Stella's Social Club

[lonnyandrinda]

It's a local thing mostly, though the drought isn't helping. It all depends on the flowers and temperatures, and we are mostly dependent on blackberries for ours. I've talked with some in the midwest, and they saying they have had a record honey year.

We initially got the bees for pollination, not honey, so the honey is just a bonus. With all the work you go through to harvest the honey, you just want enough to make it worth the work.

My MIL has a HUGE tulip poplar tree and they are supposed to be fantastic for nectar, so I'm thinking of putting a hive at her place in the spring.

Yes local conditions affect a lot. We had a REALLY wet spring, which greatly affected our honey crop, too- not enough clear sunny days for the bees to collect nectar! It's a fine line between too much rain and too little rain to get a bumper crop of honey! But the wet year (and subsequent summer and fall rains more than normal) means we will get a fall crop of honey here in NE Oklahoma! Wish we could have sent some of our rain your way!

 

[mlm Mike]

I hope they had a good honey crop around here. My wife uses a lot of honey and prefers to buy local honey.

 

[The Sheriff]

I had a surprise this morning. I went to check on my broody this morning, she had 2 olive egger chicks. A day early.

I relocated her and her babies to private quarters for a week before letting them out with the flock. My birds are fighting me on downsizing!

I also got another welsummer pullet egg today. It's darker than 2 days ago.

I'll collect a few more and get a picture.

So no chick for the other broody?

I am not really good at math but I think you may upsizing versus downsizing.

My new girls did not make it in before the pop door closed again last night. It is closing too early. Michael will adjust it today. I am going to try to get some pics of them today too.

 

[Happy Chooks]

So no chick for the other broody?

I am not really good at math but I think you may upsizing versus downsizing.

My new girls did not make it in before the pop door closed again last night. It is closing too early. Michael will adjust it today. I am going to try to get some pics of them today too.

No, she hatched them too fast! I didn't have a chance to swipe one for the other broody.

 

[drumstick diva]

Wish I could have sent you guys the excess rain we had this spring/summer. June set a record. All it did here was make weeds grow enormous and everywhere. Also it affected my mini-small size hosta and they turned out to be quite large - after years of being small. What the heck. I wanted, needed, SMALL.

 

[crazyhen]

Nasty buggers. I've had them build a hive in the piles of grass clippings. They will follow you pretty far.

I had them in the clippings and sprayed them (at night) but not much help. Later I noticed the nest torn up. I figure a skunk got to them.

I found the cure for them the first yr. I had skunks here. I drop just a tsp of hamburger , wet cat food or dog food on the hill with a long handled shovel.
The skunks eat them at night. They love the little pupae.

 

[crazyhen]

It's a local thing mostly, though the drought isn't helping. It all depends on the flowers and temperatures, and we are mostly dependent on blackberries for ours. I've talked with some in the midwest, and they saying they have had a record honey year.

We initially got the bees for pollination, not honey, so the honey is just a bonus. With all the work you go through to harvest the honey, you just want enough to make it worth the work.

My MIL has a HUGE tulip poplar tree and they are supposed to be fantastic for nectar, so I'm thinking of putting a hive at her place in the spring.

Tulip poplar gives a very dark strong flavored honey. I love the sour wood type best.

 

[lonnyandrinda]

Took me about 8 hours for this from start to finish- spread out over about three days. My girls have been sharing a dresser but are big enough now they each needed their own. The dresser was given to me, I had to repair drawer slides and resupport the bottom of each drawer. So copious amounts of wood glue, small finishing nails, and about $30 in paint and we have a cute girlie girl dresser! Hannah is over the moon with it (she's 7). She helped me paint the polka dots with milk jug caps.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Nice job Rinda!

 

[1muttsfan]

Very cute