Bzzzzz…
Posted in Beekeeping, General, Mothering on Feb 22nd, 2010
Mmmmmm, the smell of warm beeswax is so yummy!! Leif’s view of his new mobile in the warm afternoon sunshine
Category Archive for 'Beekeeping'
My Child is driving me crazy!!
Posted in Beekeeping, building our home, Chickens/Ducks, Mothering on Apr 17th, 2009
sdlkrnyiod!! ltionadfshlk!!! Did you understand that??? NO!! That’s because it is crazy language! I know, all you parents out there are saying “yeah, I know what you are going through”… But OH NO! She is driving me up the wall, out the window, and over the yellow brick road!! How can a 5 year old [...]
Keeping busy
Posted in Beekeeping, Mothering, Organic Gardening on Apr 13th, 2009
We had one of those wonderful weekends where you stay really busy with all kinds of fun stuff! Though we don’t really celebrate Easter, Kaia and I wanted to do something crafty for spring. First we made sweet little birds nests (and ate way too many M&M’s) We brought a few to a birthday party [...]
Tending the bees
Posted in Beekeeping on Jun 20th, 2008
It’s been a long while since we’ve really gotten into the bee hives and taken a good look at what is going on in there. After the swarms, we have 4 hives, but we have no idea how they are doing. So, Tuesday, a friend and bee mentor came out and helped me go through [...]
Swarm season
Posted in Beekeeping on May 17th, 2008
This year, for some reason, there seems to be a whole lot of swarming going on. Maybe it’s the bees way of trying to make a come back with all the hives that have been lost in the past few years. We started this year with 2 hives, and so far we have had 3 [...]
making nests of all kinds
Posted in Beekeeping, building our home, Chickens/Ducks on Apr 26th, 2008
Toby built his first top bar hive today. It came out really nice! Robbyn, he didn’t really follow any design. He mainly talked with a few friends who have built them before and put together what he thought would work well for us. It’s 12 inches deep and long enough to fit 28 frames. It [...]
Broody lady
Posted in Beekeeping, Chickens/Ducks on Apr 26th, 2008
Ralph, one of our Black Australorp hens, has gone broody. Since we don’t have any roosters, and thus no fertilized eggs, I got 7 fertilized eggs from my brother-in-law. We marked them with a big “F” (fertilized) and slipped them under Ralph. She settled back in and happily covered them all with her wings. She’s [...]
Swarm
Posted in Beekeeping on Apr 24th, 2008
The painters were out working on the house when one of them called me to tell me the bees had swarmed. Toby raced home to find this: They had landed on our out house and were looking for a new home. So, Toby pulled out an extra hive box and put a little lemongrass essential [...]
Happenings at the homestead
Posted in Beekeeping, Chickens/Ducks, Do It Yourself on Sep 16th, 2007
Animals The chickens are doing well. Still laying a bunch. Since they got use to laying in their boxes, they still go back their to lay even though they are completely free range now. No problems with predators, but we’ll see how that goes once the cold weather comes along and food gets more scarce. [...]
What we did this weekend…
Posted in Beekeeping, building our home, Do It Yourself, Sustainable Living on May 22nd, 2006
Well, we are on the home stretch. We got a lot accomplished this weekend and hope to be moving in over the next week. Here are some pictures from this weekend:
This Weekends Progress
Posted in Beekeeping, building our home, Sustainable Living on May 14th, 2006
Just got back from the land a little while ago. We are pretty much on schedule… and exhausted! We put up lots of insulation this weekend, and I am so itchy! I hate that stuff! We also have all the tar paper up, and I painted the doors and primed the windows. (We put a [...]
Beautiful day in the neighborhood
Posted in Beekeeping, building our home on Apr 7th, 2006
Well, we closed without a hitch! We are now caretakers of 25 beautiful acres! We went up there today for a trash pick up… we go two large boxes full of beer cans and bottles, two 55 gallon bags of trash, and 260 pounds of scrap metal! And we didn’t get it all!! Tomorrow, we [...]
Purple, sparkly fairy dress
Posted in Beekeeping, Holistic Medicine, Mothering on Mar 14th, 2006
Last week, I promised K that I would make her a “purple, sparkly fairy dress” when she got over the chicken pox. So, yesterday, we went to the fabric store and she picked out what she wanted for her dress, and I spent the afternoon sewing. I have to say that I am very impressed [...]
mama’s play time!
Posted in Beekeeping, General, Home Schooling, Mothering on Sep 6th, 2005
Well, I just dropped K off at her first day of play school! I am still struggling with the “I can do everything and still get a nice dinner on the table” mama attitude, and have realized that in order to keep (or get back) my sanity, I need a break! So, I found this [...]
Class and Bees
Posted in Beekeeping, Holistic Medicine on Jun 30th, 2005
Well, I gave my 20 minute herb talk for 26 eight to ten year olds today and it went fantastic! (I painted a big flower on my face and put glitter on the flower and on my eyes and cheeks.) These kids were so much more interested than the little kids. I think it made [...]
Beekeeping, garden making and land searching
Posted in Beekeeping, General, Mothering, Organic Gardening, Ponderings on Jun 6th, 2005
OK, there are going to be lots of pictures in this one! First, the bees. They are doing well. Though one hive still has a moderately high mite count, both hives are growing rapidly!! The queens are laying really well and the population is just exploding, which is great! They are bringing in lots of [...]
“HEY!! WHACHU LOOKIN’ AT???”
Posted in Beekeeping on May 27th, 2005
Thanks Kathy, for the great pic of one of my ladies!!
Bees and Garden
Posted in Beekeeping, Organic Gardening on May 25th, 2005
We did our 3rd and mite treatment for my hive yesterday. The girls are looking great! Lots of pollen and nectar stored, some capped honey and lots of worker brood. We also spotted the queen, which is always a plus since we are looking in a hive of about 50 thousand bees! My 24 hour [...]
Spiral Update
Posted in Beekeeping, Organic Gardening, Sustainable Living on May 17th, 2005
I’ve been filling in my spiral garden and it is looking nice. It’s going to be stuffed with plants! So far it has Comfrey, Motherwort, Bee Balm, Johnny-Jump-Ups, Chives, Marjoram, Thyme, Magenta Lambs Quarters, Yarrow, Lemon Balm, and Zinnea. I moved the Jeruselem Artichoke and Bay Laurel to another bed once that was set up [...]
Bee update
Posted in Beekeeping on May 12th, 2005
We checked on the bees this afternoon and they are doing great! Both hives are drawing out the new foundation and storing lots of nectar and pollen. We also found lots of capped and uncapped brood and spotted the queen in both hives. In my hive, I didn’t see any bees without wings this time! [...]
Lessons Learned
Posted in Beekeeping on May 8th, 2005
Lessons Learned From Our First Round Of Varroa Mite Treatments: 1- Start treatment when the day light is increasing, not decreasing. (It might be easier to treat the bees if you can see them!! Don’t start your treatment regimen at sundown like us idiots!) 2-Suit up well! (Spraying your bees with sucrocide, though it will [...]
Happy
Posted in Beekeeping, Holistic Medicine, Ponderings on May 8th, 2005
Just a little tidbit that I thought you might like to know… According to the May 2 Newsweek, if stay-at-home moms were compensated for all the hours they work, their net would be $131,471/year!! It’s nice to know I’m worth 6 figures… now where are my benefits?? What did I get for mother’s day?? Breakfast [...]
Varroa Attack
Posted in Beekeeping on May 5th, 2005
Well, we had one of the state bee inspectors come out yesterday and go through our hives, show us how to spot problems, look for the queen, etc… Unfortunately, he found evidence of varroa in one of the hives. There were many bees without wings (a sign of varroa infestation) and we even found a [...]
The Current State Of Bees
Posted in Beekeeping on May 4th, 2005
Here’s a recent post in the NY Times about the crisis we are in to save the honeybee. Until this year, I never thought about the hit that the farming industry would take if we lost the honey bee… pollination of the blueberries, almonds, everything would decrease dramatically, availability of foods would decrease and food [...]
The ladies are finally here!
Posted in Beekeeping on May 1st, 2005
Well, 3 weeks after we were supposed to get our bees, they are finally home and getting settled in! (We had a few miscommunication issues with the guy we bought them from, but it all turned out fine ) So, we lit our smoker and opened up our hives for the first time. I have [...]
Cleanse Prep Day 1
Posted in Beekeeping, Cleansing, Holistic Medicine on Apr 8th, 2005
Ok, I’m not even fasting yet and I am starving! I keep walking in to the kitchen and looking at the bread and cheese and yogurt and thinking “just one little bite” I love eating fruits and veggies, but my system is so use to more than that. This morning when I was fixing K’s [...]
off to school
Posted in Beekeeping, Organic Gardening on Mar 9th, 2005
I’ll be signing out for a few days. I’m off to Asheville for the Annual Organic Growers School. I’m taking classes on “Planning your Vegetable Garden”, “Organic Beekeeping”, Easy Raised Beds for High Performance”, and either “Building Healthy Garden Soil” or “Medicinal Herbs”. See you when I get back!!
Lion, Tiger, and Bear
Posted in Beekeeping, Do It Yourself, Organic Gardening, Sustainable Living on Feb 26th, 2005
These past few days have been filled with fun projects! On Thursday night, I got to go to my monthly herb class/meeting! One of the local herbalists holds a monthly class out of her home and this months topic was “Pain and Herbs”. As always, I felt like I had gone home when I was [...]
Hello
Posted in Beekeeping, General on Jan 22nd, 2005
I just wanted to say hello to everyone out there! Things have been so hectic/frantic/spastic here, but not in a “hey, that’s cool, I should blog about it” way. So, I’ve been silent. Toby and K have both had colds, and I am frantically trying to get everything together with Full Circle Herbs before the [...]
Beekeeping
Posted in Beekeeping, Sustainable Living on Jan 4th, 2005
Did you know that there is a “Beekeeping for Dummies”? There is! I love the “dummies” series. I started taking a beekeeping course last night and it is a blast! The main speaker last night was a sweet old farmer who seemed to run off track with every other sentence, but he was still so [...]