Ready to go so come on, Spring!!!

[so lucky]

It's been nice here today; sunny and high about 55. I scratched around in the garden a bit and turned over some soil for the chickens to sift through for worms. Great tilth on the soil right now, too. Not really too wet to work if I had a need. Inside, I planted some cabbage seed and 4 tomato seeds, some sage and some asclepia. It's probably too early for the tomatoes, but they are in 4" peat pots, so will be able to grow a long time before needing to be put in the ground. And with only 4, I can baby them if need be.
The chickens were so happy, they jumped in my lap and talked to me.

 

[JimWWhite]

Exciting! You are getting close! Spring is still just a dream in my neighborhood. How are your bees doing?

The bees are fine Lesa. We closed out the season last October with 7 hives. We had 8 but one of them for some crazy reason swarmed and split late in the summer leaving a very weaken colony behind that withered away. But we'll start having a nectar flow in the next 3 weeks or so with the tulip poplars which the bees go crazy over. If we get an early spring like they predict the queens will start laying again and the hives will repopulate from around 6,000 bees that are in each hive now to 60,000 in just a few weeks. By early May they'll be at full strength and we'll have to start worrying about swarming and splitting again. If we're lucky we could end up with a dozen or more hives by October. I've been making hive bodies and medium supers to be ready for them. I think I have enough for 4 new hives now.

 

[vfem]

I don't have any luck starting greens in the house either. I'm sure you'll figure out whatever the trick is to it.

I planted a couple of beds of kale, radish, lettuce and cauliflower the other day. I covered the bed in hay/straw. Once things sprout I will use row covers on the boxes. I really hope it works out.

Tomatoes and chilies have been started in the house, I just saw some sprouts. Unfortunately, the light I use as a grow light... it also my chick light and I had to get it over the chickies. So I need to run and get another grow light. For now I moved the plants to the south window in the laundry room. Hopefully that will hold them a few more days.

 

[897tgigvib]

Jim, when I worked at the greenhouse nursery, we had a regular bunch who seemed to have a network watching the highway waiting for the truck to arrive with the shipments! Somehow some of them seemed to know before us when it would arrive!

 

[Jared77]

Jim are you doing your own splits?

 

[JimWWhite]

Jim, when I worked at the greenhouse nursery, we had a regular bunch who seemed to have a network watching the highway waiting for the truck to arrive with the shipments! Somehow some of them seemed to know before us when it would arrive!

Funny, Marshall...Funny!

 

[JimWWhite]

Jim are you doing your own splits?

Yes we do. Well, Teresa does. I'm just the Tool B***h. You know, 'Honey, go get me this.' or 'Honey, go get me that.' or 'Honey, hand me one of those whatchamacallits.'

But she has a very good teacher who is a master beekeeper just over the county line. He actually raises and sells queens. I'll go by and pick up a new queen from him and by the time I get home she's already moved four of the frames from the original hive body out along with the worker bees already on them to a new hive body. Then the queen cage will be wedged down between two of the frames in the middle after removing the hard plug in one end. Then she'll add the remaining five new empty frames to the original hive and then a medium super to that, a feeder tray, the inner cover and finally the lid and then button both hives back up. For the next several days the worker bees in the new hive will be trying to get to the new queen to kill her and her four attendants. But within a couple of days her pheromones will inundate the colony so by the time they get her out they accept her as their queen and put her to work. All this happens in late spring when the hives get pretty well populated and the urge to swarm occurs. The trick is to know what to look for and be ready. We've missed a few but we're getting better. Well, that is Teresa's getting better. I'm still the Al Borland of this operation...

Here's a pic of a queen and her attendants in a cage. The bees on the outside are trying to get to and kill her because she's a stranger. Incidently this is Teresa holding the cage with gloves on, but for the past year she's been working without gloves and never gets stung. She's got a gentle way with bees. I've always heard that women make the best beekeepers.

 

[RustyDHart]

I just checked my stored Dahlia tubers....all ok. My lambs should start arriving in a week or two...expecting about 30 this season. I'll be setting some Bantam eggs at the end of the month...... Spring is around the corner.....I'm VERY tired of this white stuff and the single digit temps.... My best to all!

 

[Jared77]

Jim that is just amazing! I'm so impressed and utterly fascinated by that. Tell her to keep up the good work! I'm dying to get a set up but I have a feeling it might be a couple more years before I can get them. (Few other more pressing matters to deal with first). By the way that picture you posted is REALLY something else too!

 

[baymule]

I just checked my stored Dahlia tubers....all ok. My lambs should start arriving in a week or two...expecting about 30 this season. I'll be setting some Bantam eggs at the end of the month...... Spring is around the corner.....I'm VERY tired of this white stuff and the single digit temps.... My best to all!

Rusty, I lurk over on BYH and I LOVE your sheepies! Be sure and post pics of the lambs! I enjoy your thread!