Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[kattabelly]

@Shadrach when you let them out into the "field" is that an area that includes other people's allotments or somewhere separate? Have there been any issues like them getting onto people's plots and eating their veg, or other plot holders with dogs that want to chase the chickens when they're out?

Sorry if you've already answered all this, I've read back through a fair bit of the thread but not seen this mentioned yet and couldn't think of a search term that wouldn't yield hundreds of results.

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

I create different piles of hardwoods, softwoods, mixed woods, twigs to logs, in sun, semi-shade and deep shade, to try to cater to all invertebrate tastes

So…the piles of rotting logs lying around my woods are good? We have cut down trees and lopped a lot of limbs over the past year and every time I look at these piles I just imagine snakes. Snake hotels. Snake condos. Snake city council meetings where they discuss what to do about the chicken coop ruining their property values…

 

[Molpet]

I have small wild bees that use abandoned rodent burrows . I first thought they were German yellow jackets because there were so many going in and out. But they are mostly black, smaller and not aggressive. I just don't mow near them.

I have carpenter bees drilling holes in my big hoop coop. They seem to use the same holes every year and they don't bother me so I don't bother them. One is in the frame of the door and I walk through all the time. If I see her I wait until she goes in the hole and then I go through. I have had them fly out of the hole and hit my head before flying off.

Most of the wasps and hornets leave me alone so I leave them alone.
The baldface hornets eat flies and if their nests are high or out of the way they might not be aggressive. I wait and see with those.
The yellow jackets are very aggressive and if in the yard must die. One year they kept stinging my arm and it swelled up. I couldn't move the shoulder, elbow and the wrist for almost a week.
Death to yellow jackets.

 

[notabitail]

Thank you’ll for the contributions about bees.
Did you know that most wild bees have nest in the ground?

View attachment 4155178
These kind of constructions are meant for the other wild bees. ^^
Do you have bee hotels where you live too?
This one was in a Arboretum park we (family outing) visited yesterday.

This is another one from a natural park (Renkums Beekdal - The stream valley of Renkum) where I work as a volunteer.
View attachment 4155179

I have a wild bee that nests in a bike .

 

[no fly zone]

I have small wild bees that use abandoned rodent burrows . I first thought they were German yellow jackets because there were so many going in and out. But they are mostly black, smaller and not aggressive. I just don't mow near them.

I have carpenter bees drilling holes in my big hoop coop. They seem to use the same holes every year and they don't bother me so I don't bother them. One is in the frame of the door and I walk through all the time. If I see her I wait until she goes in the hole and then I go through. I have had them fly out of the hole and hit my head before flying off.

Most of the wasps and hornets leave me alone so I leave them alone.
The baldface hornets eat flies and if their nests are high or out of the way they might not be aggressive. I wait and see with those.
The yellow jackets are very aggressive and if in the yard must die. One year they kept stinging my arm and it swelled up. I couldn't move the shoulder, elbow and the wrist for almost a week.
Death to yellow jackets.

Even though I haven't been stung since I was a child, I still have an intense hatred for yellowjackets.

 

[fuzzi]

I have small wild bees that use abandoned rodent burrows . I first thought they were German yellow jackets because there were so many going in and out. But they are mostly black, smaller and not aggressive. I just don't mow near them.

I have carpenter bees drilling holes in my big hoop coop. They seem to use the same holes every year and they don't bother me so I don't bother them. One is in the frame of the door and I walk through all the time. If I see her I wait until she goes in the hole and then I go through. I have had them fly out of the hole and hit my head before flying off.

Most of the wasps and hornets leave me alone so I leave them alone.
The baldface hornets eat flies and if their nests are high or out of the way they might not be aggressive. I wait and see with those.
The yellow jackets are very aggressive and if in the yard must die. One year they kept stinging my arm and it swelled up. I couldn't move the shoulder, elbow and the wrist for almost a week.
Death to yellow jackets.

Yellow Jackets are fire ants with wings.

DIE! DIE! DIE!

 

[HiEverybirdy]

I'm not sure. Some minerals, maybe?

I do know that not all pollen is equal. At a bee meeting, the lecturer told us that early blooming trees, like maples, had what the bees were looking for. Other trees' pollen was eaten only in case of extreme emergency and had as much nutrition for honeybees as sawdust would have for us.

Trees can have as much forage for bees as an acre of wildflowers. For urban beekeepers, a flowering tree is a huge asset.

Might be fun to note that bees also eat honey. It's not just for our tea and toast! Apis mellifera, the honey bee, has been bred like modern chickens to create excess of what they need so we can steal from them without killing them off.

Honey is nectar (not pollen) processed with bee spit. Often that nectar is from trees. Interestingly, tree honey is said to crystalize more slowly due to the glucose content.

Here, nectar flow starts in February with maple. Then there's black gum, locust, sassafras, poplar, holly, blackberry...and so on until sourwood. Then a dearth turns them to stranger sources for nectar before late summer flowers emerge.

During a dearth (i.e., when nectar is scarce), you might see them at your hummingbird feeder or even piercing fruit like figs and blackberries. Urban bees have been known to forage in dumpsters and create technicolor honey from food dyes.

Honey bees also adore chlorine, which is why beekeepers may accidentally cause chaos for neighbors with swimming pools.

Dearth doesn't just happen when it's hot and dry; badly timed rainshowers can wipe out entire nectar flows, rinsing blossoms of their nectar before the bees can get to it. It's something to consider when timing the watering your garden. In areas where ground-soakers aren't set up, we wait to water until bees appear finished foraging the garden flowers.

Also, feral honey bees like trees, too. Over the years, neighbors' swarms have repeatedly chosen this old sassafras stump over perfectly good empty bee boxes. We're grateful for the genetic diversity either way.

The longer I keep bees, the less I know, and what we've seen so far has made me realize how much I didn't know I didn't know about the world.

And now I'll stop derailing the thread with honey bee trivia and find something to post as tax

 

[no fly zone]

Got a 5th pepper plant coming up.