The Bees Will Have the Buffet

From the scout to full on feeding frenzy. The Bee Gs (girls and guy) are trying a new feeding method. Seems the bees were hungry and needed a larger amount of food per feeding. It's not exactly how I want to use poultry waterers, but it is a wonderful idea. They can hold two gallons and that's a bit more than a mason jar.

Junior Beekeepers Unite

We put some pie pans filled with rocks out for watering the bees. This idea came thanks to a post Becky shared. It talked about bees drowning because they don't have anywhere to land and rest while imbibing. Pearce and I have experienced this, finding at least 10 dead bees in the wading pool.

Of course the munchkins had to get there pics taken with the "bee troughs". 

I never thought about bees needing water, but they do. Kristi keeping bees is turning out to be a real education. The only hard thing is desensitizing the kids to the bees. They are so funny. They'll stand next to one of the hives for 5 minutes then run when you tell them they're near a hive.

Got a Beat Down Today

The rain was a good thing ... and a bad thing. We needed the rain, but it came down so hard my sprouts suffered some damage.

Cucumbers

Tomatoes

Calypso Cucs

Summer Squash

It seems the Calypso sprouts did the best out of all my plants. I need to get these babies in the ground.

Scouting the Garden

We are doing a program on planting a garden at scouts for an elective adventure for the Wolves. We planted tomatoes, cucumbers and squash last week. These are pictures of the results of one week's growth for Pearce and "auxiliary" Wolf Claire's seeds.

Funny thing about doing this adventure is that the scouts and Claire are all old hands at gardening. 

These will constitute the deck garden here at the house. We'll transplant the sprouts to big pots and keep them on the deck for easy access. 

Who Said Volunteerism is Dead

This right here is my absolute favorite kind of volunteering. I never planted garlic last year but, low and behold, I've got two of those suckers in the raised bed by the bees. Didn't see them till after I hit the bed with the weed eater. Can't wait to see if they turn good 'uns.

1 Seed, 2 Seed, 3 Seed, 4.

Pearce and Claire were actually fighting over who got to remove the seeds from the flower head. I guess we'll save two heads this year.

The Great Frame Up

This is the floor frame. Just a few screws in strategic locations to firm things up.

The long pieces from these pallets will be the lumber for framing the sides of the coop. I don't think I'll have enough slats to make safe sides for the coop though

The Great Frame Up

This is the floor frame. Just a few screws in strategic locations to firm things up.

The long pieces from these pallets will be the lumber for framing the sides of the coop. I don't think I'll have enough slats to make safe sides for the coop though

Long Thought After Coop

Starting to work on the long procrastinated coop. Right now the plan is for a 5x4x4ish box with openings for egg retrieval and chicken eingang and ausgang. Not sure what that will look like yet, this is progress after a fashion.



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