the children and animals Monday to Friday by himself for the most part!

I try and help out as much as possible at the weekends but they don't last long enough :-(

Moo is due her calf on the 8th of March. We expect her to go before then. She is in calf to aa.

As the photos show, she is well bagged up. We are excited about having fresh raw milk again.

We intend to keep the calf with her part of the time, so we can milk once a day. This only works for some cows, as they will hold up the milk for the calf. Time will tell but it would leave us freer with regard milking routines and holidays. 

We are buying this week a new portable milk machine. The motor in our last one give up. So we decided to invest in a new machine with warranty. It is better economy in the end. 

I sent away our 3 yr old gelding to be broken back in January. I just don't have the time to work him until May. He is coming along well and I hope to start competing him next year.

The pigs are coming along well. The winter slows down their growth. A couple of months of jersey milk will finish them well. I will be pleased to see them in the freezer. We might sell the sow this year.

It is a lot of work and feed to over winter pigs. It would be more enjoyable for us to  buy in two Weaners in spring just as the cow freshens and send them to the freezer before the cow drys off in autumn. Without the milk, they are very expensive to feed and cleaning out a pigsty in winter is not much fun.

The fox got to our hens. We have two ladies left that are laying ten eggs a week for us. We plan to buy in another dozen in the next few weeks. We are annoyed to be buying in additional eggs at the moment.

We are about half way through our supply of turf. Ever reliable and cheap. It cost us €180 to get four hoppers of turf cut. We turned, footed and brought it home ourself. I love turf :-)

Our ferrets have kept us rodent free all winter! We have not seen any evidence of rodents in the sheds and surrounds. We keep two ferrets in a hutch in the shed and release them for a few days at a time. They return for feeding. We feed them raw organ meats and bones. They are not the most friendly so I handle them with gloves. They have the habit of mistaking my fingers for food. 

January Snow

The weather has been very cold today, although I think that we have had a very mild winter overall so far. The countryside looked very beautiful this morning as I took these photos while feeding the animals.

The orchard, with manure heaped at the base of each tree.

Moo is due her half at the start of May. She is in calf to an Angus. Her belly has started to get very round. She has not bagged up yet but she has eight weeks yet to go. I am looking forward to having fresh milk again. I really miss my morning shake of milk, an egg and frozen berries. It was a super quick and healthy breakfast that I could drink while commuting to work, and it would keep me full until lunch.

The horses are doing well. The 3 yr old is going to a trainer next week for a few months to be broken. I had considered doing it myself but I have too much work commitments and it just would be easier to let someone else due it.

I will be glad to have him gone as he is a bully and is giving the other two a great deal of grief.

We are about half way through winter and have used just under a third of our turf supply. We should have some for next winter also but we will cut more again during the summer. It is a very economical way to heat the cottage.

During the summer, we plan to put a stove in the sitting room and purchase solar hot water panels for the roof.

Winter has been pleasant but I am looking forward to spring. I am eager to get started again with the bees and to have a cow in milk and a horse for riding. 

The polynucs have surprised me. The bees cluster against the walls, so there must be very little heat loss. One nuc that should not have survived due to the small size, seems to be thriving. These hives are more active on mild days than the timber hives. I intend to purchase a full poly hive to trial this season.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! It has been too long. 

It takes a great deal of effect to maintain a blog and due to this, I had to put it on hold while I gave my attention to other areas of my life.

I am currently working and studying, in addition to being a mother, a wife, a milk maid, a cook and unfortunately a cleaner.

So with exams recently sat, I am able to update you on the goings on here at the cottage.

We are all ready for Christmas and the children are very excited. They finished up with school and play school on Friday and are counting down the nights still Santa comes.

We are over wintering my two young horses and the children's pony max together in a new sand paddock. It is working out very well and it doesn't hold a drop of rain.

They are feed haylage along the fence and it is super easy to keep them now.

Moo, the jersey cow has  been dry since we brought her in, back in October. She is her own cow yard near the horses. She is due her calf early in March and her belly is growing everyday. We let her out on grass for a few hours on dry days.

Our milking machine failed just before we dried her up, It will require a new motor and after some consideration, we have decided to purchase a brand new portable milking machine in the New Year. In the long run it should be more cost efficient. I do not want a newly freshening cow without a reliable milk machine.

The bees are clustered for winter. They fly on warmer days to collect water and empty their bowels. I will start to feed them when the days warm up in the new year. At the moment they can't break cluster to feed, I just hope that they stored enough for themselves during last season. We only took a few frames of heather honey from one hive. Some of this has been stored, should I need to it give it to a lighter/weaker hive.

The fox visited and took our two ducks and a young pet chicken called chirp chirp. The children were very saddened by this.

We currently have two roosters and ten hens that are still laying well for us. I collect about four eggs each morning at the moment.

Hubby got two male ferrets a few months ago to resolve the rat issue that we had. Our shed was alive with the amount of rats that were present.

Thankfully the ferrets have cleared out all rats in our immediate area. They have proven to be very easy to keep as we release them a few times a week and they come back for feeding, which is raw meat and off cuts free from our butcher. They are not very tame and handling of them requires gloves. I'm glad we got them.

Merry Christmas xx

October

Winter is drawing in and I feel it!
The evening are getting dark earlier and nights much colder. I have ordered the round bales of haylage for the winter and the animals will be moving in from the fields soon.

We have sold six of the seven piglets over the last few days. The remaining one will stay with the sow for company. They were very easy to sell which surprised me. I had imagined the market at this time of year would be poor compared to spring. Who wants additional livestock going into winter?

The cow will move into the cow yard in the next two weeks. She wouldn't see a field again until  May next year. The milking machine had broke down about two weeks ago and instead of forking out a few hundred to fix it , we have decided to buy a new portable machine in the spring when she freshens. At the moment I am hand-milking her every evening. She is giving about 5 litres on once a day milking. Once she moves indoor, we will dry her off. She is due her angus calf in early March.

The hens are doing well. We are getting about seven eggs a day from ten hens ( one pullet, two ducks and two roosters ). We expect to get (less) eggs right through winter as many of the hens are this years.

The bees are still foraging in the middle of the day. A great deal of pollen is brought back into the hives each day. I expect that the queens will slow down now and then cease laying sometime next month. The full hives should have plenty of stores as I took so little from them but I will continue to feed the two nuc's.

We have three horses. A pony for the children and two youngsters for me. The youngsters stayed at my sisters farm all summer, but the older of the two, a two yr old Mermus R gelding will move back here for the winter. I will collect him at the end of this month. I will be training him over the winter to lunge, long rein and then ride. I prefer to start them young and slow. I worked with him for a few weeks during the summer and he can already be tacked up in cross-ties and take my weight lying over his back. The children continue their riding lessons and will be riding their pony max over the winter. I plan to bring them to lead-rein show jumping leagues in Feb with him.

The range in the kitchen and open fire in the sitting-room is lit every day. The cottage is very cosy and snug! Thank God for turf :-)

Honey frames

The bee keeping year in winding down. The weather has become cooler, especially at night but the bees are still bringing in plenty of pollen mainly from ivy.

I took another three frames of capped honey out of the hives today. This will leave them plenty for the winter. I feel that it will be enough for for us to use over the winter and surplus for the bees larder. If the honey is still there in the spring, I might harvest it then.

I was looking forward to harvesting honey comb but all the frames I brought in happen to be built on wired foundation, which I will be phasing out over the next few years, in preference for foundation-less frames where the bees will draw their own comb.

I made up new batches of salve/balm for the house with the beeswax. I use this for minor cuts and irritated skin, and as udder balm for the cow. It is so simple, cheap and effective! It works so well for nappy rash  in young children and for outdoor winter cracked hands.

The recipe is so simple, just five parts olive oil to one part beeswax. 

I usually add a few drops of essential just because they smell so nice. Gently heat on the range until the beeswax melts into the olive oil. Using more beeswax will produce a firmer salve, which may be preferred during summer months.

We have four piglets going to new homes this evening and another one going to a neighbour in the morning. So this time tomorrow we will have two piglets instead of seven. I am delighted by this!

Piglets eat a lot, and seven eat an awful lot of food! 

It will take a lot of the pressure for milk production off the sow, as they have started to damage her teats with their fierce competition for udder space.

The Honey Harvest

The weather has been especially warm, dry and pleasant for September. The bees are very busy everyday bringing in pollen from heather, ivy and late flowering plants.

They have stored so much honey in a few weeks that I have had to put back on supers and move a nuc into a full hive.

I am pleased because it means that we will not need to feed them over the winter but I will still give them a block of fondant in early spring, for my own piece of mind ;-)

We were able to take one super frame from one of the hives. We do not have an extractor so we gently scraped the honey into a bowl leaving the back wall of the foundation intact. I placed the sticky bowls and frame outside and the bees cleaned it up for me within a few hours.

This one frame produced one litre of honey and I managed to filter about 200g of bees wax. I will take another full box of supers off the hives this weekend yet leaving them with plenty.

When I did an inspection of one hive, I found capped queen cells, plenty of drones and an unmarked queen. This hive had a marked queen! This hive had a double brood box and I had added a super also. I assume that the cells are supercedure as there was brood and eggs of all ages, the time of year and that there was only 3-4 cells produced. I did not see the orginal queen but I did not do a full check into the bottom box.

I apolagise for my lack of blog postings. I am working and studying at the moment and time escapes me. I don't imagine that it will improve until after Christmas, so bear with me  ;-)

Piglets are growing!

The piglets are growing quickly. They are five weeks now.

They have become experts at escaping and chasing the cat and dogs!?!

Mum enjoys a break from them every now and then. They will be moving on to new homes at eight week, we will keep two for ourselves.

It will be nice to have less mouths to feed as the cow has started to dry off and there is less milk available. She is due a calf next March :-)

Our boys have started pony riding on Saturday mornings in the local riding club. I hope it is the start of a life long passion.

September

The turf is all home. There is comfort is having a shed full of fuel as we approach the winter. This will heat our cottage, provide hot water and do much of our cooking over the next six months. 

The children had been busy yesterday helping me collect mushrooms after school.

The fields are full of them. I made and am still making large amounts of mushroom and courgette soup for freezing.

We have lots of courgette and maturing pumpkins in the veg garden.

The piglets are very cute and hardy now. They get out of their yard through the gate and ramble around the field and garden exploring until Sally sow calls them back with her grunts. 

They are great fun to watch. Soon they will have grown too big to fit through and escape. 

The children are back at school and I'm back at work part time. Our home has became  hectic is the mornings and quite during the day. Life is moving on!

The cow has dropped milk production as  is expected for this time of year. In the next 4-6 wks she will come in off the land and stay in her cow yard for the winter. At Christmas we will dry her off. She is due her calf in March. 

The bees are doing well and are flying everyday now. The ivy and heather is starting here and they are bringing in loads of pollen to build up for winter.

I will have less time to update the blog but I will update it :-)