double combs on a top bar hive

Finally a bee post!

The inside view of one of our top bar hives. This is the back of it.



Bees on new comb, it's very light in color.




Bees on older comb, the comb is more of a yellow/gold. There are some larvae, and capped brood in this photo.




A close up of capped brood and larvae.



More capped brood and larvae on comb that's not so brand new. The raised bullet shaped cells are drone brood.

Since we started with the top bar hives we had a couple bars that the bees had double comb on. Initially our philosophy was to leave it bee. The bees won't do anything that isn't good for them right?! Right. Well eventually we had 4 and in some cases 5-7 bars that couldn't be lifted individually. Not so bad for the bees, but really problematic for us, and totally uninspectable. Here's some pics of what was going on. We figured out that out top bars were too wide and have started replacing all the original bars with narrower bars.



Notice the long peanut shell looking cells at the bottom of the comb, those are queen cells.




Closer view of the queen cells.

As I saw it, we had a few options;

• leave them alone - least invasive, but this would have made the hive inaccessible eventually
• slowly move these double combs out by adding new smaller bars in front of them - less invasive, but it could take awhile and in the mean time the problem is getting worse.
• cut off the double combs and reattach to new narrower bars - involves an incredible amount of intrusion, and as we found out, carnage.

The other situation was those queen cells.....swarm cells, supersedure cells, just in case cells (some were not capped), or was the queen gone entirely and they were trying to replace her? To be honest, I have no idea, initially we thought swarm cells due to their placement on the comb. Our plan was to do a split, moving the old queen and some bees to a new hive and letting the old hive raise a new queen. Simulating what would happen in a natural swarm. Lots of folks say once the bees decide to swarm they'll do it, so we figured on trying to work with it.

Problem was, once we got in the hive we couldn't find the queen, and realized there weren't any eggs, plus we didn't give ourselves enough time to do what we wanted to, and we forgot our smoker, and the bees were incredibly grumpy that day(it was a cloudy day so that probably didn't help). It was a disaster, and after only seperating one bar of double comb we gave up for the day. I also dropped a whole comb full of bees, it was awful. We never did find the queen and have since realized that our hive is queenless, no eggs no new larvae. Good thing we didn't do that split, or maybe they were ready to swarm and we killed the queen during one of our inspections,at any rate it was a disastrous first attempt at cutting off the double combs.

We left them alone for awhile to settle down and to fix all the damage we caused. I was worried that they'd be furious when we went back, or that they'd have left the hive altogether, I wouldn't blame them if they did.. In the meantime, we re-evaluated our plans, for one we realized we should give ourselves double the time we think we need, and if conditions aren't right to mess with the hive we need to just not do it, also don't forget the smoker. We also picked different hair clips, the ones we initially chose were too wide and the bars wouldn't sit right next to each other, causing the bees to have too much space, and yes again make double comb on those bars.....

When we went back the bees were still there, queen cells were all still capped, but no eggs or larvae, so we're hoping they're well on their way to making a new queen. We finished off the job of seperating all the bars with double comb in just a few minutes, and closed the bees up to continue their work.

We'll figure it out eventually, it's a learning process, I just felt bad the bees had to suffer. Still it seems that they are resilient little creatures.

Garden 2011- Progress

So far so good.

Here's a couple things we figured out so far.

• Just laying some dirt on top of the hay and putting seeds or tiny seedlings into it means you have to water constantly. Until the roots are established enough to draw moisture from the soil beneath you risk them drying out and dying. Solution-put in bigger seedlings, deeper in the compost.

• Don't just pile grass on as a top layer because it mats up and forms this impenetrable barrier that water runs off of. Solution- mound grass on and then put hay on top of that.

• This method isn't work free, but it is nearly weed free! I hate weeding and by this time every year my garden is over run with weeds, but not THIS year. Every couple days I pull a blade of grass or two, that's it.

• Letting go of all the ideas about rows and how far apart things have to be is liberating. This garden may not be traditionally beautiful, but I've really found the beauty in how certain plants grow together. How the close growing plants help keep the weeds down, and how much the worms and other insects love our undisturbed soil.

• Companion planting works! See brassicas in the following photos....

Ok done with the words time for PICS.....





Directly in front is horehound, to the right is our sage, and in between the two is lavender. Somewhere in there is some rosemary, dill, lemon balm, and persistent mint growing through many layers of cardboard and mulch.



Swiss chard, egyptian onions gone wild, and peppers getting killed by slugs!



Baby tomatoes and pole beans, mixed in there are onions and carrots.



Broccoli and cauliflower

Broccoli in the herb bed....noticed it is untouched by the slugs...

More brassicas (kohlrabi) not in the herb bed, getting murdered by slugs... companion planting seems to be working.

Again hardly touched by slugs in the herb bed.

Pumpkins..... I think...

Our first head of broccoli forming.

lavender blooming

Sage blooming

Side note:
We gave up TV again this summer. Cable's off today, hopefully this summer is as busy and productive as last.

Next up:

That sauerkraut post I promised you, AND bee updates....seriously..... now that I have no TV I have more time to blog....=0)

Garden 2011 - no till/permaculture

Last year we didn't have much of a garden, but over the winter Aaron and I did some reading and planning.

In late February I started planting seeds, this was my first batch. I planted more and more throughout March and April...and nurtured them alot... they were needy little seedlings.

This year we decided to use raised beds, since our previous attempts at no til were kind of a mess/failure.

So we designed some beds, bought some fir, and Aaron got to work setting up our "no till/permaculture/lasagna gardening/no dig/sheet mulching/whatever you wanna call it" raised beds. It's called so many different things and there's alot of variations.  The idea we're working on here is creating some natural balance, not digging up and disturbing the soil, using the compost to keep the weeds down and feed the plants. 

In early April we set up the beds right over the grass,and put cardboard around any of the perennials (hopefully killing the very invasive oregano and peppermint that had taken over), and layered it on top of the grass in the other beds.

Going around the sage and lavender.

Next came the layers of wet newspaper, going around the egyptian onions.

On top of that went some sawdust and then some composted goat manure that we got for next to nothing.

then lots of old, bad hay (hoping all the seeds are dead at this point), which was also dirt cheap.

Then a layer of grass clippings from our lawn. (We haven't used pesticides or fertilizers other than chicken manure in over 2 years on our lawn, so the clippings are safe to use) That's pretty much it, there's no set group of materials to use. The idea is to use what you have/can find. the only guideline we've been following is to  layer "brown" (carbon) and "green" (nitrogen) materials at about a 3:1 ratio. If you're interested here's a list of what's brown and what's green.

I pushed aside the top layer of hay/grass and planted my seedlings directly into the hole I made, along with some compost, then tucked it in.

Seedlings hardening off outside.

The socks that took forever = DONE!

I finally finished them while I was on vacation in South Carolina.



......uh but I forgot to take a picture....yeah seriously......



So glad to be done, sent these off to my mom, and have already started a new pair.

Bees Bees Bees

So today we went and picked up our bees from warm colors apiary, and installed them in our top bar hive.

This is not a how to, we messed up a few things.

One: we didn't uncork the queen box.

We ended up going back in and uncorking the queen's box, and we decided to shake the bees into the hive, they were just not coming out.

Also we're going back tomorrow to give them more sugar water.

They were very gentle, no stings at all. And I had so much fun, and they seemed to like their new home, they settled in very quickly.

Yogurt FAIL

So I tried my hand at making yogurt, it was....interesting.... and the results were edible, I think. The dogs didn't get sick at any rate........

I started out with 1 quart of raw milk, stuck it in the crockpot, turned it on low for 2 1/2 hours.

Then I turned off the slow cooker and let it sit for 3 hours.

I then added my store bought yogurt culture. (this could have been my problem, because I think I should have taken some milk out, mixed in the starter, and then mixed it all together)

Lid back on, and wrapped it all nice and cozy to keep it warm, and let it sit for 8 hours.

(yeah, it felt weird to let warm milk just sit out on my counter, kinda skeeved me out to be honest)

In the morning I ended up with this beige, runny, lumpy mess.

I refrigerated it in the hope it would firm up, and it did, a little....

However, it remained beige and lumpy...

Icky yogurt FAIL

Fed it to the dogs, they loved it....

Not making yogurt again..........until I get an actual yogurt maker, hint hint Santa...

the socks that took forever.....

See these socks? These pretty knee socks?

They are taking FOREVER, I started them sometime in early December and have yet to finish them. Granted I haven't been knitting every day, but still, I'm sort of "done" with them.

Except...... they're a gift for my Mom, a Christmas gift actually, I gave her a promise of socks for Christmas, LOL. So I can't be "done" just yet. Once I get to the heel on the second sock I'll feel like I'm almost there...

When they are FINALLY done, I may have a hard time giving them away.

 I love this color, and I love knitted knee socks.

I'm just not fond of knitting them right now.

Is it Spring yet?

Well it might not be Spring yet, BUT I started some seeds last night.

Just some early flowers, but it's so exciting, every day is longer, and the sun feels a little warmer. I love Winter but every year around the end of February I get to a point where I can't wait to start digging in the ground, and I'm so there right now.

We've got big plans for a garden this year. 4 raised beds using the no-till gardening method (I'll explain more later), lots of companion planting, and hopefully very litle weeding. We both hate weeding, and we're hoping we mulch enough this year that the weeds are not able to grow.

Take a look:

Pretty exciting; petunias, scabiosas (prettier than it sounds), pansies, a variety of herbs, snapdragons, and yes some apple seeds. We'll see what happens. They have a nice sunny spot on our sun porch, and a nice little heating mat to keep that soil warm enough to quickly germinate.

Making butter from unhomogenized raw milk

I've been experimenting with milk; making butter, and boy have I learned alot, so I'm gonna share it with you!

Let's start at the beginning...MILK, well actually it's the cows, but to shorten this up we'll start with milk. The milk you buy in the store is homogenized and pasteurized. What do those two words mean?

Well...homogenization is essentially breaking up the fat globules in milk into smaller sized globules so the cream doesn't seperate from the milk. Here's a much more interesting in depth discussion of the why's and how's of homogenization.

Pasteurization is basically a heat sterilization process. It's used to kill the "bad bugs" in milk. It also kills the good bacteria, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and other beneficial ingredients found in raw milk. There's a whole debate about raw vs. pasteurized milk going on, and it's so lengthy that it warrants a whole post of its own. At any rate, this link will give you some more info about the pasteurization of milk. As far as legality, in Massachusetts it is legal to sell raw milk right from the farm, but you won't find it in a store. The farms that sell it are also subject to monthly imnspections and tests, far more frequent than mainstream commercial dairies.

Now another factor is what the cows eat...do they eat grain, grass, hay? Does it really make a difference? Well I'm no cow expert, but here's what I knew starting out, the feed affects the butterfat content of the milk, and milk from grass fed cows has more good fatty acids (CLA) than milk from grain fed cows.

So I found myself 3 kinds of milk, all unhomogenized, some pasteurized, some unpasteurized.

So far I have no churn, just using the "mason jar + milk + lots of shaking" method, which takes alot of shaking. I figured I'd enlist some help, but first I wanted to make sure it worked.

I let the cream rise, sucked it off with a turkey baster, and let it sit out and come to room temperature. Then Aaron shook it alot...

Aaron's test batch, it actually worked!!

I grabbed 2 little family members with lots of energy and put them to work shaking.

This one liked to shake under my desk..

Having fun? 

...they were great on clean up, including dishes.

I even made them make their own supper! 

Mmmmm...calzones..... 

But wait this post is about butter... so here ya go..

 

Here are my findings:

 

Butter from grain fed, organic, unpasteurized, unhomogenized cow's milk- From Cook Farm in Hadley, MA

• Color: very light color
• flavor: good, but margarine-like, almost oily

 

 

 

 

Butter from grass fed, organic, pasteurized, unhomogenized cow's milk- From Natural by Nature, purchased at The Living Earth in Worcester, MA

•  Color: much brighter yellow, clearly much yellower than grain fed
• Flavor: creamier, more buttery

 

 

Butter from hay fed*, organic, unpasteurized, unhomogenized cow's milk- From Robinson's Farm in Hardwick, MA

• Color: yellow, darker than grain fed, but not as bright as grass fed
• Flavor: Creamy, very buttery and smooth tasting, the best of the three

• *The cows are usually grass fed but in late November, early December they start getting hay.
• I'd be interested to see how the color/flavor changes when the cows are back on grass in the Spring
  

The butters shown in the same order as above from left to right: grain fed, grass fed, hay fed

This picture shows the color differences pretty well.

The Verdict: the last butter is the best.

 

 As for the leftovers from making butter; the buttermilk

 ...the first 2 times there wasn't much left so the dogs got it. The third time I saved it and will be making Sunday morning whole wheat buttermilk pancakes! YUM

 

In general, making butter with a canning jar is fun, but not something I'd consider doing to supply all of our butter needs. It's time consuming, messy(especally if the lid comes off), and a lot of work for very little butter. I did try using our food processor for the last batch, and I didn't like the results, the butter got too hot and was hard to seperate from the buttermilk. In the future I have hopes of buying a real butter churn which makes the idea of making larger batches much more conceivable.

 

 

http://www.lehmans.com/  sells a churn similar to a Dazey churn that I think would serve us well.

 

one day....one day..hee hee

 you will live in my house and I will make butter with you.

and I will have my own cow, and some chickens, and bees, and turkeys and sheep....and a big old broken down farmhouse with land and stone walls...

But until then I buy my raw milk, make my butter, and dream.

=0)