March 2011
03-20-11
"The Wild, Wild West"
It's bee time again.
On Saturday David and I drive to the blueberry orchards to cheek the bees.
It is hot, well over 80 degrees.
We arrive to find the blueberries bursting, the blooms fading from fruit to berries.
We make fast work of the first 10 hives, opening each box and inspecting the bees, adding more boxes (supers) where necessary, taking notes and sweating as the sun beats down.
Papa B joins us mid-way into the field, offering expert advice and suggestions.
Things are going well, really well, until we reach the last hive in the orchard. As we finish examining the hive, close the super and prepare to leave for the next field, David notices a swarm of bees in the blueberry bushes next to where we are working.
Bee culture works something like this.
Bees live in the hive with one queen who lays all of the eggs for the hive. The eggs hatch into brood which matures into bees. The bees gather pollen and nectar and produce honey.
The honey and the eggs fill the hive.
When the hive becomes full, the bees make a plan to split the hive or "swarm" thereby increasing the number of beehives in the world.
In bee language, they are simply reproducing.
This is less than ideal for the beekeeper for two reasons.
One, we like our bees in their hives where they belong. When they swarm, the old queen and her court of bees (those bees who are loyal to that queen -- maybe half of the hive) leave the hive.
They cluster outside of the hive, usually nearby, and wait for scout bees to locate a new place to live. This new place can be anything from a hole in a tree to a crack in the wall of a house.
Bees do not, by nature, swarm back into a beehive.
Secondly, when bees swarm they take half of the honey in the hive with them for their journey.
If a beekeeper plans to take half of the honey every year and leave half with the bees for the winter (and that is the plan of this bee keeper) then a swarm robs them (me) of the honey harvest.
And so we found ourselves in the blueberry orchard with a swarm and no real plan.
Papa B to the rescue!
On sight of that swarm (honestly the largest bee swarm I have probably ever seen!) Papa B launched into action, jumping in his truck and racing back to his house to gather a hive in hopes of catching the swarm.
Details but pictures first:
So Papa B returned with the hive, placed the hive under the swarm, doused the swarm with sugar water to calm the bees and encourage them to accept their new home, and we moved on to the next yard.
(You guessed it, more pictures.)
So we moved on to the other bee yards (we have bees pollinating bees in three blueberry orchards in all). Bee yard number two went fine, we made a few adjustments, moved onward.
Last fall, when I first learned to "graft" queens (that's the word we use when we move larva from a frame into a queen cup, when we intervene and "manage" the bees), when I learned to graft I used a magnifying glass, a lighted table, a special grafting tool. 03-13-11 "Happenings"
On the farm, everything is happening. 03-06-11 "Time Needs To Stop That" "It's really March?" A asks.
In yard number three, we entered the wild, wild west.
One of my hives, a yet unnamed hive that I took from Alesicia, we quickly discovered a queenless home.
Yes, that's bad.
Since the queen lays all of the eggs that become larva that become bees that feed and tend the hive, a queenless hive is, in essence, a dying hive.
My hive was queenless.
What's worse, there were no eggs in my hive, no larva, no sign that the hive was growing or had any potential to grow.
BUT...
But on two frames (frames fit inside bee boxes or supers, eight frames per box), on two frames we found queen cups.
Bees build on the comb structure that is familiar to most people. In the case of raising a queen, they build a queen cup.
Queen cells are long, beautiful structures, designed to raise and produce a queen.
This hive had three queen cups but no larva with which to fill them.
Papa B to the rescue.
Papa B's plan was to steal larva from his own hive and place them into the cups inside of mine. With luck, care and patience, my hive should be able to raise a queen from the larva he provided.
EXCEPT...
Except that the larva for a queen must be between one and three days of age. It must be picked up from its cell in Papa B's hive and placed inside the queen cups in my hive with care and precision.
It cannot be turned over, turned around, laid on its side.
It must be the same. Exactly.
No pressure.
The size of larva? Oh! A picture!
But this was not the grafting barn, not the clean, easy working space of Papa B's bee yard; this was the blueberry orchard. We had no tools. We improvised.
In the truck I found a toothpick. Under Papa B's guidance I chewed the end, used it to scoop one of those beautiful little cells (the ones in the second picture are too big, too old), placed them in my queen cups, placed the queen cups back inside of my hive, closed the whole hive and crossed my fingers and toes.
There is nothing else, nothing but to wait and hope for the best. Only time will tell.
The baby chicks are too big to stay in the small coop any longer so we move them to the large pen beside the horse barn.
They spend their days chasing bugs, lounging in the sun, running and sleeping, running and sleeping.
Meanwhile, Mrs.4 O'Clock (named for her mate, the rooster who insists on sleeping in the pecan tree and crowing at 4 O'Clock every morning, has decided to become a Mommy.
How do you know? A says.
Because we discovered her one day hiding eggs, twelve in all, in the abandoned dog pen (Why do you have a dog pen when the dogs sleep inside with us? A says.).
So, for her own protection, we moved Mrs. 4 O'Clock and her clutch of eggs into a fox and snake proof pen. Since Tuesday she has been setting, 21 days to go. Chicken babies come quickly.
There is also Mrs. White Tail with which to contend. Feeding a litter of her own we are sure, Mrs. White Tail has made short work of our hen population, carrying off a number of laying hens one at a time.
Shoot her! says David.
Shoot her! says A.
Don't touch our fox, the females on the farm volley back. We, we tell them, will be responsible for the hens. We will lock them up. We will chase off the fox. We will find a way to peacefully co-exist.
"Like trying to explain butterflies to a tortoise," Amos Oz once wrote.
So, perhaps, it is, but for now the fox will go unharmed.
The goats too have been productive and we find ourselves enamored with our new set of kids. Every group is always the cutest but this group seems especially wonderful as they nap and play in the sun.
It is a busy time on the farm. Everything is happening, happening, and we find that we, more and more, are running.
We're standing in the kitchen leaning over a bowl of carrots that need to be pickled. We're both too tired to face this job and we know that we're going to shove the poor carrots into the fridge and put the job of for another day.
I've just announced the birth of the first baby goat from our spring kidding.
"Yes," I say, "March."
"Time moves too fast," he announces, "it needs to stop that."
I laugh. What else is there to do? Yes, time is flying.
By the end of the week, we have 14 goat kids, all scampering around happily, jumping and skipping and their mother's try to keep up with them.
In the big pasture, a surprise calf is born to a cow that the vet insisted was not pregnant. Bonus calf. Excellent.
And in the gardens, things could not be more beautiful.
The head lettuces that endured weeks of freezing temperatures are gorgeous, round little gems of greens and reds, just waiting for salad time.
The hoop house is finally cranking out the goods too: turnips, radish, fennel, arugula, broccoli raab and Asian greens.
Our CSA boxes overflow with the bounty.
Around the farm, Red Buds and peach trees are blooming; bluebirds court each other up and down the fence rows, hoping and bouncing in their amazing plumage.
We stay out later at night, enjoy the longer days and evenings, watch as everything grows, always quickly quickly.
Yes, we are delirious at the pace, but from here on it will only go faster.