Remember my TWO ultimate RIR female chicks with the best, most amazing chipmunk pattern ever??? They turned out to be cockerels 😭. I didn’t have years in that, though. Maybe 2 generations? Still was a bummer.
No hive beetles? That’s nice! That’s one major con to beekeeping in the south. I almost lost a colony last year to hive beetles. Thankfully, I checked the hive and caught it before it was too late. That was my long hive experiment. I stopped just short of torching it after I rescued my bees.
After the bee inspection I decided to render some wax. Ya know, get ALL the bee stuff done? Apparently Nov 1 is not a good day for that. The bees took it over after about 30 minutes. So, here I am at 7pm still rendering wax. Almost done, though. This isn’t candle quality. I’m just getting it...
I did a quick inspection of both colonies this afternoon. So many bees!!! No need to check on the queens. They are thriving. The supers are chocked full of goldenrod honey. They are just as heavy as when I harvested honey this summer. Everyone got a healthy dose of smoke (coz, yes they still...
Oh yeah, it’s on the roof draped over a section of the fence lying flat with a couple 2x4s shoved underneath to give it some pitch so water will run off.
I “plan” to hatch a batch at the end of every March to pick my keepers from. That way I have layers when my year old hens start to molt. I know you and Moony are different from me in that every chick is a keeper. Even if that plan works out to laying at 6 months it’s great. Imagine my surprise...