I promise this is the last of the chick post, for awhile...

Last night when I went to close up the coop, I found Goldie and the chicks in the coop. At first I only saw two chicks, one on her back and one behind her on the window frame.



After climbing in the coop with my flashlight, I found the other two tucked under her wings.



I'm glad they have decided to sleep in the coop, since there has been a coyote/chicken incident right down the street last week. I'm not sure how the dog create would hold up to a hungry coyote. I'm sure they would be traumatized at the very least.

Time is now to do your Mite treatments before it reached 85f days

This method is, inexpensive, works and is approved by Certified Naturally Grown. I find it to be the kindest way to handle the mite issue when threshold has been reached. My bee buddy, John Jones, made my fume board for me and mixed my formic acid to 50%. It's good to pull the girl card sometimes. ;) I have about 15 hives to check and treat if needed. I find that once, every other year, takes care of it. Here is John's blog with more information on the treatment and pictures of the fume board.

Broody Hen in pool and Goldie's chicks update

My grandmother told me that my Aunt was a chicken fan as well, she always tried to save those poor colored Easter chicks, so I'm glad to partly blame my new found fondness of the girls on heredity. They don't really pay for themselves, I think I break even after food. I love my Buff O's, they are the big hipped Wallace and Grommet chicks, that crack me up when they run, but they sure seem to be broody. I quite honestly don't need more chicks, so after doing some looking around on the internet, it seems that the temp of the vent is what triggers broodiness. Why do I care if they go broody? First off it causes a traffic jam in the the nest boxes to have one just sitting. Secondly, she won't lay when broody. I'm starting to think that this might be kinda like my son's book, Click, Clack, Moo. The farm animals find a typewriter and start writing out demands to the farmer or they withhold milk and eggs. I think she actually enjoys the coolness, and wants a drink with a umbrella. Goldie and the chicks are doing fine. It's so much easier to raise chicks with a Mama hen. Last night they actually slept in the coop with all the rest of the hens and all is well in the coop-yard. Goldie does a great job of following them with the constant peculating sound she makes. Brent thinks that's her telling them about all about their world. The rest of the girls didn't want to be left out of the spotlight so they gathered for their picture to be taken as well.

Mothers day and baby chicks

I didn't plan for the chicks to hatch on Mother's Day, but it seems fitting. Yesterday, I could hear peeping coming from under Goldie, when I would listen carefully. I read that you could hear them before hatching, but was still surprised. Today I lifted her up (quickly and gently, and yeah I know I shouldn't) and found four hatched chicks. This one was already dry and didn't have a milk tooth. Maybe she had already hatched yesterday, and that is what I was hearing. Three more were brand new, wet chicks. One doesn't look like it's going to make it, but maybe it had just hatched and weak from the fight with the shell. It's been nerve wracking not being able to see what's going on.

Wild comb

I ran into this wild comb today when I was on a consultation job. The owner had put a quart feeder jar on the frames of the the deep below and then added 3 frames of foundation. The bees, for whatever reason, didn't like the frames and had only started to work one side of one frame. There was signs of a recent supersedure, no eggs were spotted, so I'm hoping that a virgin queen is there and just hasn't laid yet. I looked for her, but just didn't see her. The box below contained some capped brood and honey. Lots of empty, drawn comb they could have used.

Wylde Center apiary certification

Wylde Center apiary has just been accepted by Certified Naturally Grown. This really didn't change much as far as how the bees are being worked, it just means that I have to start keeping track of how old the brood comb is. It must bee changed out every 5 years. Dee Lusby said "the comb is the liver of the hive". That has always really struck me as an important truth. Some of the comb at the garden still has "nasty" written on it by Curtis Gentry. He knows more about bees then I ever will, and that was his system. I think brood comb shouldn't be in the hive longer then 3 years, but sight of how dark it is, is my system. So for our garden official system I'm going to mark the frames with the International Queen marking system. Different numbers of the year are assigned a color. White 1,6 Yellow 2,7 Red 3,8 Green 4,9 Blue 5,0 Two of the three hives were new last year with new comb, so that is easy. The hive that was pre-existing, I will start moving old comb out to the sides, and then replace with new foundation and, color coding. One of the other changes is to have two other beekeepers, that practice natural beekeeping, come and inspect the garden hives. In turn, I must do inspections of other Certified Naturally Grown apiaries if called upon.

How to extract honey the easy way, Crush and Stain.

For some reason I can't get the slide show to go forward to back no matter how I arrange the pictures. So here is the info, backwards!