Farm News

Did you have a blessed Resurrection Sunday? Well if you are a believer in Jesus Christ then you are automatically blessed by Resurrection Sunday because of well, the awesome RESURRECTION and all! I love it.

This year I wanted to do a special lunch that had a feature presentation.  Most people I know do hams or roasts.  We don't like ham, and b/c of the unfortunate roast incident a decade past that dish will never happen.  What I had in mind was something like brisket.  But brisket is expensive and I never cook it right.  I love the pre-cooked brisket at Sams....but again, money.  So I decided to do creamy chicken and meatloaf.  If we couldn't do brisket, at least people would have choices.  But when it was time to eat I still had brisket in mind and no matter how you slice it, meatloaf and chicken will never be brisket and it's still only meatloaf and chicken.  Next year I hope to plan better.

We had the greatest weekend.  70 degree temps, sunshine, and hard work.  Friday we had 9 dentist appts with NO cavities.  Honey took off 1/2 the day and we went shopping for plants for the front yard.  Then they spent the rest of the afternoon re-landscaping and planting.

Saturday was even better.  We headed to the farmers market and bought some garden plants.  Mr. Hardin was there as well as another friend from bee club who offered to sell me some of the bee equipment I need for cheap.  Yay!!!

From there we headed to the farmers coop to buy the rest of what we needed to plant the garden.  And I promise I saw my Aunt Dot there.  But Honey said it wasn't her.  But I don't think he even knows what she looks like.  Anyway, she slipped away before I could say anything  stare harder and make the whole thing awkward.  But guess what?  Remember all those cucumbers we sold last year?  I kept all that money in an envelope to save it for this year's garden fund.  And except for about $4 it paid for all this year's plants!

The rest of the day was tilling, weeding, planting, watering, bee feeding, cooking, cleaning, sweating, and a big bonfire with hotdogs and s'mores.  It was pretty perfect.

At this point, we are crazy busy getting ready for graduation, company, and vacation so getting all that yard work done is a huge relief.

Did I tell you that Josh hatched 10 baby chicks in the incubator?  CUTE!  But then the 4H lady called and said they had extra chicks and we could pick up 25.  So our chicken population went from 9 to 44 in 2 weeks' time.

While I was picking up chickens I also saw that we MISSED the rain barrel class that included a rain barrel!!  And that is such a disappointment since I've wanted a rain barrel for at least 2 years practically forever.  Though I can't imagine what anybody would actually learn in a class about rain barrel usage.  Anyhow, I'm still rain barrel-less.

The bees.  Well everybody is still home and that is good.  Today my man went shopping at Lowes to grab a few more cinder blocks to make some stands for the new hives.  And tomorrow is the big moving day.  I'll move the nucs into real hives and move those across the yard.  I might also split the big hive.  I have a million things going through my mind about all this.  But today I get new cinder blocks and that makes me happy!!

The Last Spring Birthday

Seven years of ZBOY!!  

And he could not be happier.  He is a joy and his momma's sunshine.  I'm so thankful he's mine. 

We had a great day of playing, having lunch with Daddy, eating yummy foods, and seeing 2 (TWO!) grandmas and Meg.  What more could a 7 year old ask for?  

Happy Birthday Zekey!  WE LOVE YOU!!

When One Turned Into Four - Part 2

The next morning Josh went out to see the swarm that we had left overnight.  And sure enough, there were no bees.  Everyone was right back up in the tree....only higher this time!  This time they were not as spread out and sort of clumped into a triangle shape.

The unfortunate thing about all of this was..

1. Mr. Hardin was selling at the farmer's market

2. My man had to go to work

Mr. H and I both agreed it would probably be best to let this one go.  We still had plenty of bees and the previous catch was complicated.   We had no help and it wasn't worth someone getting hurt.  

BUT Josh would have none of it.  He went out and studied them and decided HE could do it.  

The girls wanted to suit up and help and he already had a plan in his head.  So I told them we would give it a shot only if they would listen to every word I said and nobody would freak out. 

Well the 6ft ladder was not enough and we had to get the extension ladder.  It was high!  And this kid is scared of heights anyway.  His plan was to spray them with water, use the hand broom, and brush them down into a 5 gallon bucket.  

I was skeptical.  The swarm looked too big to brush into that kind of opening but it was the best thing we could come up with.  

So we doubled checked his gear and he headed up the ladder with his sisters holding it, smoker ready, and praying Psalm 91.  

He did not miss a beat!  He brushed them down with some landing in the bucket, some flying, and some falling on his head.  Again they were everywhere!  After about 15 seconds, he started saying over and over, "I'm so scared! I'm so scared!"  And there were bees IN HIS VEIL that were totally freaking him out.  

We coached him down, took the bucket, and started unhooking his veil.   His sisters were saying, "It's ok.  There's only a couple"  But actually there were more like 6.  And as I've thought it over, I can't even imagine that fear of 6 bees trapped around your head.  As secure as his gear was, I still don't know how this happened.  But swarmed bees are docile...they have nothing to defend.  They only wanted out and there were no stings.  

Well we dumped the bees and took a look.  They were going down into the hive nicely.  But Josh took a look at the tree and saw that he only got about 1/2.  But who cares?  If we got the queen, the other bees would follow.  If not, they can go make another hive in the woods.  (I was done.) 

He hated that idea and said if he just went one more time he thinks he could get them all.  Whose crazy kid is this anyway??  His sisters and I were telling him it was probably enough and we should just give it a rest and wait.  But he was already suited up and wanted to finish the job.  

Soooo, back up the tree he went.  As he was brushing, we kept asking ..... Are you ok?  Are there bees in your veil?  Are you scared?  Are you ok?  Talk to us!!!    Finally he answered down, "I'm too scared to talk right now!"  

Oh my goodness.  

He came down and dumped the bees again.  This time he didn't get nearly as many but when we looked up in the tree, there were NO bees!  In about 5 minutes time, they all left and were following the queen down into the hive.  HE DID IT!!!  

Now I have no idea how this will turn out.  And as it looks right now, they have gone back to the original hive.  Either way, they are home.   But I can't even tell you how proud my boy is!  He is so happy with this accomplishment.  He came to me a day later asking about career opportunities in the honey business and asking for his own hive to be responsible for.   He wants to be another Mr. Hardin.

Bee club is still 3 weeks away but the president has said that he will give him mic time to tell his story.  And let me tell you...he LOVES telling this story!!  

When One Turned Into Four

I have a big story.  BIG STORY!!

And it goes like this...

Friday I came home and peeked at the nuc box of bees and gave them some more feed.  Looking nice.  Then I thought I'd walk back and look at the big hive.  There's been a lot of swarm activity this month and I wanted to check them at least a couple of times a day to look for signs of swarm.  Not like I know what that is...but just in case I saw something.

And y'all.  It was the Lord's goodness, it was.  Because well before I got close, I could see bees everywhere.  Like a tornado of bees!  And while our bees have been stirred up before, this was nothing like I had ever seen.  I was super thankful there were no neighbors out to see this.  Meanwhile, the hive looked more peaceful than it had in weeks.  When a swarm occurs, the hive rears up a new queen.  When the queen hatches she takes 1/2 the bees with her to start a new colony.  This means there are still 1/2 the bees left in the hive with the original queen.  If I had not been there at that exact time, I don't think I would've ever known they had swarmed.  The remaining bees were working peacefully as though nothing had happened and it looked business as usual.

I went back into the house to figure out the next step and less than a minute later Jess ran in to tell me they swarmed into a tree on the property behind us.  

Now I've been following some swarm activity lately and asking questions about how to catch them, but I never thought I would need to know this so soon.  So I PANICKED!!  And I called Honey home from work, and told my kids to suit up.

For the life of me I couldn't think out the practical workings of how to do this.  I've installed 2 packages, split a hive, and watched a swarm install.  But this was nothing like any of that.  So I called  Mr. Hardin.  THE Mr. Hardin!  The Honey Man who has been doing this for 40+ years.  And the sweetest thing...he acted like it was his joy to come right over.

He was the picture of calm.  He took one look and started asking for a ladder, saw, loppers, the smoker, and his little buddy.  Little Buddy is his pet name for Josh.  Mr. Hardin didn't seem to want my help near as much as Little Buddy's.  He coached him through cutting the vines and limbs and trees

After a good deal of cutting and calculating, we he shook the whole thing into an empty hive body on the ground and brushed off what he could.   At this point there was no way to know if we got the queen.  Without her, the bees would just fly back into the tree.  So now we wait......

After typing this all out, it sounds like no big deal.  But I assure you it was a very big deal with lots of excitement and hearts pounding in our chests.  Well, except for Mr. H.  It was no big deal to him! 

And this is where I got the "talking to" about not attaching my bottom board.  I had NO idea.  And we contemplated how to move them.  He decided to leave them there for the night.  

That done, he dug into the hive to see what was going on.  And we got us an education!!

See the queen cell where his hive tool is pointing?  It looks like a peanut hanging down.  There are 6 of them on this one frame!  He said he has never seen so many queen cells in one hive and we should be in the queen rearing business!  He went to work cutting them out and saving some good ones to graft into his own splits.  (I wish I could see how he will do it!) 

He declared everything beautiful....over and over again.  A fantastic brood pattern.  Very docile bees. And some of the best he's ever seen.  

However, it's still too big.  And he's afraid they'll swarm again in a couple of days if we didn't do another split. 

This is where we were starting to run into trouble because we were out of equipment.  I had another nuc that my kids were assembling in the house, but we were out of frames.  He worked with what we had and unfortunately we have some empty space in our hives right now.   Even after that split, he thought it could use another one.  So he had an idea to help us both.  On Monday, he'd bring over all the frames we need to complete everything we've started AND he would take a split home for himself.  PERFECT!! 

He checked our older nuc while he was there.  He's a little more concerned about this one because it needs more bees.  But the queen cells are pretty so hopefully she will hatch, mate, and start laying in the next few days.  

So now with our big hive, our swarm catch, our older nuc, and the new split, we are up to four hives if they all do well.  

But WAIT!  The story isn't over and it gets even MORE exciting!  

Stay tuned for part 2.  

Another Happy Birthday

Once upon a time something wasn't right. And I don't know if it was a stomach virus, the flu, or a bad roast from Sams. But let's just say it was a BAD day for Honey and me. And for the toilet.  You might also want to know that we have not eaten another roast since.

It lasted all day. Well into the night. With 6 kids and 2 in diapers. Praise The Lord in heaven for my mother-in-law who came over, ran the house, bought sprite and crackers, and changed a whole bunch of diapers.

And just when we thought the worst was behind us, labor started.
Baby #7 was not only a week overdue, but when he finally did decide to make his appearance the timing couldn't have been worse.

We were exhausted, dehydrated, and just willing to pretend that we could go to sleep and try again tomorrow. But no. Or I should say... NOOOOOO!!!!!!

Jodie came and labored with me because
1. She's awesome
2. We like going to each other's births
3. My man wasn't quite up to the task

I remember the nurses thinking he was a nervous new daddy since he was in the bathroom more than he was out. Hilarious! So let's just say it was a bad day for the hospital bathroom too.

But we made it through and ended up with the sweetest little baby boy that was perfect in every way. Oh how I love this kid of mine!
My "only child" in a family of 8 siblings who is a little more like me than most of them.

I'm so happy to be his momma.
Happy 10th birthday Nate!!! I love you!!

More Than You Probably Ever Cared To Know About Bee Equipment

I have lived my whole life in the middle of town until we moved to what I call "the country" 18 months ago. And by "country" I mean our beautiful spacious 2 1/2 acres in the neighborhood where my rooster bothers the neighbors and we have to use a riding lawn mower. I couldn't love it more.

And part of my country love is our bees.

Today we worked our big hive.  I've found I can do it best with 2 helpers.  The supers are heavy and the propolis makes everything hard and sticky and requires a lot of strength and prying.  Beekeeeping requires a lot of physical labor. 

So here's what happens every time I check our bees.  I look for patterning and spacing and signs of pests.  But I can never make a decision about anything on the spot.  So frustrating!  I put everything back to together, ask my bee people questions, and think about it for 2 days before I decide anything.  

One of the things I'm looking forward to is growing to the point of being able to make a confident decision immediately.  Also of having NO fear.  Generally speaking, I'm not afraid to work the bees.  But if I have a one that gets through my gear, that kinda freaks me out.  I had on 2 pairs of pants and felt one crawling up my leg while we were looking at frames.  And since bees sting when they are in danger, I knew I was in for it.  But once I put the frame down I called a time out and brushed it off.  I didn't look closely but I'm guessing that must've been a drone to not sting.  

I've been getting some questions about how expensive beekeeping is and I thought I'd give you a small run down of what you can see in the picture.  But really, everything about bees is expensive and that's why honey costs so much.  A lot of beekeepers save money by building their own equipment.

~The piece I am holding is called a frame and that is where bees do all their work.  There are 10 of them inside each box.   Notice how the white box is smaller than the yellow one?  It's called a shallow super and the only reason it's smaller is for weight issues and ease of handling.  A full honey super weighs around 100 pounds.  A lot of women and older beekeepers are even moving toward 8 frame equipment instead of 10 to be able to handle them easier.  I'm sure I will do that at some point.

~What you can't see is that we also have a medium box that we moved over to the side.  So this hive is 3 boxes tall.  (medium and shallow full of frames about $50)

~The metal smoker is hanging on the side by a clip.  This is a nice feature because it's makes smoking hands-free.  ($35)

~The thin piece between the boxes is our queen excluder.  It keeps the queen on the bottom so I don't need to guess where she is and there is no brood or eggs in the honey.  ($15)

~The yellow box is called a deep.  It's the biggest they make.  It's the brood chamber where the queen lays all the eggs and the nurse bees care for the brood.  ($100 with lid and bottom board) 

~Underneath is a screened bottom board.  This keeps the hive off the ground which helps with predators and pests.  And the screened part helps with ventilation and mites and hive beetles.  

~On top of everything is a lid.  It's not in the pictures but right now I'm using a feeder lid.  It holds 2 quart sized jars of feed.  It's been on there for 2 weeks and the bees haven't touched it.  But just as I was ready to remove it, they started eating it.  Next time I'll probably remove it since there should be a lot more flowers blooming.  ($20)

~A new hive will also need a entrance reducer. ($10) 

~In the summer you will need to install a vented inner cover. ($20)  

~A package of bees or a split from a beekeeper ($100-150)  

And then there is gear and tools and extracting equipment.  I've been adding to our collection slowly as we certainly don't have it all.  This year I'm hoping to purchase an extractor ($250) so I don't have to borrow one every time.  We'll see.  

Except for the gear, smoker, and hive tool I have bought everything locally from a member of our bee club that has a side business of building bee equipment.  This saves me shipping and his prices are about the same or cheaper than ordering from the bee companies.  

So there ya have it!  And today my bees looked fantastic and happy.  We also looked into the nuc to see how the split is doing and saw some pretty nice looking queen cells.  So hopefully within the next few days we will have a strong queen and be well on our way to establishing a new hive.  

At this point I'm hoping for quite a bit of honey from the big hive.  I will keep it large instead of splitting and will do another split next year.  As for the nuc, I don't expect honey but the goal is to establish numbers and strength.  

Praying for a great honey flow!!  

Oh That Feeling Of Clean!

I started the clothes exchange and it's going very neatly. By that I mean that I haven't made a huge mess from one end of the house to the other. This has never happened in the history of the House Of Taggs. However, it's only the first day so I have plenty of time left to revert to my old ways before it's done.

But part of the reason is that our boys got themselves in a bit of trouble the night before. It started when they were arguing at way-too-early in the morning over whose responsibility it was to clean up their mess. And after my coaching was ignored I decided to help them out by making their room easier to clean. This involved 3 laundry baskets and a few tears. And while they hated seeing Momma load up their toys for who knows how long, the panic didn't hit until Josh noticed his TaeKwonDo black belt was included. Because if a kid shows up to class without his belt, Mr T makes them wear the pink belt of shame. And MY OH MY this was not a good start to the day.

Well. At bedtime their daddy walked by their room. And I hate to say that their day ended about as well as it started. Because even though they were short 3 laundry baskets full of junk, their room was still a disaster. (Really boys?) So their dad gave them 30 minutes to clean it up... and clean it up right... With the promise that he was much better at helping boys clean their rooms than their momma was.

They understood.

And let me tell you the room is SPOTLESS!!
But the best part is that they are so proud of it. In the morning we made a big deal of how nice it was and the girls ooohed and awwed.
And miracle of miracles... It's still that way!! And they are so happy and proud of themselves.

That said, you can imagine their horror to see me in there with totes of clothes, laundry baskets, coat hangers, and 7 piles strategically lined up. So I promised I would clean it all up and they were very cooperative trying on outfits and hauling more from the garage.

"New" clothes + clean room = happy people.

Today

Right Now~ My man left for work and my house is still quiet.  This is mainly due to our new "NO talking before 7:30am" rule.  It's working.  And the house is more peaceful for Bible study, reading, and early school work.

Thinking~ Sometimes it's better not to share your opinion on everything.  Even with people that are close to you.  It's not always the best peace making option.  It could be that they don't care.  And just maybe that opinion is wrong anyway.   I need to be the one that James talks about when he says, "quick to listen and slow to speak".  I talk too much.

~I wish I had a picture or two for this blog post.

Feeling~Quiet and thoughtful.

Reading~ Prayer Coach on my kindle.  A fantastic book.  Also studying Job with my kids.

Excited~ About the new childrens' home coming to Charleston!!  I love this town.

About getting some new bee stuff at the meeting tonight.  I'm getting a new nuc, a frame perch, and a bucket holder!

Wondering~ If my new queen will get mated properly with this weather.  I love these rainy days.  But it's not so good for queen bee rearing.

~What to do with larger toys that my kids have outgrown.  I really don't want to part with the nicer stuff because Meg might want it.  Or maybe I'll have a house full of sweet grand babies someday.  And I'm not usually a saver of junk...but these things are really nice and I'm not ready to let them go.  But where to put them??

~If today is the best day to go to the library this week.

Working~ Cleaning out the house and starting on the spring clothes exchange.  Lane and I cleaned out the game closet and made a LOT more room.  Now I'm working on the boys' room.  It's always hardest and looks the worst.  As they are getting bigger, it's getting harder to fit 3 people (and their stuff) into one room!

~Learning to use my new fine tip sharpies in my sketch book.  Love the bright colors!

Proud~ Of my boys for cleaning their room so nicely last night.  And for remembering the "no talking" rule!

How 'bout YOU??

Moanless Monday

After the crazy busy of last week I am excited to start this new week with the basic normal calm that I'm used to.

Here's some smiles from last week....

Happy birthday to Christian!! Oh how I love this guy. We started the day with cinnamon roll pancakes that were amazing! We met his dad in town for lunch then he and I went shopping. He loves to shop. It was fun to spend time with only him. Meg came for supper and we had a great night of presents and fun.




And LOOK at that state champ ring!!  The perfect ending to the perfect season.

Murder Mystery Dinner!! As a late bday present, Christian and I went to a murder mystery dinner hosted by an area school. We had never done anything like this before and it was a blast! The characters were interactive, the story was interesting, and dinner was good. At the end of the night you had to guess "whodunit". I had no idea so I just copied Christian and I WON!! They drew names of the people who guessed correctly and I won the flower arrangement on the table.

I'll have to post a picture later, but ZBoy lost his 2nd tooth!  Precious smile that his momma loves.


Things I'm looking forward to this week...

- another birthday!
- a first T-ball practice
-Easter shoe shopping with Mally.

We Made This!

I was looking through my bee magazine and found this...

And I immediately KNEW this was me.  I called together my people and made them brainstorm all kinds of business names for our all-natural-beauty-products business.  Because we gotta put that beeswax to good use ya know.

Then a few days later I got a surprise box in the mail and ....

YAY!!  My man is sweet.  

Mally and I got to work measuring and pouring and mixing and stirring.  She's a great helper. 

And LOOK what it turned into!!  The hardest part was letting it sit for 30 minutes.  We sat.  And watched. And waited.  And finally decided we better find something better to do with our lives than watching lip balm harden.  So I made beans.  And she scampered off to play with her brothers....after she set the timer of course.  

I can't say it's the best in the world.  I wouldn't even say it's very good.  And it certainly doesn't hold a candle to my favorite Chicken Poop Chapstick.  So it's time to melt it down and try again.  It's so much fun to make and I'm looking forward to trying out different recipes.