The Old Folks Home

[bamadude]

@ChickenCanoe they are small zip ties. Wisher sells them on her buy sell trade page. I got 8 different colors.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I have a 3lb polish that is in full on broody mode. Should I give her an egg?

give her an egg or a clutch if you want chicks
If not break her and she'll be back in production in around a month. If she incubates it will be 2 months or more.
If you don't break her, she could die before she quits.

 

[bamadude]

give her an egg or a clutch if you want chicks
If not break her and she'll be back in production in around a month. If she incubates it will be 2 months or more.
If you don't break her, she could die before she quits.

She looks like she would be too small for more than 1 egg.
I have chicks hatching right now. I wonder if she would take 1

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Yes... Not personally... But I have visited a garden with hives, and they post on Facebook on occasion asking questions.

It sounds like most in the colder areas of Alaska stand a standard hives inside a three sided shelter. We tend to have brutal wind up here.

Shelters are a good plan. Probably can't raise bees without them.

@ChickenCanoe they are small zip ties. Wisher sells them on her buy sell trade page. I got 8 different colors.

I get mine from harbor freight. I think there are about that many colors. White, black, blue, orange, red, magenta, dark green, fluorescent green, fluorescent pink, yellow, maybe more.

For baby chicks, I band when they come out of the pedigree bags in the hatcher. I check them after the first week to 10 days. (I actually set an alert on my phone)
As they grow, you can check them less frequently as they grow slower.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

She looks like she would be too small for more than 1 egg.
I have chicks hatching right now. I wonder if she would take 1

If they're hatching, they'll take all the chicks they can get but it's best to add new chicks at night.

 

[drumstick diva]

Bama "one is the loneliest number," can't you give her a couple bantam eggs?

 

[drumstick diva]

Queen Bee doesn't sound so bad, I like the feeding her bit but, not the constant attendants. I wonder if bees could feed her ice cream - nah, they couldn't carry very much & the cold temps might cause them to plotz!!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

She flew out and up, fast. She'd have been mated, they come back with the abdomen of the male.

And I don't think I'm ready for a 3rd hive yet. I want to do a top bar hive, next.

I understand. My point is, if for the price of a queen, you order now and if yours comes back or not, you won't have a queenless hive and be down to one hive.

 

[apteryx]

This is no reflection on anyone here, just my preference. I know that many on here live in small towns.
I love rural, more accurately, wilderness. I like medium/large cities for what they have to offer.
I grew up in a large city but we had 2 farms. One in the suburbs and one in a very rural area. I spent every weekend and most summers on a farm. I went to school in the city. When we would travel, I didn't have an attraction to small towns. I loved living in the wild. I saw many advantages to cities. As a kid, I thought, I wanted to either live in a city (for access to big city amenities), or if living otherwise I wanted to live as far from civilization as possible.
I still feel that way and probably because I never lived in a small town.

This is scary - you pretty much described my big city/small town/wilderness perspective perfectly. And the background (growing up on a farm/spending a lot of time on a farm and going to school in a city) is pretty much my childhood. Just in a different country....

 

[superchemicalgirl]

Your third one can be a top bar hive.
My problem is building equipment fast enough while building chicken coops.
You have to be coming into prime honey flow. We've been in it about a month and ours was very late this year.

I understand. My point is, if for the price of a queen, you order now and if yours comes back or not, you won't have a queenless hive and be down to one hive.

Now you're trying to prove Bee Math.

We aren't in prime honey flow here - almost nothing is blooming. We've barely hit spring.