Blog #40
May 2 – May 20, 2023
Three major things are happening at CW Ranch.
We Are Fostering a Dog: Kaiser/Schultz
David has always loved German Shepherds. I used to think he was just being thoughtful and considerate of me since I grew up with GSDs. And he is always thoughtful and considerate of me. But the truth is out: he just loves the breed. He’s been like a little kid the past few months oogling over German Shepherd rescue groups photos.
Then he broke it to me. He wanted to foster. I don’t really want another Shepherd as a permanent family member. One factor is that they take up a LOT of room in the Airstream. Sounds silly, but it’s a living condition that becomes an obstacle.
David contacted South East German Shepherd Rescue, an organization that works in NC and VA. We wanted an older dog, thinking they are harder to place for the rescue. They said they had a one-year old – or maybe he is 7 months. We were reluctant to take him, until we found out he was scheduled to be euthanized in 3 days where he was staying at the nearby county shelter. Off we went to Statesville and picked up an almost all black German Shepherd adolescent.
He seemed a little talkative/barky, but they showed us videos of how much he learned in a week and we knew he was trainable. In person, we could see this one is going to be bigger than our present 6-year old Shepherd. He’s already learned sit, is much more comfortable around us and only wants to please. My daughter Brianna taught him down last night and he’s doing it like a champ. Now we need to talk to a trainer and get him to stop barking at other people so much. His name was Kaiser but we changed it to Schultz. Remember Hogan’s Heroes? “I know Nothing!” 🙂
Beekeeping Mistakes
Beekeeping can be hard, especially if you make mistakes. A couple of weeks ago, I got my bees in nucleus hives. The “nuc” frames came from deep hive boxes and I only use mediums. I use mediums because when the deeps are full of bees and brood they are SUPER heavy and I don’t want to break my back working with those. Some people who use deeps also use mediums just for honey supers but using only mediums allows me more flexibility when I have to take down a hive that’s failing and/or make a new hive because they seem like they are going to swarm.
Switching deep nuc frames to a medium box requires attention and planning. And I tried on my own and realized that afternoon that I didn’t really accomplish what I wanted. I needed to move ALL the bees into medium boxes and all I had done was add another medium on top of the hives with the deep frames. I consulted Cliff, my bee mentor and he explained how to fix my error. Thank G-d I have a patient mentor who can guide me through this.
Am I America’s Worst Beekeeper? Far from it, but I AM learning every year. I am not a pro, either in beekeeping or video production so bear with me. In addition, while I’m working in the hive, sometimes I use the wrong terminology. I know what capped brood looks like, but I haven’t been working in a hive for the better part of two years so I had to check and misspoke a bit. Most of you won’t care, but if you’re in this beekeeping world, understand that while I was making this video, I was just speaking extemporaneously and messed up sometimes. You’ll get the gist of it.
Some of you are intrigued by this. Your adrenaline may be rushing almost as much as mine watching a video of me working the bees. If you’re worried, I never got stung through all this mess. Anyway, below are a series of 1-2 minute videos (in 17 sections!) that guide you through what I did. It might be interesting, but it certainly won’t take much time. Hope you like it.
1/17: Intro to Fixing My Beekeeping Mistake
There are 17 short videos so you can fly along with my bees and see how this is going to happen.
2/17: The Plan: How to change my deep frames to medium hive boxes
Beekeeping challenge: This is the plan to adapt my nuc, which came with deep frames, to medium hive boxes and frames. I show you what I did wrong yesterday, how I’ve fixed it in two of the hives and what will be done in the third (spoiler: it’s the same as the first two).
3/17 Smokin’!
Smokers are an important Beekeeping tool. Using smoke, the bees become calmer for the beekeeper — which is important when you are trying to do an inspection or rearrange the hive as I am. Here’s a short visual on me checking to see if there is enough fuel in my already lit smoker.
4/17 Smoking to Open the Hive
I use the smoker and a hive tool to open the insulated cover and start entering the hive.
5/17: Showing the top hive box
Showing the frames of the topmost hive box. There is capped brood up here but — crossing fingers — I shook the queen below the queen excluder yesterday. Pray for me? And the queen?
6/17 Put top hive box together: Preparing to Dive deeper
Short video showing how I put the top hive box back together again (in same order!) and will begin removing it to get to the next lower box.
7/17 Inspecting the Next Hive Box
Taking off the queen excluder, we get to look at bees on the frame and see drawn wax on foundation and capped brood. Why did I think it was honey? Getting my beekeeping sea legs back under me.
8/17 Beginning to see Deep Frames from Nuc
I start delving into the hive box that has the original deep (long) nuc frames. You can see capped brood and lots of activity.
9/17 Further inspection of old deep Nuc Frames
Looking at the next frames from the original nuc. Great example capped brood still surrounding the empty hatched out comb.
10/17 All Boxes Off the Stand
I took all the boxes off the stand (you’ll notice I have them on top of inner covers to catch any bees that fall). Now for the next step in the plan…
11/17 Installing New/Empty Hive box
Adding one more empty hive box. Now this hive matches the other two I have.
12/17 Planning to Shake Bees into Hive Box
Showing the prep work before I shake the bees into the boxes below.
13/17 Shakin”! Knocking a Bunch of Bees off a Frame
Taking the first deep frame to shake the bees into the new hive box. I said they hear a thwack when I knock them in, but really they just feel motion. Bees have no ears or hearing. Otherwise I could sing them a lullaby to calm them down?
14/17 All Bees Accounted For?
I finished shaking the bees into the bottom 3 hive boxes. Now I’m going to install the queen excluder to prepare bottom boxes to be placed on top. No, I haven’t seen the queen but the bees should all be “downstairs” now.
15/17 Blue Tape On
I repaired the queen excluder by adding blue tape to fill in the gap.
16/17 Reinstalling Nuc Frames in Upper Boxes
Both lower boxes have been switched and placed above the queen excluder. I installed some foundation below and will fill in the upper hive with the deep frames that used to contain the nuc. And I misspoke. No, those are NOT supercedure cells, they are drone cells. Drones are the male bees. And there will be some bees in the upper boxes. There should be. The nurse bees will help the brood that is still “upstairs” as they hatch from their cells.
17/17 Finally Done!
Explaining what I did, how long it will be before I go back into hive. Queen doesn’t really need to reorganize herself. The whole hive needs a break and I need to wait for the next laying/hatching cycle to be well underway before I see what is happening in the hive.
Gimme Shelter — for Goats and Sheep
I got a call from one of my dealers. Not drugs, goats. Shame on you if your mind went to that.
She said the goats would be ready for me to pick up in two weeks. Ut oh. Our shelter is nowhere near ready. David wanted to build a pole barn but we’re waiting on the concrete contractor. A base for the barn may help us keep it clean and disinfected and therefore less smelly. It’s not done.
Amanda said no worries her mom would be happy to hold onto them for a couple of weeks. Well David, my hero, got right on it. He went to the local shed store and found one that we could purchase and could be delivered in 10 days. He rented an excavator machine so we could level some of the field. He hired a guy to run the excavator and a neighborhood kid to help him build a retaining wall. He bought a dump truck full of gravel for a base for the shed. All was ready to go on Saturday. While David went out with Porter (the neighborhood kid) to get the 4x4s for the retaining wall, I texted Amanda to tell her that our shelter would be ready. She texted back saying she was mistaken.
Ooops. At least we have a shelter coming?!
That’s it from CW Ranch. The Long and Weinstein Road has definitely detoured into farming world. It’s beautiful here. Life is good.
The Long And Weinstein Road 