October 17, 2021: Frosty morning, big buck

Beautiful cool clear sky overnight with a large bright moon and stars.  Just after dark I heard an animal sound coming from the direction of the well house (south) and I tried to mimic the sound and I was able to have a conversation with whatever it was.  Debby came and listened and she thought it was a pup of some kind.  A little while later we heard coyotes nearby and that kept the dogs busy for several hours.  

Morning farm chores are done, there is frost and ice on the vehicles and the roof but the water hose was not frozen solid, animals were all excited for their breakfast.

I don't know the morning low temperature because the temperature sensor I have been using stopped working recently.

The morning sunlight just reached the bee hives and the edge of the pasture, and I noticed a big buck walking slowly along the edge of the pasture towards the beehives.

I grabbed the binoculars, this was a very big healthy looking buck with a large rack, either 8 or 10 points, and a much smaller junior buck with 4 points was following the big buck.   

Honeybee update September 19, 2021

September 19, 2021

We have two bee hives, started in April using packages from Kelley bees, with Italian queens.  

Previously we had honeybee hives for a few years however we went with the natural hands off approach and did not treat for mites and also did not provide sugar syrup and we eventually lost the hives.

The hives are standard 10 frame deep Langstroth types.

We are using solid bottom boards, the entrances are fully open at present, each hive has two deep brood chambers, with 10 deep frames in each deep brood chamber.

A little more than half of the frames are using Mann Lake Rite cell waxed plastic foundation, and the rest are foundation-less frames that the bees have drawn out.  We have a mix of natural and black colored waxed Rite cell plastic foundation, we will probably stay with the black color for the deep brood chamber frames as it makes it easier to see eggs in the cells.   

On top of the upper deep brood chamber is an inner cover and on top of that is a four hole screened feeder tray that is enclosed with a third deep box, topped with another inner cover and finally a top cover. 

It is easy to feed sugar syrup to the bees with this setup, just go behind the hive (away from the entrance in the front), remove the top and inner covers, glance inside to look at the sugar syrup jars, we have been using two inverted quart jars with holes punched in the lids, this leaves two round screened openings for ventilation.  No smoker is needed, the bee hive is not opened up or disturbed because the feeder tray holes are screened.

An alternative approach used by some commercial beekeepers is to place an inverted sugar syrup container directly on top of the top cover, we may try that approach in the future.  For some setups frame type feeders are preferred.

There is a flow going on here now in mid September, the bees are not taking much of the sugar syrup.  The sugar syrup is 1:1 ratio (weight or volume) of pure granulated white cane sugar to water.

Today the forager field bees are coming in to the hives with white pollen in their hind leg baskets.  There are all kinds of wild flowers in bloom right now, but I'm not sure what plant is providing the white colored pollen.  

Mites are a serious issue for honeybee colonies these days, primarily the varroa destructor mite. 

In August we treated the beehives for mites using three separate treatments of Apiguard (thymol) spaced one week apart.  The active ingredient in Apiguard is thymol which is a natural substance.

For each of the three Apiguard treatments we used 25 - 30 gram doses of Apiguard placed in between the two brood chambers of each hive.

Temperatures in August during the Apiguard (thymol) treatment varied from low 80's to about 90 degrees F.

We did not perform any alcohol wash mite counts on the colonies, perhaps we will try that in the future.

The bee hives are located at the edge of the woods and pasture, the hives get morning and mid day sun and are shaded in mid afternoon.  Natural water sources are available nearby. 

We are only providing sugar syrup feed, no pollen patties or other supplements.

We will not be providing feed or performing any treatment when we have honey supers on the hives.

We plan to treat for mites again in December when the hives should be broodless, using oxalic acid vapor treatments.  Oxalic acid is also a naturally occurring substance.

If all goes well the bees should come out of winter in good condition and be ready for spring. 

At the moment the bee hives look good, the bees are gentle and busy.

Wild Blackberry picking / eating on the farm July 9, 2021

Last week I picked a gallon of wild blackberries, they were used to make blackberry jam.

Today I picked and am picking more blackberries.  We have had a little rain this week which has helped the blackberries, the best (large, plump, juicy, black) wild ones are presently in partial shade along the edges of the woods.  

We also have a few blueberry bushes growing in our garden area and some of the blueberries are now nice and large and plump and blue and I ate my first blueberry of the season today. 

Pro tip:  if you want a really nice crop of wild blackberries, dump some horse manure at the edge of the woods and wait two years and allow nature to do some magic and you will be rewarded. 

Sourwood Spotting Hike Piller Farm July 1, 2021

We have kept honey bees on the farm for several years, we first tried the natural approach and eventually ended up with no bees.  Unfortunately this is a familiar story for many beekeepers.

In April of this year we purchased two packages of bees, with southern Italian queens, from Walter Kelly / Mann Lake in Clarkson, KY.  The bees have been doing very well, and this year has been good in terms of nectar flow and pollen for our area according to local beekeepers.  

We are learning more about beekeeping, and part of this education is online and from youtube. 

I have watched several youtube videos from Bob Binnie, he runs Blue Ridge Honey Company in northeast Georgia.  Here are links to a couple of his videos regarding sourwood honey and sourwood trees:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puBmwJ69nWY 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEkJmvutinw

Wikipedia link with a map showing the natural range of sourwood trees:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxydendrum

Sourwood honey is considered by some to be one of the best types of honey in the world. 

I am familiar with many types of trees, but not the sourwood tree.  I started to learn about sourwood trees, and I have been looking around for several weeks hoping to see a sourwood tree.  Yesterday morning I noticed that some white flowers had appeared on a tree about 100 feet from our house, in between the house and the barn, at the edge of the woods, with southern exposure.  I grabbed the binoculars and saw that the leaves and flowers matched perfectly with the information I had looked at for sourwood!  The white flowers were shaped like miniature bells, hanging down in a row from drooping stems.  This was exciting and unexpected, we have lived on the farm for more than 10 years and I never knew that we had sourwood trees here, or that I would be interested in them because of honey bees.

This particular sourwood tree is sandwiched in between several other trees, it is behind and above a sassafras tree that we put a rope ladder in many years ago, with black cherry and oak trees behind and beside and above the sourwood tree. 

I went on a sourwood spotting hike, with pups and meows joining me, carrying a camera, binoculars, flagging tape, and white tree marking paint.  I found a few sourwood trees in the opening at the bottom of the driveway, and then more along the edge of the woods from the barn to where the bee hives are located, pictures below were taken yesterday July 1 on the farm.  I also saw a patch of sourwood trees on the south facing hillside across the road from our farm. 

Sourwood trees like full to partial sun, the trees are medium sized, they lean and are not straight, and the bark is deep and divided into rectangles.

I chewed a couple of leaves from different sourwood trees and it does indeed have a very nice sour taste. 

I checked on the ground below a couple of sourwood trees and found some fallen sourwood seed pods still attached to the stems, the opened seed pods were split into 5 pieces.  I believe I found some young sourwood trees, and I will try to learn about propagating or growing sourwood trees.  

I plan to do some work around a few of the sourwood trees I marked to remove a bit of competition and provide them with slightly more favorable conditions.

This weekend I will continue to look around and see if I can find more sourwood trees on the farm, I now know the types of places it will grow and it is easy to spot at this time while it is in bloom.

The sourwood is blooming here at just about the same time that some of the blackberries are ready to be picked.

 

50 degrees F June 23, 2021

 Beautiful clear night last night, bright moon, 50 degrees F for the low this morning, low humidity, bright blue sky today.    Basically a picture perfect day.

41 degrees F May 31, 2021

41 degrees F at 6 am on the farm this morning Monday May 31, 2021.

Very clear beautiful star filled sky last night.

31 degrees F and frost April 23, 2021

 31 degrees F and frost this morning.

26 degrees F April 22, 2021

 The temperature was 26 degrees F at the farm this morning, the region had a freeze warning in effect.  I saw 25.7 degrees F at one point but it could have been a little lower, I'll just say 26 degrees. 

24 degrees F April 3, 2021, Holly tree cleanup

 I saw 23.8 degrees F here on the farm this morning.

Took another hike with the chain saw, accompanied by pups, doing some timber stand improvement (TSI), cleanup on aisles 22 - 27 :)  

There is a lot of holly growing in some places on the farm, it's kind of invasive, it can grow just about anywhere, it seems to out compete some other more desirable species.  I have been cutting and cleaning up a good bit of Holly recently.

It's hard work, but after a while I work up a sweat and then it's time for a nice relaxing enjoyable break.

25 degrees F April 2, 2021

 Third morning this week with temperatures below freezing, low was about 24.8 degrees F, it was a hard freeze.

17 degrees F February 20, 2021

17 degrees F this morning.

Horses were happy to get a spot of grain, hand fed, they had some frost on their backs.

17 degrees F on February 17, 2021

Very cold day yesterday, cloudy, windy, snow flurries, below freezing all day and the temp dropped to 17 degrees F at 9pm.  

Temp went up a couple of degrees and then was back at 17 degrees F this morning.

Sunshine and no wind this morning is very nice.

Farm forest stream hike Feb 14, 2021

 Went for a long hike in the forest and to some waterfalls on White Oak creek this afternoon, accompanied by pups and meows.  

It was 34 degrees F and spitting a little when I returned to the house, apparently some weather is headed this way.

Brought a pair of loppers and a file and did a little cleanup on the hike.