Front Porch Farm Is Going Legit

We are in the midst of packing everything left in the house, and are due to re-pack our 20 foot container this weekend before it's hauled away and shipped across to the Island.  We need to take our boxes and assorted belongings back out (the stuff we needed to remove from the house in order to 'stage' it for sale), get all of our bulky furniture loaded in, and then somehow put all of the boxes back in amongst the furniture - as Adrian called it, "giant, boring tetris."

In the midst of all of this planning and misplacing of the packing tape, we have become the new owners of a small 4x4 truck.  We're very excited to have the ability to haul and tow farm and life-related items in the near future, and now we won't have to worry about the weather come winter. Vancouver Island's temperatures are far milder than those I grew up with in Ontario, but we are down a rural road after all.  It's good to be prepared.

And there it is, sitting beside our lovely, much larger transport container! I think it's a great compromise in size, and I foresee lots of things that we will now be able to do at the property, without needing to hire someone - moving livestock, hauling building supplies, getting loads of wood for the woodstove, moving equipment..... makes me feel like we're heading in the right direction.

We Bought The Farm!

Our buyers finally signed on the dotted line last night, so our move to Vancouver Island is a go for the end of this month.  Front Porch Farm will be located in Cassidy, B.C., and we're thrilled!

We need to have our bees inspected per the provincial Ministry of Agriculture, and we just found this weekend that our artificial swarm, which contained 3 potential queens, has no brood but lots of pollen, nectar, and honey.  The original colony had brood, but minimal stores.  There seems to be some confusion.....

We took a chance, and pulled a top bar with the youngest brood we could find, and placed it smack in the middle of the potentially queenless hive.  Maybe she just hadn't made her mating flight yet?  We have fingers and toes crossed that when we do our inspection this weekend, we will either find evidence of new brood, or note that the bees have adapted one or more of the introduced potential queen cells.  It "should" be possible to tell if they've expanded a cell for the development of a larger queen.

Along with the bees, we'll be moving 32 rabbits in 8 cages (we have 3 moms with their litters).  On a ferry.  In a UHaul. Never a dull moment.

And Then There Were Two

Springtime brings a burst of new life to the garden, and the beehive is not exempt from the exuberance of nature.  Having seen several swarm cells in the making, we decided it was worth our effort to attempt splitting our hive - instead of risking the loss of a large part of the colony in a swarm situation.  A 'swarm' cell is a queen cell formed (like it sounds) in preparation for the natural process of swarming.  They're located, facing downwards, along the edge of the comb - an indicator that the hive is feeling that it needs to expand in response to growing numbers, or the increased availability of food sources.  They want to move, but they're preparing properly.  An 'emergency' cell is a queen cell that is formed around an existing young egg that is 3 or fewer days old, and therefore still capable of becoming a queen.  These cells normally protrude out of the face of the regular brood comb, to provide more room for the larger queen developing within.  These cells normally indicate that something is wrong with the hive or the existing queen - or perhaps that she has been killed. The colony reacts to the loss of her pheromones and attempts to make a replacement.

The trick here, is to convince the growing colony that there has been a swarm, leaving space for expansion and a queen still in charge - they can essentially continue on about their business.  This is achieved by removing the new queen cells, and placing them, along with attached nurse and worker bees, into a new hive body along with stores of honey and pollen - it's called an 'artificial swarm.'  The additional trick here is to leave the original queen in the original hive body, which can be nerve-wracking when you cannot find her!

At this point, my research indicated to move the original hive away from it's location, and replace it with the new, smaller colony hive body.  Foraging workers will return  to the location that they left from originally, and should help to ensure that there are enough foraging bees going out to gather more stores to bring back to the new colony as it adjusts to its new home.  The original hive 'should' have plenty of workers, and some will become replacement foragers and orient on their new location on the way out - so that they return to that location. Of course, there's always the crossed-finger hope that the bees will cooperate.

Knowing that we were getting close to the time where swarming might become a possibility (queens take 16 days from the time they are laid until they emerge), I headed off to Rona, where the nice guys in the lumber yard made a bunch of cuts for me.  The fellow who helped us with supplies for the chicken tractor, and who cut some top bars to size for me last year remembered me.

I picked up some 2x12 spruce boards, some 5/8 inch exterior grade plywood, and a piece of pine shelving....doesn't everyone do building projects in their gazebo?

The shelving board is what we use to build the follower boards (the boards that define the left and right boundaries of the colony in the hive body).  Each follower board is attached to a top bar for placement in the hive.

The hive body is built out of 2x12 boards to fit the follower boards (ahem, at least that's the intent - the final product isn't perfect here, but the bees don't seem to mind).

We attach screening to the bottom of the hive body, for ventilation, and prepare an additional board from plywood to attach in the winter to help maintain the interior temperature (see hinge attachment at the bottom of the picture).

Paint the inside of the hive with linseed oil, or a linseed/beeswax mix - I was in a time crunch, and was adding existing, familiar comb, so I used the linseed oil on its own.  The linseed is a preservative for the wood, and a few drops of lemon grass oil can be added to the hive body to encourage the bees to feel at home.

The plywood top (with salvaged 1x4 edges) was painted with exterior paint to protect it from pooling rain, and the whole shebang was moved into place and leveled.

Prior to moving day, I did an inspection of the original colony, marking the location of swarm cells and those bars that contained mostly honey and pollen - it made it easier to pull what was needed for the transfer once we started swapping things about, and meant less stress all at once for the bees.  My mother looked on, unconcerned, from a few feet away while we completed the split as quickly as possible. We were impressed with her curiosity.

Here, the bars with newly-laid queens, and one older queen cell showing royal jelly have been moved into the new frame.  My hope was that the first queen to emerge would simply kill off her younger rivals and assert her control of the hive. There are frames of food on either side, and several empty bars for expansion. The followers are to either side of the new colony - with the screws visible.  The original move was just 9 bars, but within 3 days I added a couple of extra top bars for expansion, as the foragers continued to return to the original hive site and swell the numbers.

We need to do a full inspection of each hive this weekend, weather permitting, to make sure that there is evidence of a laying queen in each, and then I need to have an official government inspection of the hives...

before our whole household makes a move - to Front Porch Farm.

Tax Season and Cherry Blossoms

View from the upstairs window last week

Today was a full day of tax submission and garden work, and as I sit here typing, Adrian is being wonderful and making a scratch dinner for us.  He and I muddled through our returns until the sun was a little more bearable this afternoon (and I do apologize to those of you who are frowning at my complaint of too much sun), clicked on the scary "are you sure everything is correct and you really want to file this?" button, and then we escaped outside to a sunny day.  While Adrian caught up on rabbitry cleaning with his headphones in, I listened to the birds, weeded, and then seeded some lettuce, cilantro, and bronze fennel to the beds from seeds saved last year.  I also checked over my potted plants to see what continued to show signs of growth, and saw that our original planting of saved seed potatoes are starting to poke their heads out, the snap peas we planted (3+ weeks?) ago are about an inch and a half high, and volunteer strawberry plants are coming up strong along the edge of the raised beds.  Throughout our chores, the evergreen clematis scented the back yard. 

The currants and the blueberries are close to bloom, but I'm leery of setting out the mason bees yet, as our temperatures have not yet stabilized above 14.  Not ready for full-time outdoor residency either, the tomatoes and a few other starts planted to flats are hardening off out on the deck during the day, learning how to cope with the big bad world. 

Black Currant bush with blossoms forming and a few already opened

The Asian pear is just about finished flowering, while the Bing and Ranier cherries are opening blossoms in a lazy progression and the apple tree blossoms are still tightly-furled promises of pink flowers. The bees were buzzing around my head (and occasionally bouncing off it) working on collecting pollen for the now-expanding hive. This past Tuesday's inspection showed considerable pollen stores and honey prior to capping.  Workers were hauling out debris and dead bees, and working on building comb as well.  There was brood in various stages, including an almost full comb of drone cells, which I believe is in the expectation of mating flights soon.  There was no evidence of a queen cell, and I will check again in the next few days.

Ranier Cherry

The perennials have gone from a slow start to a lush growth, and the mulch we used to top up the beds after a heavy weeding make everything green really pop. We've eaten kale sprouts and stinging nettle over the past two weeks, and today it was time to harvest some of the overwintering parsley which has started to put forth some growth.  Tabouleh for dinner!

 Sprouts and Stingers

 

Pretty green parsley

Stung, But Not By A Bee

This past weekend we finally had a warm, clear day on which we could do a hive inspection.  I had quickly slipped a couple of empty bars in earlier, worrying that the girls might have been responding to the warmer weather with thoughts of expanding, but I was nervous about opening things up in the cool evenings......

My trusty co-beekeeper....

We opened the hive, not knowing what we might find.  There was some wax debris, a small bit of mold, and dead bodies on the hive floor needing to be cleaned out, but minimal insect damage or visible mite issues.  The colony had smaller numbers than I would like, and we had no visual on the queen - but everyone was calm and occupied with work implying that a good queen remains in control....

Some of the girls were busy cleaning and building a bit of new comb, others with the very minimal pollen and nectar stores in last year's storage.  I put out some of their honey, directly in their flight path, to give them a boost.  They've ignored it for 2 days.

We took the bottom board off the hive, to allow for better air flow now that the nights aren't getting too cold. The ventilation should help to help clear up the small amount of moisture that is causing some edges of comb to mold, and I will examine the comb in a week or two to judge the hive's process on their cleanup.  We're keeping 2 of the 3 access holes blocked, until the hive builds its numbers and has adequate guards for the entrances.

Then I got stung.  We had received 5 yards of mulch to pretty up the pathways and top off the perennial beds, and were moving some of that to the garden.  Having picked nettles the day before for our first serving of stir-fried greens, I guess I got  a bit thoughtless around the prickly plants. I put my hand down on a root, and came away with a mildly throbbing finger for my trouble.  

Intoxification

The long wait for warmer weather sometimes makes gardeners do silly things.  Adrian and I had some cleanup to do over the weekend, and a rainy Saturday made for a longer than intended day of work on Sunday.  By the time we finished the majority of our chores list and the daylight was waning, we ate a very well-deserved take-out dinner (oh the irony), and then slept like the dead.  The aches and pains this morning reminded me how I can bite off  bit more than I should at this time of year.

Still, the rabbits have an upgraded manure collection system (we needed the buckets back!), and we bred two of our does in the rabbit run in full sunshine, giving them some personal time as well, to eat some fresh grass, dig, and lounge about.

The potatoes I had kept for seed from our harvest last year (red, white and purple) went into our potato buckets, along with some local, organic, fingerling potatoes which had sprouted even in our dark spare room.  I'm still waiting for my fingerling seed potato order, and have 4 larger buckets waiting for planting. As Adrian noted, Russet and Yukon Gold potatoes cost a dollar or two a pound, but the fingerlings are up to five dollars most of the year - focusing on growing specialty items saves us money at the market and makes us more appreciative of our 'treats,' since the fingerlings taste wonderful smashed and fried.

Barley and wheat went into the beds prepared last weekend, and are covered carefully in weighted-down row cover fabric, to deter all of the wildlife that is currently scrounging for food.  With all of the rain we were having, I was reluctant to sow my grain seed too early.

Our first round of Snap Peas is also in, assuming the aforementioned rodents and crows don't dig them up.

The mason bee trays are soaking, and the bee house is being aired, in anticipation of this year's crop of cocoons - which are temporarily being stored in the fridge.  With the bushes and trees breaking bud, our masons will hopefully help us to have another good harvest of fruit this year.

Lastly, we had one more trick up our sleeves in our efforts to protect our fruit trees.  They had sticky traps for the fall and winter, wound around their trunks and slathered in petroleum jelly, then we managed to spray them weeks ago, to try and knock any overwintering pests and fungi back.  Yesterday afternoon, we took some white interior latex paint, and covered the trunks up to the lower branches with sparkling bright paint, to act as a further deterrent to animals that might nibble on the bark, or bugs endeavoring to burrow into the wood.  That last chore is probably what made for the most aches this morning.  It's harder than you would think to paint a tree!

We intend to move our top bar hive back under the old apple tree, but we also need to finish pruning and top up the mulch under there, so for now it remains in its temporary location.  the bees have been quite busy, and the days are getting warmer, so I decided to take a quick look inside the hive to assess what's going on.

My concern was that the colony population might be swelling in response to the season.  I took the lid off this afternoon, in 12 degree weather, and had a brief peek in each side of the hive for the first time - not opening up the hive fully and risking cooling things down.  The hive was absolutely buzzing, the bees largely ignored me (which was perfect, since I wasn't wearing any gear), and were actively making daisy chains and building new comb.  I added two extra bars to assure them that they have plenty of space, and closed the lid, with the heavenly smell of fresh beeswax in my nostrils, and a smile on my face.  I've been watching them for weeks now, and I'm thrilled that the girls made it through their first winter.  Adrian and I will need to get geared up and do a full inspection (though we're looking at 6 days of rain starting tomorrow).  I need to know what the whole hive looks like soon - was there any mold or insect damage over winter, what do the stores of pollen and honey look like, are there are any drone cells... I especially need to know if the colony is starting any queen cells - we may need to speed up our hive-building plans.

Smells like spring!

Feeling The Burn

With a short break in the 'Spring' weather, this has been a time of starting things up in the garden. After our surprise snowfall (which made house-hunting just that much more difficult), the crocuses are again showing some color, the buds are starting to burst, and the tulips and peonies are pushing up through the mulch.

At the beginning of the week, when I realized we would have a few days without rain (a window we missed last year), I was determined to get the fruit trees and the fruit bushes sprayed.  Because of our mild weather, many pests overwinter here on the coast.  Even some non-edible species of plants and trees are hosts for insects and fungi that can do real damage in the garden.  Living in the suburbs with many gardens around us, we have scab, aphids, rust, borers, sawfly - you name it - and some of these pests can be minimized by an application of 'Dormant Spray,' which is a combination of horticultural oil and lime sulphur.  The trick is to get it applied to the plants and trees when there will be several dry days for the application to rest in the nooks and crannies of the bark to kill pests and spores, but before the leafy buds actually 'break' and are damaged by the sprayed oil.  On the 'Wet Coast' we sometimes don't get the chance.

So, at the end of the day, I assembled the ladder, the spray pump, the hose and the Dormant Spray Kit, picked Adrian up, and expected a quick round of him prepping the water/oil/fungicide mix while I clambered up and down the ladder and sprayed the rotten-egg-smelling mixture all over the back yard (and myself - can't be helped with a breeze).

Except the pump wouldn't hold pressure.

So there we were, in the fading light, switching to a plant mister each, and straining to reach as high as possible with our application of the stinky mix. What can I say - I love him!

My minimal seed order was placed last week, and arrived yesterday, so this weekend will involve starting some tomatoes and lettuces - as soon as I pick up some sterile Starting Mix, and purposely ignore the seed selection that will likely be in evidence at the hardware store.  The dry spell meant that we could get at the first few garden beds to pull weeds and the remaining cover crop of winter rye, turnip and mustard (rabbit snacks!), which was what Adrian helped with last night.  Three beds weeded, and the top layers prepared for my wheat, and barley planting.  The timing is good - Mother Nature should helpfully water it all in for me this weekend (that's one way to make a positive out of the weatherman's report that we have our normal, rainy, seasonal weather on the way again).  The timing for a rainy weekend is also good for the tending of one's aching muscles after a long-unused set of gardening muscles have returned to use!