high hopes gardens is a living experiment. Can a creative, hard-working family make a living working with nature? Join us on the journey from idea to practice as we revive an Iowa Farmstead.
If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!
It’s time to replace the evil hive that was invited to fly away on a 3 degree morning and start some new hives.
gj brought out six pounds of bees. It looks like a bee prison you might see in the “Bee Movie.”
Each box contains about 2000 bees and a queen bee. They will be put into the hives tomorrow. They were to be stored in a cool dark place (not a problem this spring!)
Finally, some farming pictures - outdoor farming pictures are few and far between during cold January weeks. However, there is one beehive at high hopes that is very aggressive and gj is not willing to work with overly aggressive bees.
The solution is to go out on a cold morning and remove the bees. She wasn’t too sure how long the bees would live in the 3 degree morning, so she’s dressed in full beekeeping attire. I bet you never thought that beekeeper’s attire worked well as winter camoflauge.
One frame is removed and the ball of bees is visible from in the hive.
Scraping the bees off into the snow and cold air. Some bees tried to fly away, but at 3 degrees the flight lasted about 5 seconds before they fell and perished. Next spring we’ll start over with a new queen and some buddies.
Here’s this week’s “Thingamajig” entry.
Also check out the last thingamajig answer.
As always, put your guess in a comment below.
You’re all probably as sick of the heat as me, so I won’t even go there. Things have slowed down over the past few weeks. But today GJ got out to build some bee frames.
But today GJ got out to build some bee frames.
It’s practically an assembly line with Martin to help paint!
Today, we finally had a day that wasn’t cold or snowy! We were able to get a few things done outside. GJ dressed up a crowd to do some bee work. She brought her stepson from CA and a friend visiting from Fiji.
Here is the crew and, of course, the youngest one gets to hold the fire!
Marty leads the procession down to the hive.
Smoking the hive to settle the bees before lifting off the lid.
Yeah! There’s still bees inside (that’s no longer something taken for granted).
More hive work. (I’m not sure what’s going on today!)
Linda got the first few things in the ground, although most of the garden is still to wet to work.
Today was honey extraction day. We went out in mid-afternoon to rob the honey from the hives while many of the bees were out foraging, loaded the frames in the back of the truck and parked it a distance from the house, so the bees wouldn’t find it and start stealing the honey back.
After the bees went to bed for the night, we drove the truck back and started extracting. The weather had just changed, and our near 80 degree day switched wind directions and dropped to the 50’s. We started the heater in the garage to make sure it was warm enough for the honey to flow.
The first step is “uncapping” the frames.
Here’s a beautiful full frame with the caps partially cut off.
The neighbors wanted to see the process, so they came over and here Marty and a visitor are in charge of the honey gate. The hot steamy garage and cool damp, dark outdoors made for a delightful contrast.
It’s amazing what grows in a week or so. Today was a big harvest day despite the sweltering heat. How hot was it you ask? When I got out of the car, my glasses fogged up at the blast of warm humid air.
But there were things to do - pulling some more of the garlic was high on the list.
We did this first thing in the morning, but it was still hot.
Martin with the day’s digging. The girls were sent out in the afternoon to pick beans. They came back with a 5 gallon bucket and a grocery bag full!
I think the looks on their faces portray the joy of picking beans! We also had a bunch of raspberries to pick, and a big secondary blush of broccoli.
In the evening, since it was so hot and the supers were near full, Joanne extracted honey.
A frame dripping with honey.
Turning the extractor and draining the honey.
Finally, the raw honey in a 5 gallon bucket. All in all, a good day at the farm!
Now that spring is here and things are starting to bloom all over, the bees are out in force after waiting patiently all winter.
Here’s a bee on a plum tree. The tree was abuzz with insects, mostly on the lee side of the tree to stay out of the wind. The unbottled fragrance spilled downwind from the tree.
Even the less showy maple flowers were attracting the bees, although not in this picture.
Today, we took care of unfinished business - got the rest of the fence up by the trees and fixed fences that had fallen around some of the chestnuts in the pasture. Finished planting the potatoes. This morning Grandma Jo and Martin administered bee medicine to the hives.
Martin operates the smoker to get ready to open the hives.
Our good neighbor planted a buffer of 24 feet of oats/hay around our farm on the land he rents. So now both of us can worry a little less about drift.
Took a load to the dump - wasn’t pleasant as the dump pile was upwind from the unloading area and the strong south wind brought 78 degrees. As long as we were in the hauling mode, we went to town and scrounged for cardboard for more grass killing/mulch for part of the garden.
Martin and I went for a little hike in a nearby woods. We found an old garbage dump in one part and found some “treasures” for our neighbor Nancy - a cobalt blue bottle, an amber apothecary-type bottle with black lid, and what looks like an old lampshade, only made of heavy metal. We also saw squirrels and the first spring flowers.
Martin has shown a great affinity towards the bees and seems to understand and play out the different roles of the different kinds of bees in a hive. Grandma Jo wanted to make sure he was comfortable around the bees - here he is in his new beekeeper’s suit that arrived today.
I’m guessing he’ll be the only beekeeper at Halloween next year.
We missed out on all the severe windstorms last night, but got a good downpour. Since it is not forecast to be below freezing through the entire forecast period and it was very windy today, I took the cover off the cold frame (purchased at Theisens a few days ago.)
Even though it was a town work day, farming work was done today. Today, Joanne extracted the honey from the first-year hives.
Here’s a section of a frame of honey still in the comb.
The frames go in the extractor.
The extractor gets spun around manually to spin the honey out - think a giant salad spinner or a very slow autoclave for the scientists out there.
Finally, the pot of honey - kind of like making something from nothing - like fruits from sunlight.
One of our peach trees has some overripe fruit and they are a magnet for the honeybees.
The bees are swarming all over the fruit - I’m not sure what the attraction is - whether they are getting moisture, sugar water for themselves or material to make honey - if anybody knows what they may be using it for, let me know!
Today as I was mowing the yard in a break in the rain, I noticed a cloud of insects up ahead, like a big group of something had just hatched. As I got closer, I saw they were bees and realized it was a bee swarm. Watching the bees swarm is like a train wreck - it’s not something you want to see, but can’t take your eyes off. They started to swarm on a white pine branch about 15-20 feet off the ground.
By the time I had run back to get my camera, here was what the swarm looked like.- 
You can see that just a few have started to mass on a branch near the top of the tree and many are buzzing in the air.
Here’s a closer look as the swarm continues to grow as the bees collect around the queen.
Another close-up of the main swarm body as it begins to elongate.
Even more bees coming in to make the swarm even bigger.
Finally, the swarm is at relative rest and all the bees that swarmed are in a mass.
It is quite an experience to see this phenomenon of nature and hear the incredible buzzing as they were swarming!
Mother-in-law Joanne has picked up the beekeeping torch. It was one of those things we always wanted to do - and had much of the equipment - but never had the time and thought energy to do it. She is ready to set up 4 hives, with the bees coming any day now. Today and the last few days was a flurry of painting, constructing, etc. before the bees arrive.
We greatly look forward to the honey and the pollination.
The upper 60’s seemed like a heatwave today. Lots of little things got done - tore apart an old gate made of wood and hog panel, finished watering the hardwoods for the first time, picked up the rest of the mulch that was dying for bedding, mowed the sheep pasture to keep the grass tender for the sheep who have yet to arrive, replaced one of the peach trees that died over the winter, started tearing apart the old trailer for refurbishing, got a row of beans planted and some gourds over this arch made out of a cattle panel that spans an unused portion of the garden where the poles are that will be used to construct grape trellises some day.
