April 29, 2017 8:00 pm | Fiddlehead Farm

We get Bees

May 5, 2017
by Bob Fade

Some of the bees took a while to make it into the hive

We ordered bees months ago, and of course, I still hadnt finished the basic beekeeping book before they arrived. I had put together the bee hive and installed the frames, but I was never more unprepared for anything as I was for getting bees.

We had ordered a nuc. Which is basically a nucleus colony that comes in a box, you just take it home and put the frames, with queen and bees, into your hive and voila, you have a bee hive. I quickly skimmed the pages on how to do this. It didnt seem too difficult, so Breanna and I grabbed the beekeeping veil, and the smoker and headed over to install our nuc.

I got the smoker working pretty easily, the smoke calms the bees so you can move them without getting stung. I unscrewed the top of the nuc and lifted the lid a little. The deafening roar of what sounded like millions of bees filled the air. I lowered the lid and stared out into space in terror, realizing I was in way over my head. I looked over to Breanna standing a safe distance away for support, oh good, she is videoing the whole thing. Realizing my impending, monumental humiliation will be recorded for the ages, I lifted the lid again, smoked the nuc and told the bees that “everybody just needs to stay calm”.

I loosened one of the frames and struggled to find someplace on the top of the frame that wasnt crawling with thousands of bees about to be unceremoniously removed from their home. I gingerly lifted the first frame with two finger and if you ever wondered if bees react to fear, I can assure you that they do not, I was positively terrified yet the bees walked around blissfully unaware as I transferred them to their new digs.

After about the third frame, the smoker died. Rest assured, I kept using it even though no smoke was blowing from the nozzle in the hopes that the smell from a small extinguished fire would somehow pacify the bees in the same way that the the smoke did. The bees started getting active at this time and I can tell you that its very difficult to tell if the bee angrily flying inches from your face are inside the protective veil or outside it. I was fighting my flight response about now and I actually had to watch the video to see how things turned out because I dont really remember, but apparently, I got all five frames installed, closed up the new hive, and somehow, survived without a single sting.

So now Im a beekeeper, and no, Im not posting the video

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Our Crazy Spring

May 1, 2017
by Bob Fade

The farm currently. The beds are going in quickly

As I write this, we are at least three weeks behind in our planting and working hard to catch up, I should probably be outside working, but its getting dark. We have had a very trying late winter/early spring.

Originally we were going to rent two acres from someone, but that deal didnt work out in the end. I didnt feel our needs would be met and we ended up walking away from the land. The problem is, that this was in the beginning of March, and I was planning to start planting in the beginning of April. Also, all of my planning was done based on that property and infrastructure. So I began looking for different land.

I quickly found a great guy who had land to rent and we decided to use it, it was close to home and seemed like a good fit, but when I ended up measuring out the land, the distance from the water source, etc. It turned out to present more problems than it solved and we just didnt have the time to sort them all out.

My future in laws had let us use their large garden to grow in last year and we were planning to also use it this year. They had earlier suggested that we stay at their place and expand the garden. I love working there and the soil is good, but all their property was wooded. They made it very clear that they were ok with us clearing the land and since we were getting desperate, we decided to go for it. Originally, I felt bad about clear cutting the area in front of the garden, but it all happened so quickly that I had no chance to dwell on it. Two weeks after we started cutting the first tree, the stumps were out, the ground was graded, fencing was up and the first bed was put in and planted. We have been making steady progress and hopefully will be caught up with our planting by the end of the week (when we will have to start putting in the warm weather crops).

One of the cooler things that happened during this crazy time was that we had to deal with a burrow that was in the area to be fenced. I assumed it was a groundhog as Id seen one run to that hole before, so I set out a Havahart trap, we ended up catching and releasing a baby fox. I moved the fence so the fox den was outside the field and we have really been enjoying watching the foxes popping their heads up and playing around the opening of the den.