Arizona Chickens

[Mahonri]

Sorry to interrupt, but does anyone know of a person selling fertilized eggs (a mix) near AJ?

I'll give you some PUREBRED Icelandic eggs to hatch.... you'd have to pic them up.

I've already given 11 away to put under a broody hen, I have 8 at present plus whatever is laid tomorrow.

If anyone here is interested, call me at 602-32six-4six59

 

[Puffycheeks]

HI all! ??? QUESTION??? Anybody out there know anything about keeping chickens in Northern Az? We found a great property and are thinking of making the move up to the Chino Valley/ Paulden area on 2 acres and cant seem to find out about any restrictions relating to keeping chickens and roosters and other types of poultry. If anyone has any info. and if please let me know that would be great!!! I dont want to leave my "kids " behind! Thanks and Also any recommendations on if they need an enclosed type coop? I have lived in Phoenix for so long that I can only think about heat related issues!!! LOL

 

[Puffycheeks]

Most of my "Roos" have been re-homed. Hope they are all happy and safe with "Jacobkelly15" and his Grandma.

I miss them!

 

[flower]

Puffycheeks I have kept chickens in N AZ 5K elevation with no special adjustments except water foot baths in the hottest weather. Also had chickens in WV and they do fine in snow and rain in their large draft free coop. If you move and they have some time to acclimate it would be best. To make sure that keeping chickens is not illegal, ask the people in charge at the city hall.

 

[Demosthine]

Well, I seem to have a problem. About six weeks ago my wife gave my chickens to some lady she met in Wallyworld. The chickens were all seven or eight years old, so they would only lay once in a while. Their days in the sun were over.

The idea was that we would start over with a new batch of chicks when the weather cooled off.

Well yesterday I went to clean up the coop, and I discovered that a swarm of feral bees had set up house in my coop. They were not there on Friday, but they were there on Monday. I sat and watched them off and on all yesterday afternoon. They seemed pretty sedate to me. But when my son came home, they didn't like him at all.

I sure don't want to spray my coop with pesticide. Any suggestions?

Hey Rufus.

There are a few things you can do. Like previously mentioned, you can wait a few days and see if they are "swarming." This is the term used to describe a large group of bees that have left the mother colony. They will travel with a virgin Queen looking for a new home. Usually, that's a spring event, however, so there may be some concern there. It has been extremely unusual for this years natural cycles, though, too. My friend's lemon tree is having it's second harvest of the year. She's about five months early from her normal harvest. The bees may be confused also.

Alternately, there is always the choice to call in an expert. Craig's List is an option, but I would be concerned with an amateur answering the ad instead of a professional. True experts are generally quite expensive from what I understand, so that may not be an option. You can always contact the Beekeepers Association of Central Arizona. If nothing else, they can give you some excellent advise on how to take care of them correctly.

Depending on how adventuresome you are, it really isn't that big of a deal to deal with them yourselves. It also isn't very expensive, either. In fact, beekeeping in general can be an excellent hobby. I have a cousin in Colorado who is putting hives in peoples' yards for them, similar to our backyard chickens. It was an absolute blast when I was visiting and was able to help. The only special equipment he has is a beekeeper's net hood. Otherwise, it's some well fitting clothes that are pretty much sealed. Long pants, long sleeve shirt, leather gloves and the hood. Use a spray bottle with sugar syrup to thoroughly spray the bees down. The spray will calm them because it provides immediate food, but it also causes their wings to stick and prevents them from flying. Use a 1:1 ratio of sugar to water. You can quickly brush them all up and put them in a gallon bucket or the likes and dispose of them. Or if you are so inclined (although I urge against it), simply kill them. For about $35, you can also get a bee smoker. In addition to the sugar spray, the smoker will confuse the bees because it masks the pheromones that they use to communicate. That makes them more docile and easier to work with. There is a reason that every serious beekeeper has used smoke to calm the bees for harvesting for the last several thousand years.

Check out this article for an excellent reference to installing a package of bees. It gives you a lot of the basic bee handling skills that you'd need. Please, please remember that honey bees are quickly disappearing all across the world and we are only beginning to find out why. It's been a mystery for the last fifteen years or so, but they are finally linking it to some pesticides used largely for crops including corn. In addition to use destroying all of their natural habitats, it's a bad recipe for the bees. That's a big part of the reason that people like my cousin and his friend are trying to put hives in people's backyards. It is jeopardizing our food supply, and raw honey has so many health benefits that it would be devastating to lose them.

If you are in Phoenix somewhere and still need help come Monday, let me know. I'd be willing to come out and give you a hand. Not quite sure where to get the nets in town, but I'm sure we can come up with something. I can contact my cousin, too, to see if he has any more recommendations. The big thing to removing the hive is to make sure you identify and capture the Queen. Otherwise, all of the worker bees will return to her and you'll have to start over. You can find excellent tips to finding the Queen in this article. It's written for a controlled hive situation, but you should get the general idea of what you're looking for.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out. Bees are really quite fascinating and docile creatures. I hope to have a few hives one day when I have the land. In the meantime, my property just isn't big enough.

 

[MagicChicken]

Had to post to show off my new avatar, although I might have to change my BYC name to "DemonicChicken" if I leave it up. It was a fun costume!

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

Demosthine, I share your concern and appreciation for honeybees. Your advice would be perfectly fine for the adventurous person living in CO, but would almost certainly land you in the hospital or worse here in southern AZ. I have a fair amount of experience with honeybees. Over the past seven years our family has spent one to two weeks every summer helping out our BFFs in NM who have several hundred colonies and are one of the largest queen breeders in the West. We too work with only veils and white long sleeved shirts and pants (no gloves). Their very calm bees of Italian and Russian descent are indeed quite docile. However, nearly all honeybees here in AZ have been hybridized with African honeybees and they are anything but docile. As a biologist, I've had the misfortune of a number of near-death experiences with Africanized bees while working in the field. All incidences were prompted by no more threatening behavior than haplessly moving too close to the colony. I survived each encounter by being able to out run them. Imagine the offense they would take as you tried to collect up their queen? You really need a full bee suit to work with these guys, something that prevents them from moving up the sleeves of your shirts and pants. I'm not afraid of any arthropod, but I can tell you from experience that it takes a special kind of fortitude to remain calm and proceed with a plan when several thousand highly determined flying social hymenoptera aim to do you in, even when you are properly equipped to deal with them. Hopefully, rufus's bees have moved on today, finding his chicken coop unsuitable for permanent habitation.

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

Had to post to show off my new avatar, although I might have to change my BYC name to "DemonicChicken" if I leave it up. It was a fun costume!

I saw that! How perfect!

 

[beehappy4ever]

Demosthine, I share your concern and appreciation for honeybees. Your advice would be perfectly fine for the adventurous person living in CO, but would almost certainly land you in the hospital or worse here in southern AZ. I have a fair amount of experience with honeybees. Over the past seven years our family has spent one to two weeks every summer helping out our BFFs in NM who have several hundred colonies and are one of the largest queen breeders in the West. We too work with only veils and white long sleeved shirts and pants (no gloves). Their very calm bees of Italian and Russian descent are indeed quite docile. However, nearly all honeybees here in AZ have been hybridized with African honeybees and they are anything but docile. As a biologist, I've had the misfortune of a number of near-death experiences with Africanized bees while working in the field. All incidences were prompted by no more threatening behavior than haplessly moving too close to the colony. I survived each encounter by being able to out run them. Imagine the offense they would take as you tried to collect up their queen? You really need a full bee suit to work with these guys, something that prevents them from moving up the sleeves of your shirts and pants. I'm not afraid of any arthropod, but I can tell you from experience that it takes a special kind of fortitude to remain calm and proceed with a plan when several thousand highly determined flying social hymenoptera aim to do you in, even when you are properly equipped to deal with them. Hopefully, rufus's bees have moved on today, finding his chicken coop unsuitable for permanent habitation.

Gallo, I love your posts with your extreme amount of knowledge I am so jealous! My sister in California has honey bees and in Colorado where I am from people have honey bees but since moving to Phoenix have never met anyone with a honeybee hive. Is it because of the Africanized Bees? There was a hive at the house next door of Africanized bees but thankfully the bank removed it because it got to where I couldn't go in my garden for fear of being stung.

 

[Demosthine]

Demosthine, I share your concern and appreciation for honeybees. Your advice would be perfectly fine for the adventurous person living in CO, but would almost certainly land you in the hospital or worse here in southern AZ. I have a fair amount of experience with honeybees. Over the past seven years our family has spent one to two weeks every summer helping out our BFFs in NM who have several hundred colonies and are one of the largest queen breeders in the West. We too work with only veils and white long sleeved shirts and pants (no gloves). Their very calm bees of Italian and Russian descent are indeed quite docile. However, nearly all honeybees here in AZ have been hybridized with African honeybees and they are anything but docile. As a biologist, I've had the misfortune of a number of near-death experiences with Africanized bees while working in the field. All incidences were prompted by no more threatening behavior than haplessly moving too close to the colony. I survived each encounter by being able to out run them. Imagine the offense they would take as you tried to collect up their queen? You really need a full bee suit to work with these guys, something that prevents them from moving up the sleeves of your shirts and pants. I'm not afraid of any arthropod, but I can tell you from experience that it takes a special kind of fortitude to remain calm and proceed with a plan when several thousand highly determined flying social hymenoptera aim to do you in, even when you are properly equipped to deal with them. Hopefully, rufus's bees have moved on today, finding his chicken coop unsuitable for permanent habitation.

I don't hear about that many Africanized Bee attacks at all. I couldn't find any good, reliable statistics, but I think it's a lot more rare than you're thinking. Of course, working in that field, you'd have more incidents there, but that's understandable. Not downplaying the problem, but I think for the mainstream, it comes more from everyone becoming so much more of a city dweller. They have no idea what nature is really about and have forgotten how to live with the animals. The number of people I see scream over a simple bee, spider or snake. It's ridiculous nowadays. One of my coworkers when screaming down the hall at work a few weeks ago because she saw a little field mouse run across the floor. It brought everyone running, thinking she was in trouble.

I've been with my wife and our two daughters (they were four and six when we started dating) for a few years now and that's how they were. A simple little fly or something would go through the house and it was the end of their world. It's taken a lot to desensitize them, but they are finally ok with it. That's how I want my kids to be. If a snake is in the yard, know what it is, how dangerous it is and what to do about it. Scorpions are the current project. Since we didn't have a harsh winter or summer this last year, we had more bugs this season. They didn't know what a scorpion looked like until I caught a few and showed them. I am trying to find some recently, since my Dad bought a black light flashlight. They are all going back in to hiding because of the cooler weather, though.

Of course, my wife had the irrational fear of the chickens for the first six months I was talking about getting them, too. So fear comes in all shapes and sizes.


I will admit, it was quite the adrenaline rush feeling and hearing the buzzing of the 10,000 bees inside that little box that they ship in. You can feel the buzzing in the core of your body. Once you wet them all down and start dumping them into the newly placed hive, though, the change is miraculous. I find the entire process just awe inspiring. Anyone else reading this, if you haven't had the opportunity, I highly encourage it.