Day: 2020-07-19

Ducklings day 46

For today’s duckling post, we start with a cam picture from last night, then sleepy ducklings, then treat time. I’m starting to use their names more, too.

From the cam, Betty spreading her wings in the pool; her feathers are coming in nicely:

Wings

Edit to add: a GIF of Betty dunking and flapping her wings:

Wings

Sleepy ducklings:

Sleepy ducklings

I had been plugging in the heat lamp each night, but now they’re old enough to not need it, so it has been discontinued. They still have the EcoGlow for now, though I’ll remove that in a few days.

Treat time:

Treat time

Betty and Cora (I think) heading in for a swim, with Bert approaching in the pond:

Ducklings with Bert approaching

Sonja:

Sonja

Betty and one of the Rouens on the steps, Cora at the top, watched by Bert:

Ducklings

Cora, I believe (I haven’t quite locked down the differences between her and Clyde, but I’m reasonably sure, if only because the females are more into swimming):

Cora?

Now that they’re mostly feathered out, and almost fully grown, I should do another duck name post. Once they’re in the pond, it’ll be harder to get as good pictures of them all.

Beehive tweaks in July 2020

Yesterday we did some tweaks to the beehives: adding a top feeder to the orange hive, a queen excluder to the hot pink hive, replacing the base of the turquoise hive, and replacing a few temperature sensors.

Here are the components we brought to the hives:

Hive bits

We replaced the Boardman front feeder on the orange hive with a top feeder that consists of four glass jars in a frame. The sugar water (1:1 ratio) can be accessed by the bees through a hole in the inner cover below:

Top feeder

The feeder is enclosed in a box; we use white boxes for feeders:

Top feeder box

Here’s the orange hive with the feeder box from the front:

Orange hive

As previously mentioned, we ordered a base for the turquoise hive, but it was the wrong size, so we got another one. Here’s the hive with the temporary base:

Turquoise hive temporary base

And with the new base:

Turquoise hive new base

From the front; much better (you can also see Jenn with her bee jacket, which will be relevant later):

Turquoise hive new base

We peeked at the yellow hive while replacing its temperature sensor, and noticed a little comb under inner cover; not approved, but not a big deal (this shows the inner cover hole like I mentioned above):

Yellow hive comb under inner cover

The hives:

Hives

Hives

Last night at sunset we added an anti-robbing entrance screen to the orange hive, since it is the weakest hive, and has the feeder. This screen has an entrance hole at the top, with a second one in the normal place that is closed. The idea is that this unusual arrangement prevents alien bees from invading the hive. We added it at sunset so the bees would be home, so they learn the new arrangement when they leave in the morning:

Anti-robbing entrance screen

Anti-robbing entrance screen

This morning Jenn cracked a couple of hives to add temperature sensors that had to be reset, and was rewarded with a couple of stings on her legs (as she was wearing the bee jacket, as above, instead of full suit). One of the joys of beekeeping.