Episode 49 of the podcast is up, and this week I am taking the time to share all about what is happening here on the homestead.
Topics include: rehoming my aggressive rooster, bringing home a new rooster, vegetable plant progress, and apiary news! Listen over on Podbean, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Homestead Updates
The tomatoes are starting to fruit! Most of the varieties I chose fruit in bunches, which I haven’t experienced before. There’s something so charming about these little bunches of tiny green tomatoes slowly growing larger and larger. These plants have exploded so much that I’m a bit worried they’re crowded again (and maybe I was supposed to be pruning/pinching more?). Two have grown so large that they’re overshadowing my pepper plants. One more thing to remember for next year’s plans! I was able to get out yesterday and prune and tie them back. A quick look in my books reminded me that I am supposed to remove leaves from the first 12 inches of stalk so I did that and also cut back any dead leaves. Some of the plants had exploded out of their cages so it took me a while to gently get things back in line. Looks a lot better now! I am pleased with this bed. Also, my hands smelled amazing after this work. Yum!
I’m cautiously optimistic that I spaced my corn plants out more effectively this year as they just look bigger and healthier than last year’s attempt. I just put the beans in, and added more fertilizer spikes. These are new for me; I usually use pellets or a liquid mix you add to water. This year, it seemed like a good idea to put in those slow-release spikes because I’m forgetful.
I’m running out of time to get the buckwheat going as well as the pumpkin patch, if I want to get anything from them. It’s just been so hot and then so rainy that I keep putting it off. I figure it will either get done this week or I’ll save the seeds until next year.
The berry bushes that I netted off to protect from deer are fruiting and, as I suspected, they’re blackberry bushes! I’ve been very much enjoying plucking the ripe berries when I’m out by the apiary and eating them fresh. Hoping to get a decent harvest from the few I have protected from deer and birds (and roaming chickens!). They’re so delicious that I might just eat them fresh (with gluten free cheesecake, if feeling decadent!), although freezing them to make blackberry cobbler or crumble in the cooler months would be delicious too. It’s especially delightful for me because, growing up, I was told that wild berries were filled with worms. Why would my parents think this?? Such a weird thing to say! Then again, my folks were never outdoor types and we rarely did anything that involved being out in nature. They also didn’t allow animals in the house and never understood why I was so fascinated by wildlife. I’d say it’s odd that I ended up immersing myself in nature as an adult but, honestly, it makes sense. I was desperate for a pet as a child and spent hours pouring over books about all kinds of animals and ecosystems. There was even a time I wanted to be a marine biologist!
My much neglected, weed choked side bed is blooming with wildflowers and clover at the moment! I am itching to start working on getting it into shape. Even if I can’t get all the weeds out, just pulling 50% would make it look so much better. The flowers blooming at the moment are gorgeous. I went with a drought resistant seed mix because that area doesn’t get much rain and isn’t conveniently located by a tap. They seem to be flourishing! Fingers crossed they have established and will be back year after year. The corn and sunflowers I planted at the back here are also coming up nicely so that will be beautiful in a few weeks!
I did get a strawberry harvest but I missed a lot of them. This is definitely something I want to fix next year; keep a much closer eye on that bed so I don’t miss out on all these delicious little berries. Speaking of strawberries, I finally looked up whether the little strawberry-esque fruits that pop up in my lawn are wild strawberries or something else. Turns out, we have both! Wild strawberries (also called alpine strawberries, woodland strawberry, Carpathian strawberry, and European strawberry; Latin name: Fragaria vesca) are a member of the rose family, and grow throughout the Northern hemisphere. The flowers are white, and the fruit is small and sweet. We also have mock strawberry (aka Indian strawberry and false strawberry; Latin name: Potentilla indica), which is similar in appearance but the flowers are yellow, and the fruit (though edible) is rather bland. So if you have little strawberries popping up on your property, odds are they’re safe to eat but, whether you will want to, entirely depends on whether they’re wild strawberry or mock strawberry.
I am delighted to report that Meatbutt, one of my older hens, seems to have made a full recovery from whatever made her so poorly a few weeks ago. Not only is she moving around more but she feels like she might have gained weight, and she has started laying eggs again!! Only two so far but, considering her age and recent health, I was amazed to find them. I can’t eat these eggs because of the medications she has been taking but it’s still a delight to find them. She also seems to have fully acclimated to the special needs coop and doesn’t seem to miss roaming free with the other hens, although those girls do come and hang out with her throughout the day, which is unexpected and charming.
Speaking of chickens, I finally decided to move my rooster, Pepperjack, to a new home. It was a long shot but I reached out to a few online communities, and was lucky enough to hear back from a woman who runs a small rescue farm about 20 minutes away from me. I’ll be honest, I was nervous about placing him. A lot of people look for free roosters as an easy meal (and I did have someone reach out who I believe intended to eat him!) and I was worried about how he might adjust to living with other roosters. I needn’t have worried! This farm is basically my dream. The woman who runs it is an absolute sweetheart and gave me a mini-tour. We ended up chatting for over an hour, and I loved hearing about all the animals. She has alpacas, mini horses, donkeys, pot-belly pigs, chickens of all breeds (including Silkies and bantams), ducks, geese, a gorgeous highland steer, guineafowl, and probably more that I am forgetting! All are rescues, some taken before they could be sent to slaughter, some seized from terrible neglect and/or hoarding situations, and others given to her from people who couldn’t keep them anymore. Any animal that she takes in will be there for life, and everything the farm produces (soap, educational events, hay, etc) are offered for donations only. It’s really inspiring! She sent me away with an armful of soaps and lip balm (for which I insisted on leaving a donation), and we will be setting up a hive on her property next Spring! I’ll supply the bees and equipment, she’ll assist with management (and learn as we go), and we will split the harvest. All she wants is the beeswax for her soaps and body care products so the honey is all mine! I’ve wanted to try having an outyard for a while so this will be a fun experiment.
Pepperjack is doing really well with her! He has his own little flock of hens, is friends with a few roosters, and has accepted that he will not be top rooster anytime soon (that position is currently held by Magic Mike!).
The same day that I dropped Pepperjack off at this farm, I also picked up a new rooster! It just so happened that a friend had a rooster who had fallen in love with her turkey hen and would not leave the poor girl alone. It was clearly stressing her out and so she wanted to place him with a chicken-only flock. I reached out and we organized his collection. He was raised around her children and so is not at all aggressive. In fact, he’s a little wary of people, which is a refreshing change for me! I haven’t officially named this guy yet (I just call him Handsome for now) but he’s a good looking guy and quite large! Not as heavy as Pepperjack, he is about as tall and wide, probably because he’s a mix of Barred Rock and Brahma. Due to the Brahma genes, he has partly feathered legs. I think he’s a lovely looking bird, and his comb is really beautiful; I think it’s a rose comb, or maybe a really big pea comb? I'm not sure but I've never seen anything like it before. My friend estimates he’s 18 months old so just a baby compared to my hens!
I kept him confined to the run, away from the girls, for 24 hours and then let him into the coop at night. For 48 hours, I kept the flock confined so they could bond. He seems much more gentle than Pepperjack so they took to him almost right away. I was a bit concerned that Cheddar would mourn the loss of Pepperjack as they were found together in the city and seem to be bonded. However, she does not seem to care! Within minutes of meeting the new rooster, she was already cowering behind him when she saw me (she has never been tame), which he seemed to love, bless him! So I expected her to become his favourite but I see him hanging with Cracker the most. Those two are almost always together. It’s very sweet! She was queen bitch before Pepperjack put a stop to that so it’s interesting to see her take to this younger, less pushy male. Is she seizing her chance to return as reigning queen of the flock? Or does she genuinely just prefer this younger model? Time will tell! Either way, I am very happy with how they’re all getting along, and it’s such a pleasure to be able to go out of the fence without needing to carry a rake to fend off attack. I didn’t fully realise how much it was effecting me and the time I was spending with the chickens until Pepperjack was gone. I’m so glad it has worked out for all involved! Pepperjack is happy in his new (much bigger and fancier!) home, the new rooster seems to love his girls, and I am enjoying not being under attack constantly. Win-win!
I plan to bring some pullets home in August. I asked for a small, secure coop and run for my birthday to use as a quarantine coop, and my plan is to get it all set up and bring some new girls in. I’m hoping to adopt from one of the nearby rescues who takes chicks from feed stores that need a little TLC. If they’re all adopted out already, I’ll drive to a hatchery that’s about an hour away and grab a mix of whatever they have available. I would love some coloured egg layers (easter egger, olive egger, marans, etc), and I love the look of breeds like cochins and orpingtons so we shall see!
After over a year of saying I would get to it, I finally, FINALLY, cleared out all the raccoon poop in the top floor of our shed, and in our boat!! The reason I have been putting it off for so long is that raccoon faeces contains a kind of roundworm that can be inhaled (as well as swallowed), and which can cause irreversible damage to our eyes, heart, and brain. To safely dispose of their droppings, I geared up in a full set of coveralls over some old clothes, wore thick rubber gloves, and an N95-rated respirator. I had two buckets; one with hot soapy water, and one with hot water and disinfectant. Wetting the poop before removing it helps reduce the chance of being exposed to the roundworm eggs so everything was wetted down before I shoveled it away. In the boat, I threw away anything porous (ropes, floats, etc) that might have come into contact with the waste, and then disinfected the whole inside. It took me about two hours to do and it ended up being a scorching hot day so it was not pleasant! But it is finally done. Hurrah! You can learn more about how to safely clean raccoon latrines at this website.
We have new babies on the homestead! My husband hatched another litter of healthy baby carpet pythons in June, and I just received 3 baby pink tongue skinks from Europe to diversify my bloodlines. I’m so excited! Taking the year off from breeding made me forget how small these babies are and I’ve been fussing over them quite a bit.
We had a whole-house generator installed! This was ordered back at the beginning of the year and July 1st was the earliest they could do the install. It went so well and I am really surprised by how compact and snazzy this thing looks! It’s going to be a real game changer for us, and I’m so excited to have it all set up. Definitely do not want a repeat of last winter when we lost power for days and had to rush the reptiles to Henry’s office at 4am!
Hive Updates
The new nucleus colony I brought home does not like the hot and humid weather, and were extremely upset with me trying to work with them during such. Made a note of it. Some colonies can be particular about certain weather conditions. Macha’s girls hated the rain and I would get stung if I had to pop in even to give food right before a rain or during a light drizzle.
Got my first sting of the year! Pretty good to get to July before it happened. It was one of the girls from the top bar colony during a mite test.
It finally happened; a bee got into my veil!! Freaked me out and shook my confidence more than I want to admit. I’m so used to my veil feeling impenetrable that it shook me up to find a bee in there. No sting, thankfully, though I did have to squish her to get her out in the end. I washed my suit and veil after to get the pheromones out, and I checked it for holes. I think I found the issue (some loose stitching) but the next inspection will really let me know how secure it is moving forward.
Honey harvest coming up! Within the next 7-10 days should be when I can start pulling frames. There are a few deep frames that are chock full of honey, and at least 2 honey supers that I think will be ready to go. I’m a little anxious because I want to get those off and harvested before our vacation at the end of the month, and I also have a ton of stuff to get done before then, including a student visiting and staying with us for a weekend. Worst case, I’ll take the supers off and store them in airtight containers until I have time to harvest.
June 22nd, the apiary inspector visited.
Going to break things down by hive this week!
Hive #1 (Queen Cailleach, Saskatraz-Ohio):
Only queen who survived the winter.
This colony was split on May 10th with the queen moved to a new location (to mimic a natural swarm)
There was a time when her egg production seemed to have slowed down but things have picked up again in the last few weeks.
Currently has 2 deep/brood boxes and 2 meds/honey supers
Within about 2 weeks, they suddenly started to work hard on the honey, and there’s been a big burst of brood. I’m really happy with what I’m seeing in this colony.
When I added the second medium on June 28th, I also put on a queen excluder. I always feel like I need to watch a colony more closely once an excluder is on as it limits where the queen can lay, which could lead to swarming. It’s going to be in the 90s for the next few days but I am hoping to pop out sometime in the morning to make sure everything is still looking good in here. Cailleach does still have space to lay but it never hurts to keep an eye on that.
Hive #2 (queenless split):
Created on May 10th from overwintered colony. Gave them a frame of queen cells from nucleus colony #1.
May 14th: 4 capped queen cells in the middle box, and 4 almost capped in bottom box. I took the frame of almost-capped cells and made a new nucleus colony (nuc #2).
May 23rd: possible hatched queen cell; 4 swarm cells. Colony is so populous that I gave them an additional deep box. Now consists of 2 deeps, and 2 mediums.
May 24th: gave them 1 frame of eggs and 1 frame of mixed brood from Hive #1. The swarm cells have been pulled down by the colony. I added an extra medium (maybe jumping the gun).
May 31st: no new queen cells. Virgin queen present?
June 4th: 1 huge swarm cell found in middle box but no other queen cells. Gave them another frame of eggs.
June 12th: huge swarm cell gone, and new swarm cells being made but still no sign of eggs or virgin queen. I decided to leave all the cells as is.
June 13th: I had a weird feeling about the swarm cells and so went back in and found tiny larva in swarm cells and a smattering of eggs but no sign of a queen. She was here at least 3 days ago based on the presence of eggs. Supersedure/queen cells already being pulled so perhaps the colony disposed of her? Took one medium super off because they weren’t using it.
June 15th: decided to split this colony due to all the swarm and queen cells. ½ got the swarm cells, and the remaining half got the queen/supersedure cells.
June 19th: merged the split back together! I noticed that one half of the split didn’t seem to be doing as well and I started to second-guess myself. On the plus side, the swarm cells have been pulled down.
June 28th: one honey super almost ready to harvest! New queen cells being made! Gave them another frame of eggs and brood from hive #1. Mite test: 0/300
To do this week: look for signs of new queen. Give more eggs if no change or consider buying a queen. Pull honey to harvest.
Hive #3 (Flora):
Started as nuc #2, which was made from the split on May 17th.
May 23rd: 2 capped queen cells. Population a little low. Gave them 1 frame of eggs and started offering syrup for support.
May 31st: spotted virgin queen! Population still small but holding steady.
June 4th: queen looks bigger! Mated? No eggs yet.
June 12th: eggs!!! Queenright. Moved into deep/brood Langstroth (full size hive); kept in same location. Still offering syrup. 6 frames with eggs, brood, and food, and 4 new frames (foundation only).
June 14th: added medium of drawn comb
June 20th: marked queen (white); queen, eggs, brood.
June 28th: mite test 0/300! Girls working on the honey super in earnest now.
Hive #4 (purchased nuc):
Ohio queen: Olwen, Welsh sun goddess who overcame 13 obstacles to obtain true love, and so is associated with hardship and tenacity!
June 14th: nuc brought home (actually dropped off by the seller; thanks, Emily!). Moved into full size hive and offered syrup for support.
June 20th: dropped the queen! Freaked out. FOUND HER and successfully marked her (white). Colony looks good; eggs, brood, queen.
Mite test: 1/300. Excellent!
Nuc #1:
Created from Hive #1 on April 27th. 5 frames of pollen, eggs, brood, and honey. Gave them a second box with drawn comb and some honey stores. Feeder on (syrup and patty). Shook in extra bees and closed the entrance overnight.
May 1st: placed Carniolan queen from dead/dying package in here
May 8th: queen accepted but no sign of eggs and there are 2 capped queen cells, which I left alone.
May 14th: no sign of Carniolan queen. Gave them a frame of eggs.
May 17th: queen definitely gone. Colony has pulled even more queen cells and seems content.
May 23rd: 3 capped queen cells but overall brood is low so I added another frame of mixed brood.
May 24th: found a newly hatched, still fuzzy queen!
May 31st: no sign of virgin queen today (mating flight?). 2 capped queen cells and one almost ready to be capped. Leaving them to it.
June 4th: previous queen definitely gone. 1 capped queen cell and 1 almost ready. Colony still industrious and calm.
June 12th: colony is pulling down the queen cells. Virgin queen?
June 19th: open queen cell but did not spot virgin.
June 28th: no sign of eggs or queen. Gave one frame of eggs from Hive #1. Still offering syrup as support.
To do: check for sign of queen. Give them a few more weeks to get queenright and then will merge them with Hive #3 if no success.
Top Bar Hive (Fortuna/Italian):
April 29th: received dead and dying package. Could not save them despite best attempts.
May 8th (Day 1): second package successfully installed. Georgia bees, Italian genetics. Cold nights so I am a little worried about them.
May 10th: weather has warmed up a little so I spritzed the bees with sugar syrup to give them some food. Feeder installed but want to make sure they eat ASAP.
May 17th: already working on 4-5 frames! Lovely fresh wax.
May 23rd: 5 big, full frames of comb created, working on 3 more. Added 3 bars. Eggs, brood, queen. Colony is so docile!
May 31st: just peeked in the observation window to check progress. Looking good!
June 4th: still building beautiful comb. Eggs, brood, queen. Removed the pollen patty in feeder as they haven’t needed it.
June 12th (Day 36): added 1 bar.
June 15th: eggs, brood, queen. Might need spacers now as noticing increase in comb size (for honey).
June 20th: added 1 bar and put 4 spacers in. Eggs and brood but missed the queen today.
June 28th (Day 52): eggs, brood, queen. Added 2 bars. Mite test: 0! 1st sting of the season from these girls. Still overall docile but pissed at me for the mite test.
To Do:
Honey harvest
Keep on top of monthly mite test
Consider treatment options (I have oxalic acid, formic pro, and Apiguard on hand)
Monitor for signs of swarming
Get queenright
Think ahead to winter (what needs to be done?)
And that's it for this week! Thank you for joining me. Next episode will be my 50th! Hard to believe! I haven't taken a break from the podcast since I started it almost 2 years ago so I am likely going to take the rest of the month off, and re-post a classic episode to celebrate my 50th. I hope you'll listen in!
Enjoy the summer, and take care of yourselves. <3