Definately Not Cheep....er, Cheap!

It seems like I am always trying to figure out ways to make my life a little more complex and somewhat stressful. This time, I thought a perfect way of achieving this was to start raising chickens. Oh, I always have known that to a certain extent, raising chickens has time and money involved, but I know that depending on the type of person you are, really determines the level of enjoyment that you can get out of almost anything. With our nation appearing to head into the toilet on so many levels, I have heard that people are starting to simplify their lives and try to prepare themselves for a time when they might have to start living more frugally and not have the option of relying as much on things we have grown accustomed to. So my thought was to start raising chickens for eggs and possibly meat. So far, the journey hasn't been too bad. Amy and Erin have really enjoyed the little peeps and this has been a wonderful learning experience for all of us. I, for one, have really learned a lot about general construction techniques because of course, the chickens need a place to stay. I have also learned that those chickens need to lay a lot of eggs in order to make back the money that we have already invested in the project. I never thought that we would really save money in the process, but I was hoping that it would cost less than it has. That's what this post is about. I hope you enjoy the pictures of the construction process of what has become way more than what was probably necessary.

Here are four of the five new members of the Walton clan. We actually purchased 6, but one expired for no apparent reason. At the time of this picture, they are about 2 weeks old.

 Here you can see the idea that I got for a portable chicken pen. It's built out of 1/2 inch pvc pipe and chicken wire. The cost was about $25, but really worth it, because it lets them get out of their little brooding box and into the sunshine. This is not predator proof but under supervision, it has allowed our other outdoor pets to get used to the chicks without having them for lunch. In the background, you can see the start of the chicken house.

This is the start. I was able to score quite a bit of used wood from several friends and family members and that has helped with the cost. The foundation is always one of the hardest parts because you have to make it level and square.

Since the coop sits off the ground a bit, the chickens needed a ramp to get in and out of their house. Erin built this pretty much all by herself. I think she did an excellent job.

Here, you can see the little opening that the chickens will use for access. You can also see Erin's ramp in place.

The coop with some siding in place. I had to learn about rafters and cutting the "birds' mouth" in order to get the pitch right for the roof.

Here, I have installed all of the siding and the tin roof. I decided that I wanted a door tall enough for me to enter without bending down. So I cut a 6 foot door. Remember that this is for 5 chickens. I think we have room for growth.

The trim is going up. I found a pretty good deal on some fiber cement siding and decided to use that. The only problem was that it was too wide and I had to rip it. Not really that much fun when you don't own a table saw. I also own a masonry blade for my circular saw, but it was slow and VERY dusty. Erin has begun painting and you can see a little of the trim around the door has been painted. We also now have a window.

Erin painted the little chicken ramp and I think it looks very nice in place.

I found an old window at a yard sale for $1.50. Good deal, but difficult to insert and we won't be able to raise it. It's primarily for light anyway. I also built a custom door from scratch. Getting close to calling this place done. One thing I haven't added is the nesting boxes. They will go on the left side of the coop and will stick out so that we may collect the eggs from the outside instead of going inside and potentially getting our feet poopy.


That's all I have for now. I will post more when available.

My Next Chapter of Beekeeping

I knew I didn't want to give up beekeeping. After only one season and a pretty substantial monetary investment, for my pocketbook anyway, I couldn't just toss in the towel. Besides, I have learned so much and have really enjoyed watching the bees work. It's really amazing how they accomplish so many things and work so well together. So I decided to order another colony. Last year, I ordered my first colony from Dadant beekeeping supplies. There is a handful of locations all across the country and I am very lucky to have one just about an hour away in Paris, Texas. Usually, you have two choices when obtaining colonies: package bees and a nuc or nucleus colony. Package bees literally come in the U.S. Mail and you basically dump the bees into your hive with the queen in a cage. After a while the bees release the queen from the cage by eating a little candy plug and she goes right to work laying eggs. A nucleus on the other hand, is a small established colony in a small wooden box about half the size of a regular hive. That is what I ordered last year. I went and picked them up in Paris. The process of transferring the bees from a nuc is simply placing frames full of bees and brood from the nuc into your hive and you have an instant bee colony. Dadant does not sell package bees, so if I order from them, I have to get a nuc which is okay. The only problem is that you have to order them early. They have a limited number of nucs available and you have to put your name on a list. By the time I realized my bees had died, it was too late to order from Dadant, so I was out of luck. My only other choice, I thought, was to purchase a package from a reputable apiary and have them sent to me. Most apiary's don't send out package bees until sometime in May.

Then, as I was looking around on the internet, I came upon some information about building swarm traps. A swarm trap is a receptacle that you hang somewhere outside with a bait of some sort inside that lures a swarm to it. In theory, it's a relatively easy and dirt cheap way to get your own bees. At some point during the spring, a bee colony will naturally outgrow their home. When that happens, the bees will raise another queen. Then about half of the hive and queen will take flight to find a new home. That's not really something you want to happen if you already have a hive of bees because if they swarm, that means a lot less work is going to get done for a while. So you really have to expand their home for them so they don't get the urge. But in the natural world, the bees do it all the time. So a swarm leaves the hive in a big cloud and they will first find a temporary place to congregate. At this time, a bunch of bees will take off to find a more suitable permanent home. This is where the swarm trap comes in. If you have a trap and a bee happens to find it, then you just might get a whole new colony to set up shop right there in your trap. If that happens, you just transfer them into one of your empty hives and you have your own, free, bees. Yay! Well, seeing as how I like to do things on the cheap, I just had to give this a shot. After all, on warm days recently, I have seen lots of bees out among the dandelions, so I feel pretty

certain there is a colony somewhere close by. So after some research, I built my own swarm trap. It has been hanging in it's location now for about three days. It's still a little early for a swarm, but I am patient. I really hope I catch one. I am going to build a total of four traps and put them in various locations to better my chances. I will let you know how it goes. 

Tomatoes From Seed

Well I thought I would try something new this year. I have always purchased little tomato plants and then set them out in the garden. This year, I thought I would purchase the seeds and start them myself. I have heard that it can be a little tricky growing tomatoes from seeds. I used a rotisserie chicken container as my temporary bed, put in some seed starter and planted the seeds. I then put the container in our laundry room until I just saw them poking through the starter mix. I didn't worry about the light. In fact, it was dark most of the time in there. It took about 1 week for the seeds to break the surface. Once they sprouted, I moved them to a southern facing window in our bedroom. I had read that new sprouts needed extra light time in order to become stronger. I decided to place a little clip on desk lamp next to the plants and keep it on every day for about 14 hours. I don't know if this actually helped, but the seedlings really grew well. It's been about 12 days now and it won't be long until I transplant the little plants into their own containers.

At this point, each one is about 1.5 inches high and has two little green leaves. Hopefully, they will survive the stress. After that, I have to harden them off by placing them outside for a short time everyday. We will see how it goes.

Hive Died. What Next?

So, my only bee hive died during the winter. When I discovered them, it bummed me out and I really didn't want to do anything with the hive right away, so I placed the whole thing in the shed and I just left it there for a couple of weeks. A few days ago, it was a warm day and I was out getting some things done around the yard. I decided to take the hive out and really inspect it. I set it on the ground and took out some of the frames. I looked at the couple of frames that had capped honey in them that for whatever reason, my bees didn't eat. There wasn't much and since I had no bees, I would try to harvest the little bit that was there, especially since I hadn't gotten a chance to taste any honey that the bees stored.  I took the frames inside and cut the part of the comb out that had the honey. I had read a little about a harvesting process called crush and strain. Normally, you would cut the caps off of the comb, hang the frame in a honey extractor and spin the honey out of the comb. Crush and strain, on the other hand, is a process by which you cut the comb out of a frame and place it in a shallow pan. You then crush the comb with blunt object or your hand, then let the honey strain through a very fine filter into a vessel for storage. An extractor is pretty pricey and the crush and strain method seemed like a good alternative. Since there wasn't that much, I really didn't have to crush it. As I cut it off, it basically fell apart. I put the comb and honey in a pan lined with waxed paper. I then needed something to strain the honey with. I had read about people using paint strainers or stockings. I didn't have a paint strainer, so Catherine was nice enough to let me have one of her clean stockings.
That ended up working perfectly. I stretched the stocking over a small jar, then spooned the honey and wax into the stocking. Before long, we had a little jar of yummy honey from our own bees. It was quite an accomplishment. And the honey was indeed yummy!

Update and Probably Long Post

Well, once again it's been a while since I posted and I keep saying that so from now on, I won't.  Winter is almost over here in north Texas and I'm starting to see little buds on the trees. I write this post with a little heavy heart because a few weeks ago, I discovered that my bees didn't make it through the winter. I was concerned that they wouldn't mostly because I worry too much about too many things, and that I always second guess my decisions. So when I discovered them dead, I guess I wasn't too surprised. I was really working hard on them and hoping that they would make it through. Since I'm a new bee keeper, I really don't have any firm reason's for their demise, but after closely inspecting the hive, I think I know why.

For all these months, my bees have had two deep hive bodies in which to move about and expand. If you talk to ten veteran bee keepers you may get eleven different answers to any question you may ask. And for pretty much everything I was wanting to learn about bee keeping, I would hear about so many ways to do things, I finally just picked what I thought was what I needed to do.  Ideally, you want the bees to store enough honey for them and have enough for you to take and enjoy. My bees never stored enough for me which was okay because it was the first year anyway. I was just wanting them to have enough for themselves. I was wanting to provide the bees with enough room to expand without having too much of an urge to swarm which is why I had two deep boxes. I was hoping that the bees would go between the two bodies using the frames and resources that they had saved for the winter.  As I checked the hive late into the fall, the frames were not all full, but they did look to have a sufficient amount of stored honey that would keep them fed. Bees, in order to stay warm and regulate the hive temperature during the winter, will do what's called clustering, which is basically forming a ball around the queen and move about the hive as a cluster taking advantage of the stored honey. What I think happened is that when it got really cold around here for about four days, the bees clustered in the lower body and didn't go into the upper body. When I realized they had died and opened the hive, I discovered some capped honey in the upper body. It may have not been enough for them, but I think it would have been enough to get them through the really cold spell and then I could have fed them sugar water. What I think I should have done, is removed the top box and moved any frames with honey down to the lower box. That way they would have found the honey easier and probably made it through the winter. Oh well. That's how you learn. That's enough for this post. I will post again soon with some interesting news.

Another Cool Toy I May Have to Aquire

Well, I'm back for what seems to be a million year post. Several months ago in the summer, I posted a picture on Facebook of me feeding some of our hummingbirds that visited our area. I'm sorry blog readers that I posted on Facebook and not right here. But for those who missed it, here is the picture.

It's hard to see the little guys, but they are there. It was actually easier than I thought. It only took about 5 minutes of waiting and there they were. It was quite fun.
Now, I have found something that may take this experience to the next level.

Behold, the eYe2eYe Wearable Hummingbird Feeder!

There is so much about this thing that makes it really cool. The bright colors are designed to look like red rhododendrons so as to attract the hummers to you. It looks a little strange when you look at the whole thing and I can't help to think that if the birds actually get that close to you, you may go crosseyed looking at them.

And unfortunately, because I'm not getting any younger, one of the first things I thought was if this might be able to work with my reading glasses. But realistically I will probably never have one of these because it runs about $80. Oh well. I guess I will just have to keep doing it the old fashioned way.