Cover is blooming

The first blooms are opening up on the sweet yellow clover.  We are a couple weeks behind in the bloom this year.

Queen cells

Alfalfa Pollination

Here is a neat article on alfalfa pollination by honey bees. The Readers Digest version of the article is.... You need to place 5-10 hives per acre are needed for good pollination.  The reason being is funny. The alfalfa flower bonks the bee in the head to deposit pollen on the bee for pollination.. The bee really does not like being bonked.  So the bee learns in a day that she needs to enter the flower from the side so it does not get bonked. Therefore, lots of new bees are needed every day to pollinate the alfalfa. Here is the link if you really want to nerd out
http://www.tvalfalfaseed.org/resource/files/Honey%20Bee%20Pollination%20of%20Alfalfa.pdf.

Whew....first lamb

The drought was so hard on the ewes.  There were not ready to carry lambs until much later in the year.  We had our first lamb today.  The ewes normally lamb in January / February.

It was great though. The kids and I drove up not too long after she was born.

Researchers: Bee Venom Can Kill the HIV Virus | Yahoo! Health

Bees are such amazing creatures!

Researchers: Bee Venom Can Kill the HIV Virus | Yahoo! Health

Bees use electrical fields as a "sixth sense" to find nectar-rich blooms.

Check out this article about bees using electrical fields to find nectar.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/bees-electrical-sense-nets-nectar/story-e6frgcjx-1226582873519

Stars who like bees profile.

Carol Drinkwater most notably played Helen Herriot on the BBC series All Creatures Great and Small. A series about small town veterinarians in the 1930-40's.  I really enjoyed this series.  In addition to her entertainment career, she also owns an olive farm. 

Carol became a bee advocate after her farm's bees inexplicable died like so many other bees. One could say she's risen to the level of bee advocate.  You can learn more about Carol at her web site CarolDrinkwater.com

New Employee

We got a border collie puppy this fall. Her name is Kate. 

She'll work the sheep on the farm when she gets a bit bigger.  Kate comes from a long line of sheepdog trial champions. The championships include the US National, the Scottish National, and the International. Her great great grandfather was one of those champions.  Here is a video of him running  a trial.

Queen Cell Frame Project

Today's project was making queen cell frames. This device is used to raise queen bees. The frame holds 3 cell bars.  Plastic cell cups are attached to the cell bar. 12-24 hour old larvae are grafted from mother hive into the cells cups. After some manipulation the bees turn these larvae into queen bees. And walla, we get queen bees.

Today's project was a challenge of my woodworking skills and equipment. I was finally able to get all of the dimensions right after a bit of trial and error with scrap lumber.  The thing that saved me was cutting extra pieces. Inevitably a piece gets ruined by the table saw every now and again. Nothing goes to waist though.  Once a mistake is made, the ruined pieces magically become fire kindling.

Winter Project - Queen Stool

Ever wonder what a beekeeper does in the winter? Well, we make stuff like this queen stool. This handy gadget let's me carry around my tools and gives me a place to sit.

Do you want to learn how to identify eggs, larvae, pollen, and nectar?

I love finding stuff like this on the Internet.    You've heard of those projects where you can sit on your computer and map universes for astronomers. This project is the same concept with frames from beehive.  You sit at your computer and map the cells on a frame for his research project.  The cool thing is that there is a tutorial that teaches you how to identify all the eggs, larvae (in different stages of growth), pollen, and nectar.  Give it a look at"

Broodmapper: Honey Bee Development and Citizen Science - eXtension

The project is run by Reed Johnson. He is a bee researcher at The University of Ohio.  I've met him a couple of times and he's an alright guy.

Swarm Season

The sweat clover started blooming a couple of weeks ago.  The weather has also been very warm and not too much rain.  So, feral bee hives started swarming around April 15th. Here is a swarm I caught yesterday on the May the 4th be with you day.

Package Install Day

I've got new places to keep bees this year.  In fact, there are so many places that I had to by packaged bees.  All of the packages are being started at our main apiary. I got through the entire day and tens of thousands of bees without getting stung at the farm.

Bad news is that I stuck my hand in my pocket once I had my gear off. You guessed it, there was a bee in the pocket that got me right on the knuckle.  My hand looks like it was hit with a hammer. Oh well.... I'll head back in a couple of days and see if I can let the queens loose without any stings.

Spring is in the air - and a whole lot of rain too

The flowers just starting popping up and it has rained all week. The farm is muck:(

Fortunately, happiness can be brought in by a FedEx delivery. My four new apple trees arrived today from the nursery. Isn't funny how we get things delivered for a self sustaining life style from a global transportation company.

When you are least prepared.

So I took my sheep equipment out of the truck this week. I was confident that we would not have any new lambs this week.

Wrong, the kids and I got out to the farm around 12:00. I heard that unmistakable sound of new lamb. Upon further inspection, the lamb was still a little bit wet. We missed the birth by an hour or so. Maybe out luck will be better next time.

The kids are very excited because they get to name the new lamb ewe.

Two More Lambs

I get really giddy every time we have new lambs. Two more were born this week.

Lambing Epic Fail

It is lambing time again. My spidy sense told me that I'd have lambs when I went to the farm. I was right!!! I saw a ewe with a little lamb. My joy turned to "epic fail" when I found that she had twins. And, the twin had fallen into the water trough and drown. I've fixed since covered the trough so there is a small opening.

Queen Rearing

I attended the University of Nebraska queen rearing course last week. Here is a clip of grafted larvae.

The Smell of Honey

The main nectar flow is on. The bees are making honey like mad. The bees are fanning air out of the hives to cool them since the weather is so hot. This makes the air smell of HONEY!

The Russians invasion

I put Russian queens in my hives last year. I had really disappointing results. A number of the queens were quickly superseded. The remaining hives came out of winter very strong. The down side is there were also very aggressive. One hive had so bad it was like someone was shooting bees out of a shotgun at me. Needless to say they are getting a new queen (once I can find her).