I had the opportunity, haha, to put up a purple martin house for my mother in law. It was a good trade… I got dinner, and a she gave me a pole to put up my own martin house. We recorded the process to post so folks could see a quick how-to video on putting one up. One thing I will say, be sure to dig that hole deep… it’s a big house going up, and it will catch some wind. Check out the video below:
A recent video of a hive inspection. It is important to keep tabs on the resources each hive has you you head into winter. You want to be sure to leave enough honey in each hive so they don’t starve. Generally, bees make it through the beginnings of winter. It is usually the late winter/early spring when they will start to starve. This is because too often, beekeepers pull too much honey. Best to leave it for the bees… after all, it’s not like the honey will go bad, so you can pull it in the spring.
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We recently took a video tour of the property. Not focusing on the animals, the garden, or anything like that. This time, we were looking at something specific. What do plant to ensure the bees have food and resources year round. This is going to end up being a series, with an episode for each season. Subscribe to my YouTube channel to get updates. I will store all of these in a playlist.
So, let’s take a look at what we have available for the summer. I did accidentally call goldenrod witch hazel though… I grew up calling it that, so you learn something new every day.
We headed out to the other side of Batesville to do a cut-out from a carport. The homeowner said that she thought the bees have only been there a couple of months. We ended up finding a hive that had been there a LONG time.
If you have perused the internet for any length of time looking for guys to learn beekeeping from, the name 628DirtRooster is likely familiar. I recently had the opportunity to spend a couple of evenings talking beekeeping. In case you have never heard of him, head over to YouTube and check out his channel. Randy (628DirtRooster) is about as nice of a guy as Continue reading
I needed to sharpen my chain on my Husqvarna 450 Rancher…. like really needed to sharpen it. It was feeling a bit dull a couple of weeks ago when I dropped an old walnut tree for my mother in law. Then, I went and did that tree beehive cut-out, and that did it. By the end of that one, it was obvious, she was dull. This video details how I went about sharpening it.
We had a chance to cut a few bees out of a fallen tree. The homeowner wanted to cut the tree down a few weeks ago. As it happens, mother nature took care of felling the tree. Now, he just had the bees to deal with.
He called his pest control guy, with Pickens Pest Control (great company, by the way) and he was given my number to come take care of them.
I have a cool mother in law. Really, I do. She bought me a log splitter for Christmas last year. We discussed it, and we simply couldn’t justify the cost of a gas splitter at this point, so we went with an electric version. Harbor Freight tools is known for low cost tools. Some of them are pretty good, some, not so much. One thing about Harbor Freight, I have always found that they stand behind their goods, and have a more than fair return/exchange policy. After coupons I think we got this guy for around $200.
I put the log splitter to the test, and here are the results.
A quick look at the hives in the front apiary on the homestead. The weather was less than ideal, but I needed to get the inspection done. The remnants of Tropical Storm Cindy were on the way.
Once again, we break out one of our favorite building materials to create something we need on the homestead. Today, it is a chicken coop/hen house. This is actually the second rendition of a hen house we have made. The first one will be slightly re-worked to add the hinged opening. One thing about homesteading, you learn something every time you do something. In this case, I learned that installing an opening to get eggs would be far easier using hinges.
