Like usual I am running a little late to wish everyone a happy Fourth. Still, it’s the thought that counts. Right?
Bud and I managed to take the beehives apart yesterday morning, and found that there isn’t a queen in the one. Bummer. Even worse, there seems to be a laying worker, which means she is laying only drone cells (all a worker can do), and the hive wouldn’t accept a new queen if Iput one in there now. No wonder it has been getting weaker -as worker bees die off there are no baby bees to replace them. So, the advice I have been given is to combine the two hives, at least for a few weeks, to add workers to the weak one and to get rid of the laying worker. This involves stacking them all on top of one another, separated by sheets of newspaper to keep them from fighting while they get to know one another. Then later I can buy a new queen and split them back apart. Sure hope it works.
In the evening I bottled twelve pints of chicken – that’s twelve pounds. I’ve been wanting to try doing it, and it was so easy I wonder why I haven’t done it before. Well, maybe the fear of botulism has something to do with it, but as long as you do it carefully that shouldn’t be a concern. The directions said to process the jars for 75 minutes at ten pounds pressure. I cooked them for 90 minutes at 13 pounds pressure. I opened a bottle today to make chicken salad – yummy!
This week is our anniversary, and we are going to spend a few days in Amish Country at a little bed and breakfast. This makes three years in a row we have gone to that area, and I joke that Bud likes to go there because you can’t even get a cell phone signal there - I am out of touch with everyone almost the entire time. We are going to go to a bee supplier while we are there and get some needed equipment, which will be interesting. And of course the cheese factories, the quilt shops, the tourist shops, etc.
On the home front, my garden is looking very good and about 2/3 of it is now mulched with newspaper and straw. That really keeps the weeds down, but I need about three more bales to finish it. I planted more beans this week, and hope these don’t become rabbit food like the last ones did. The squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers all look happy; the carrots are tiny, and the onions were mostly eaten by the bunnies, as were the peas. lettuce, and spinach. It’s been a really bad year for rabbits in the garden. Guess I need a fence. Or a mean dog.
Tomorrow morning we are closing on financing for the new fire station, then having our official ground breaking. The whole site has already been leveled and gravel hauled in for the driveways, but tomorrow the trustees sign paperwork and officially let the contracts, so tomorrow is the ground breaking. It has been a long haul getting to this point (over two years), and I am anxious to see how it turns out. The project has great community support, which is always good.
Hope you had a great Fourth of July, celebrating this wonderful country that gives us so many freedoms that are unknown in most of the world. May it always remain free.
Filed under: Family, Gardening, Self-sufficiency | Tagged: Bees
