What did you do in the garden today?

[chickengr]

From that PDF:

"Other particularly savvy honey-making imposters go as far as to feed bees sugar and syrup to produce honey, rather than natural foraging — severely impacting theproduct’s nutritional benefits ..."

Beekeepers sometimes DO feed their bees... to keep them alive. In the late winter/early spring, if the weather warms up, bees may go out to look for food. There probably won't be any plants in bloom. They may also have eaten their store of honey, which is their food for the winter. So in February, it is VERY common for northern beekeepers to feed their bees a mixture of sugar and pollen. If the spring bloom is late, in other words, there is a dearth of nectar/pollen, beekeepers feed their bees sugar syrup. Else the bees would starve.

Late in the season, when there is another dearth, bees are often feed plain ol' beet sugar. This feeds them so that they don't have to break into the honey they've stored, and helps that last through the winter.

The goal is to keep the bees from starving. If they have not made enough honey -- for whatever reason -- they need something to eat during the winter to make it through.

They also need to eat to make wax, not just honey.

A colony of bees is about $140-165. Not cheap. You do what you can to help them keep them alive and get through the winter.

Anyone adding anything to honey but claiming it's pure honey, on the other hand, is ripping people off.

my mother used to keep bees before her neighborhood became densely populated area. she did feed her bees when there was not enough forage. if I remember well she made a sort of syrup with 3 herbs, lemon balm, wormwood and mint. she made a strong tisane then added some sugar.

 

[CNJ]

I have some squash seeds drying out from food we ate on Thanksgiving. I have never made roasted seeds, but I am going to try and make some with those squash seeds. I guess you can add other spices as well, not just salt.

I think it has to be a certain type of squash, like the winter melon type. The seeds from the winter melon squash look kind of like a small pumpkin seed.

 

[gtaus]

I think it has to be a certain type of squash, like the winter melon type. The seeds from the winter melon squash look kind of like a small pumpkin seed.

The seeds I have are from winter melons. They are about the size of sunflower seeds.

 

[Sally PB]

I preferred them. THey were great down south, but they were too delicate for the cold of the prairielands.
I liked them as there was no heavy lifting of supers, it was all laid out in the open when you lifted off the lid.

Interesting!

 

[jerryse]

Sunny and 55 predicted today. Going to enjoy it while I can.

 

[WthrLady]

Sunny and 65 today! I'm out staining a door and the clucks are already out stomping around in the yard.

 

[TJAnonymous]

I like to hear that. I saw a YouTube video of a guy who only feeds his chickens the waste food from local restaurants. He had trucks dropping off loads of waste food and he worked it up into giant rows for composting with his tractor. Chickens are amazing in all the types of food they can eat.

The closest large scale commercial composting place is a good 80 miles from my town. I have never been there, but I was told they mainly compost yard waste. Our local landfill does the same with yard waste that gets dumped out there, but they will not sell any of the compost they make. They use it to cover all the other garbage they bury at their site.

I asked our local grocery store once about getting fruit and veggies they were throwing out. The manager said they give them away to someone else who already had dibs on them. He gave me some that had been set aside as a consolation prize. I should go back and ask again....

 

[CNJ]

I have a breeding group of 2 hens and 1 rooster separated from my flock of 8 hens and one rooster (Cornish x crossed with Breese). I feed them the same food but ration the amount of feed in my breeding group to 1 pint mason jar in the morning and evening.

I also put 2TBS of vinegar in 2 gallons of water with charcoal in the breeding groups water dispenser. I get 2 eggs almost every day from my breeding group, but only 4 eggs from my flock of 8 hens. I have both group on medicated broiler pellets at the moment and will switch to layer pellets when it's all gone.

I think I have enough evidence to conclude that 2TBS vinegar and charcoal in 2 gallons of the drinking water increases egg production. I rub a piece of charcoal in the water to release it and I just wing it. One charcoal lasts a long time.

 

[WthrLady]

I asked our local grocery store once about getting fruit and veggies they were throwing out. The manager said they give them away to someone else who already had dibs on them. He gave me some that had been set aside as a consolation prize. I should go back and ask again....

Ours won't give or sell rejected fruit and veg. Said they could get sued if they got sick. Turns out they give it to the local shelter, as they then get a tax cut for lost revenue and donation, that's fine, But just tell me that. ::roll eyes::
At least it's not going to waste.

 

[gtaus]

I think I have enough evidence to conclude that 2TBS vinegar and charcoal in 2 gallons of the drinking water increases egg production.

Well, you may well be on to something there. I love experiments and trying to make sense of the results I see.

But I would also suggest that maybe there are a lot of other variations in your sample size. I would assume that your breeding chickens have some factors that make them better than the other chickens not selected. You might have just picked the best egg layers in your flock to begin with, for example, without trying to be biased.

I am interested in knowing what benefits you think vinegar and charcoal have for your chickens in their water. I have never heard of that. I would like to hear more about it. Especially if it really helps to increase egg production. Thanks.