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Of Birds, Bees and Apple Trees

It has been an active spring season on the homestead, and this post is the resulting “grab bag” of topics. Last year I had made a commitment to myself to put up a couple of nest boxes, in hopes of convincing a pair of tree nesting ducks to stay, as opposed to passing through on migration as they did last year. Perhaps it was a bit too late, but I did in fact build and install two nest boxes.

Everything I purchased for the project is pictured (L); 12 feet of 1 in. x 10 in. cedar board, cut in half at the lumber yard, a roll 25 foot roll of 2 foot wide aluminum flashing, and a box of 50 stainless steel deck screws; the instructions are from Ducks Unlimited. In the second picture (R) the boards have been cut to length using the Skillsaw. Not pictured are a few roofing nails for attaching the flashing to the tree, two big nails for mounting the box, and some 1/2 in. hardware cloth, all of which I had on hand.

Beekeeping: A Short, Cautionary Tale, From a Beginner

apiary, beekeeper, beekeeping, homestead, homesteading, honey bees, provider, self-reliance, self-reliant, self-sufficiency, self-sufficient, Warré hive

In recent weeks I have thought of the need to add a 5th box to the bee hive; I have been seeing many bees congregating at the hive entrance, and was worrying that they might have expanded to fill the available volume, and bee looking to swarm. Since Nathan was around as an able assistant, having helped me to add the 3rd and 4th boxes back in June, the time to add the 5th box had come. After adding the 3rd and 4th boxes, I summarized the event in a blog post by stating, “The process of adding the boxes went more smoothly than I probably had any right to expect; it was executed without incident.” As it turns out, I indeed did not have any right to expect that it would go so smoothly.
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/0 Comments/by John Newell

Late Spring Update from the Homestead, Part III, Beekeeping

apiary, beekeeper, beekeeping, homestead, homesteading, honey bees, provider, self-reliance, self-reliant, self-sufficiency, self-sufficient, Warré hive

The initial bee install took place the weekend of 5 April 2014, and I added a box to the hive the weekend of 12 April, as documented in the post, “Late Spring Update from the Homestead, Part I,” dated 23 May 2014. I checked on the bees regularly, and there was plenty of activity, with bees coming and going, and the bees were carrying in loads of pollen from their foraging activities. The hive appeared to be very healthy. I knew that I should be adding more boxes to the hive, and as the weeks went by I became more and more anxious that the colony might swarm because there was insufficient space in the hive for the growing colony. Finally, adding the boxes rose to the top of my work list, and coincidentally Nathan was available to help me in the process.

Nathan (L) and I suiting up, inactive hive box after step 1 just to my right in the background

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