Month: April 2020

First beehive inspection of 2020

Since the weather is warming up, yesterday we did the first beehive inspection of the year. We had concerns about three of the hives, where we hadn’t seen much activity, and our concerns were justified. But two were looking strong. Read on for details… the bad news first, then the good news.

Firstly, the Flow hive. It was completely dead and empty:

Cedar hive

The pink hive was a split we did last year, so was quite small, and we weren’t confident that it would have enough resources to survive the winter. And we were right; it looks like they starved to death, then froze when the colony was too small to maintain warmth:

Dead bees

A mass of dead bees on the base:

Dead bees

It’s very sad to lose two hives. But things were looking up in the next hive — we were expecting more of the same in the engineering-challenged orange hive, but it was still alive:

Engineering-challenged orange hive

We saw the orange hive queen, too — the non-stripy bee in the lower-center of this picture:

Orange hive queen

We also saw the purple hive queen (see if you can spot her); they are also looking good:

Purple hive queen

A closer look at the queen — near the center of this picture:

Closer queen

A comb with bee bread (protein source for worker bees, made from pollen):

Bee bread

The feeders we had on the hives had some space above the frames, which encouraged them to build there. So we needed to scrape that off:

Scraping

The scraped comb went into a bucket:

Bucket

Still on the purple hive, a frame with drone cells; usually not something we want to see, but one frame is fine:

Drones

A frame with worker cells:

Workers

On to the yellow hive, they are in the best shape, with lots of honey stores still, though more incorrect building above the frames due to the feeder:

Yellow hive incorrect building

Unfortunate to destroy cells with bee larvae. Though we noticed some varroa mites on the larvae, which isn’t great:

Bee larvae with mites

A frame with some new honey:

New honey

We added ApiLife VAR mite treatments and a pollen patty to help feed them:

Mite treatment and pollen patty

A nice frame of honey and brood:

Honey and brood

Since they’re looking mostly full, we decided to add the Flow super:

Flow super

Sad: two empty hives:

Two empty hives

When scraping the bottom of the feeder, Jenn thought she saw the queen there:

Scraping feeder

So we removed the Flow super and put the feeder back on temporarily, so the queen could go back down where she should be:

Feeder back on temporarily

We’ll inspect again next weekend, and remove the feeder and possibly put on the Flow super again. Though we might have to finish the mite treatment first.

Again, it’s sad to lose two hives. But at least we have three remaining, to various levels of strength. Now that flowers are in bloom, they should become stronger. We’ll have to think about getting packages or nucs to replace the two hives, or possibly do splits from our other hives later in the year.

Aerial mowing

Yesterday I mowed the lawns and field.  Just for fun, I flew my drone while doing so, and got some photos and video.

Here’s drone picture of me on my zero-turn riding mower, having just completed the back lawn (just a boring circular pattern). My beard is doing a fun three-way split from the wind:

Drone picture of David on mower

An animated GIF from the drone video of me on the mower:

GIF of David on mower

A top-down aerial shot of the flowerbeds partway through mowing:

Aerial shot of flowerbeds and mower

Another GIF, showing a much sped-up mowing of part of the flowerbeds:

GIF of mowing flowerbeds

Cat update for week ending April 11

For Caturday this week, another coyote visit, plus the usual assorted cuteness.

Porcini sees something interesting (probably a bird) at the cabins:

Two cats at the cabins

Full moon setting behind the cat house:

Full moon

Three cats at the cabins:

Three cats

Two cats inside the cat house (cute Porcini):

Two cats inside

Porcini watching a bird:

Porcini watching a bird

One of the twins between the cabins:

Cat between cabins

Four cats; we were watching all five cavorting from our house window, though I wasn’t able to capture all in one cam shot:

Four cats

Two cats sensing a disturbance in the Force: an approaching coyote:

Two cats sensing approaching coyote

This is a different coyote than the one we saw back in February, and only the second one we’ve seen in the years we’ve been here:

Coyote

Coyote

Coyote

The cats sniffing the coyote smells:

Cats

Three cats inside the cat house, waiting for breakfast:

Three cats inside

Poppy and Porcini inside during the day:

Two cats inside

Poppy licking Porcini:

Cat snuggles

Sleepy cats:

Cat snuggles

Four cats again:

Four cats

Friday bonus: koi and ducks

Some bonus pictures of the fish and ducks in our pond. The koi are starting to come out of hibernation, becoming more active as the weather warms up:

Fish

Fish

Of course, when I toss out fish food, the ducks scoop it up too:

Ducks and fish

Also, spotted a few of the smaller koi:

Fish and ducks

Fish and ducks

Fish and ducks

But wait, there’s more. Those pictures were from yesterday; today, I saw a bunch of the small koi (probably a couple of years old) and some of the older ones (about seven years old) amongst the grasses below the pond deck. I tossed in some fish food, which of course attracted the ducks:

Koi and duck

Fish and ducks

Fish and duck

Fish

Fish

Finally, GIF editions of a couple of those pictures:

Flock Friday for April 10

This week, we start with a GIF of frisky ducks, then a bunch more duck pictures, some token chicken pics, and finish with some misty ducks.

The aforementioned GIF (might take a minute to load):

GIF of frisky ducks

A frame of that GIF:

Ducks

Some more pictures of the ducks:

Ducks

Ducks

Ducks

Ducks

An aerial shot of the pond and ducks (see yesterday’s post for more):

Aerial ducks

Misty ducks:

Misty ducks

Chickens enjoying rice treats:

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Back to the ducks, coming to see me by the chicken coop:

Ducks

Ducks

A duck feather:

Duck feather

Some early morning pictures of the misty pond and ducks:

Misty ducks

Misty ducks

The ducks walking past the camera:

Ducks

Too many duck pictures? They’re just such fun. I should try to get more pictures of the chickens, though.

Aerial pictures of the gardens, pond, greenhouse, mountain

It has been nice and sunny this week, so I did a little drone flying, and captured some more aerial photos.

Here’s our fountain garden area, with the bird feeders on the left, cat house under the tree at the top-left, various paths, and the defunct fountain (likely to become a planter soonish):

Fountain garden

A couple angles of the pond (with the ducks visible):

Pond

Pond

A bunch of new plants in one of our flowerbeds:

New flowerbed plants

A shot from 400 feet (the legal height limit for drones) of the flowerbeds, pond, veggie garden, hoop house, shop, etc:

Flowerbeds, pond, etc

The berry cage, veggie garden, and chicken runs:

Veggie garden

The greenhouse and environs:

Greenhouse

Closer to the greenhouse, showing the bee water pool and recent excavations for greenhouse plumbing:

Greenhouse

Looking more horizontally, some distant hills:

Distant hills

Trees and hills

Mount Hood is visible:

Mount Hood

Zoomed:

Mount Hood

Zoomed more:

Mount Hood

Greenhouse plumbing

Over the weekend I did some garden plumbing, installing piping and taps for the greenhouse.

The first step was to dig to find the existing pipe that I knew went in front of the greenhouse. Here it is, a foot or so underground:

Hole to expose pipe

I then hand-dug a trench from that pipe into the greenhouse, below the sink:

Trench

Another angle of the trench, the greenhouse, and the tools; mattock to get through the layer of gravel and break up the dirt, shovel for large areas, and cleanout shovel for narrow bits:

Trench and tools

Then I cut the pipe:

Cut pipe

I installed new piping, with a couple of dead-end caped bits as points for possible future expansion (something I like to do to make things easier for future me, though I don’t have any use-case in mind for these):

Installed pipe

A closer view of the new pipe connected to the old one, plus a non-glued cap on the old pipe. That pipe extends about 50 feet beyond this point, but there are no more taps, so there’s no need to connect it (it’s a legacy from before we bought the place). If I want to use it in the future, I can re-dig it and connect to that expansion point:

Pipe connection and cap

Another view of the greenhouse end of the pipe:

Pipe

The pipe enters the greenhouse under the wall, with a valve near the ground (which will only be closed for repairs):

Valve inside greenhouse

The sink has a hose for the drain, so I added a second pipe to receive that drain hose:

Drain pipe

Here’s the drain pipe (the pink pool is to provide water for bees to drink). I curved the pipe so it’d end in the gravel area, not in the grass:

Drain pipe

Buried pipes, with the end of the drain protruding:

Buried pipes

In order to mount brackets for the pipes inside the greenhouse, I needed to add some blocks. So I stained them:

Staining blocks

One of the blocks attached below the sink:

Attached block

Assembling pipe bits for below the sink:

Pipe bits

Pipe bits

Here’s that installed:

Pipe bits installed

One of those forks leads to a tap for a hose:

Tap

Here’s the hose on the reel; this can be used for ad hoc watering anywhere in the greenhouse:

Hose

The drain pipe attached to the water pipe:

Drain

The other fork of the pipe goes first to a sink tap:

Sink tap

Then continues along under the sink:

Pipe under sink

And up to a third tap for irrigation:

Irrigation tap

Attached to that tap is an Orbit B-hyve smart irrigation timer and a four-way splitter:

Irrigation timer and splitter

One of those splitter taps goes to a second splitter on the other side:

Second splitter

Here you can see both sides, and the hose connecting them:

Irrigation

The irrigation emitters will be attached to those splitters, three for each, for the three lower shelves on the back and side.

Here you can see all three of the taps: hose below the sink, sink tap, and irrigation tap:

All three taps

Next weekend (work permitting): the last step of this project, the irrigation tubing and emitters.

Home Depot delivery for greenhouse, compost, bee shed projects

This past week I received a delivery from Home Depot of materials for the greenhouse plumbing project, the compost bins project, and the bee shed project.

In normal times, Home Depot delivery is great for materials that are too large for our truck. In these pandemic times, delivery has the extra benefit of not having to go to the store.

Since there’s a fixed $79 delivery charge for any amount of materials, I tend to bundle up multiple projects into one big order, to make the most of it.

I’ll discuss those projects in future posts, but briefly, the greenhouse plumbing is adding taps and irrigation in the greenhouse (currently underway); the compost one is building new compost bins, since our current ones are small and overflowing; the bee shed is enclosing an old potting shelter near the beehives to store beekeeping equipment.

Here’s the delivery truck; as usual, we’re the last order on the delivery route:

Truck

The longest boards in the bundle are 16 feet long, so the driver had to lift it high to get above the veggie garden fence to deliver into our hoop house; skillfully done:

Lifted high

The delivery items:

Delivery items

Delivery items

A closer look; pipes for the greenhouse (and lots spare); wood and corrugated steel and clear plastic for the bee shed; other wood for the compost bins:

Delivery items

On the end, a box of smaller bits — roofing screws, PVC adhesive, door hardware, corrugated gap fillers, etc.

Delivery items

On the other end, irrigation tubing and parts:

Delivery items

Stay tuned for more on these projects in the coming days, weeks, and months.

Cat update for week ending April 4

This week, nothing particularly dramatic happened; just a bunch of cuteness, as the cats have been spending more time in their house and cabins.

A couple of cats snuggling in their house:

Snuggles

Porcini and Pommie in the cabins:

Porcini and Pommie in the cabins

An interesting pose while scratching a tree:

Cat scratching tree

Cats sniffing noses:

Cats sniffing noses

Super-cute cat hugs:

Cat hugs

Three cats inside:

Three cats inside

You may have seen this GIF of scratching the tree on my personal blog, but here for completeness:

GIF of scratching tree

Pepper watching me from her nest on top of the shelving in the shop:

Pepper in the shop

Three cats in their house:

Three cats in their house

Cabin snuggles:

Cabin snuggles

Cabin snuggles

Spud and Porcini:

Spud and Porcini

Cat house snuggles:

Cat house snuggles

GIF of climbing the tree, also previously shown on my personal blog:

GIF of climbing tree

A fun frame from that GIF:

Climbing tree

Cats on the awning and roof of their house:

Two cats on house

Jumping up:

Two cats on house

Two cats on the roof:

Two cats on house

Paladout and ducks, as seen on yesterday’s Flock Friday post:

Paladout and ducks

Two cats on their deck:

Two cats

Big yawn:

Yawn

Screenshot of the camera views, showing four cats — one in the feeder, one in a cabin, and two in the house:

Screenshot of four cats

(I think I briefly saw all five, but didn’t manage to capture it.)

Finally, a classic Poppy face:

Poppy

Flock Friday for April 3

This week, Rory with the ducks, broody chickens, and a new camera view.

I posted a similar (but different) picture to this one, of the ducks and Rory, on my personal blog:

Ducks and Rory

The ducks on the back lawn, with their heads in the grass, looking for tasty bugs:

Ducks with heads in grass

By the chicken run:

Ducks by chicken run

Ducks and chickens

Two broody chickens in a nesting box:

Chickens in nesting box

Gert on the “island” pot in the pond at night:

On island

You probably saw these two pictures of the ducks and Rory on my personal blog:

Ducks and Rory

Ducks and Rory

I moved the mobile cam from by the cat house to the (currently off) waterfall area of the pond:

Camera

A view of the pond and ducks from that camera:

Ducks

Gert with her head in the ground:

Duck with head in ground

Gert was curious about the camera:

Duck

Duck

Duck

And knocked it over:

Duck foot

So I moved the camera to a better location, closer to the pond deck:

Camera

A view from there; you can see the ducks hanging out below the pond deck, where they’ve been spending a fair bit of time:

Ducks below pond deck

I suspect Gert may be considering that location for laying eggs, though haven’t found any more yet.

Swimming past the camera:

Ducks

Ducks eating treats:

Ducks eating treats

Gert:

Duck

Bert:

Duck

Gert below the pond deck again, and Bert walking past the camera:

Ducks

Both ducks below the pond deck, and Paladout walking by:

Ducks and cat

The chickens in the old coop:

Chickens

Broody chickens again (still):

Broody chickens

A wider view of the broody chickens and others:

Chickens

The ducks walking by:

Ducks

Chickens roosting on potato planters:

Chickens roosting on potato planters

The ducks below the pond deck again:

Ducks

Ducks and a bird:

Ducks and bird