Thank goodness…Christmas Honey will see another year despite high demand for sales of the same!

We had a stellar day today and I hope I’m able to complete this brief posting since we are totally wiped out from all our activities. Just to note: each day as we have our coffee around 5am, we make our list of things we need to do for the day on the farm. This morning started out at a full tilt – accomplishing more than we ever thought possible – so much so that later in the day, Dave actually created the list we intended to do and he entitled it “To Do-ne” since we had actually done more than we ever thought we could have today!

First off, with the slight improvement on weather (after days of sweltering heat in the 100s!) we decided this would be a good day to work the bee hives for multiple reasons. I had pulled the honey super off the most active hive yesterday morning and was pretty pleased to have done this with good success. As you can see, I’m brushing bees off of one of the frames that is nearly all capped with wax in front of the hive.  Can you see my dripping sweat!?!?

I then took them to the nearby truck bed where I was able to sneak all away from the colony of very interested bees! Success! I stole an entire 10 frames of mostly capped honey from the very active “girl” hive. I drove off with this honey super to await uncapping.

In the meantime, I knew that the one weaker hive would be best off if I re-queened it so with a queen order on the way for pick up on Wednesday (tomorrow), it was best to eliminate the weaker queen at least 24 hours in advance. So I went queen hunting early today and eliminated this one after a rather exhaustive search! Ouch for her!

I was fully prepared to split the very active hive into a sub unit called a Nuc, but I found that it had several deep frames of capped honey for the taking. So instead of splitting this one today, I stole their honey and will allow them to work harder at their brood for winter as I gave them 3 fresh, un-drawn frames in exchange for those full of honey!

We were fully prepared to extract the honey today as we had rented an extractor from Isabees earlier in the week for this purpose. Jane, the owner of this local bee supply shop is most gracious and giving of her time and expertise. We were fully prepared to buy an extractor from her but found that her 3 day rental of a 9 frame manual extractor for $45 was probably a good way to find out what we wanted in an extractor for the future. So we found ourselves this morning with the extractor equipment and the ready frames of honey so we jumped into it with great energy! We had the space for all of this in my workshop, aka the honey house! I need a sign on the door: Nana’s Honey House!

I manually uncapped the frames using a pick even tho I had an electric burner/uncapper at the ready. After inserting the frames into the extractor, we spun them out using our man power and centrifugal force to get the honey to flow into the tank and out the bottom to our waiting buckets. 

Oh joy! 40 pounds of honey for gifting again this Christmas! We are hoping there is enough for all since sales are high and I have pre-orders waiting! $$$$

In the spirit of commercialization, I also canned 18 pints of pickles that are also a hit lately at the Artery in addition to the jams I’m selling there! Ooh, la, la!

In the meantime, the chicks, 4 weeks old yesterday, are growing so fast! They are happy to eat directly from my hand which is a great way to tame them!

They have outgrown the white walled kiddie pool scenario and we have most recently given them the entire interior coop area which is approximately 10’x 10′. We have hand delivered 2,530 lbs of sand (our backs can testify to the effort!) for their pleasure to the indoor and outdoor coop areas! Spoiled chicks! but they are adorable, calm and gorgeous as they enjoy eating out of the TOP of their feeder!

They love looking at themselves in the mirrors I have placed around the coop.

And here is the newest feature: they love roosting on Farley’s old gate which we recently added to the mix.

The harvesting has continued apace despite some incredible heat in our area. We picked peaches and enjoyed them at a family dinner recently.

I continue to sell our jams and pickles at The Artery! Here are the goods on their way to the shop after a morning of packaging!

Stay tuned for more chick news! The barn is finished except for the final paint job which starts this weekend and a bit of necessary landscaping! Hurrah!