A recent @YellowCottageHomestead TikTok video of Betty nesting on a clutch of duck eggs:
Bee shed: door cladding
More work on the bee shed project, including some tweaks to the door, adding corrugated cladding, and filling gaps.
As mentioned last time, I wasn’t entirely happy with how the door handle ended up with little space on the left of it, so I modified it to add another 2×6 board to the left, with a bit of overlap to help mount the corrugated panel:
I also added some 2×4 boards onto the corner posts, to also help support the corrugated panels:
I did the same on the door:
Here’s the final door wall framing:
Then I started cladding that wall and the door with corrugated panels:
I cut the corrugated cladding using tin snips; pretty easy:
A clear panel on the door:
The full door wall. I’m not entirely happy with the top panel on the door, as it isn’t properly straight (the top of the door is angled, so it isn’t quite as bad as it looks). I also think would be better as a clear panel, to de-emphasize the choice to offset the panels, so I might change that next time:
The door and wall from inside:
Lastly, I added spray foam gap filler to close up the gaps between the corrugated panels and the boards. Not particularly attractive, but this shed is all about function over form. I will use a knife to cut off the worst of the excess next time:
The door wall with gap filler:
Next time: changing the top panel of the door, cleaning up the gap filler, adding the shelves, and other finishing touches. Then I’ll be done!
TikTok: stream water feature
A recent @YellowCottageHomestead TikTok video of our stream water feature:
TikTok: watching the Turquoise beehive
A recent @YellowCottageHomestead TikTok video of watching activity on the Turquoise beehive:
Cat update for week ending April 24
Welcome to Caturday. Some cute pictures of Porcini (shocking, I know), plus I lift the fog on the cabins cam.
Porcini relaxing in the kitchen garden:
The cabin cam has gotten quite dirty from rain splashes; like looking through a fog:
So I gave it a bit of a clean:
Ah, much better!
Hey Spud:
Two cats greeting at the cat house:
Pommie:
Now that the weather is warmer, I’ve discontinued the heated water dish, and gone back to the higher capacity unheated one:
Porcini on the right of the cat house, watching me walk past in the field (just visible on the left):
Porcini in a cabin:
Porcini and Pommie:
A day later, them again:
Flock Friday for April 23
This week one of our ducks, Betty, started sitting on the dozen or so eggs in a nesting box in the duck house. So we may have ducklings in a few weeks time!
But let’s start with some pictures of the chickens, the first of which you may have seen on my personal blog:
Here’s Betty by the eggs, not happy that I was peeking in at her:
A couple of pictures from the duck house cam of Betty in the nesting box:
In this one, you can see Sonja joining her; she might be laying too:
Ducks on the lawn:
Jays grabbing peanuts from the feeder tray; I put out a handful of whole peanuts each morning for them:
Ducks in the pond:
Betty on the eggs again:
A time-lapse GIF of Betty in the nesting box, and other ducks coming in to eat:
TikTok: watching a beehive
A recent @YellowCottageHomestead TikTok video of watching one of our beehives:
Beehive inspection and mite treatments
Yesterday we did a beehive inspection and mite treatment.
But before that, I assembled a honey extractor that we’ve had for several months, since we still have some honey from last year that we haven’t gotten around to extracting yet. Unfortunately the handle was broken. It’s still possible to use it, though we might see if we can get a replacement:
On to the inspection. Here’s the Yellow hive, with some drone cells:
A brood frame:
A honey frame:
We removed the top feeder, and added a Flow honey super, since they were getting a little full:
For the Turquoise hive, there were plenty of bees, but didn’t see any brood. So it’s possible those bees are just robbing. This hive probably won’t make it:
The Cedar hive was doing well… a little too well, building brood between the boxes, resulting in broken brood cells when separating them:
They also built some honey cells above the top box, into the gap below the top feeder:
A brood and honey frame:
Another brood frame:
We added mite treatment strips to the Yellow and Cedar hives:
A look at the current state of our three beehives; Flow supers on the Cedar and Yellow:
The Cedar hive (you can also see lots of cell building on the bottom of the top feeder, left out there for them to evacuate and salvage any honey):
The Turquoise hive, that probably won’t be long for this world:
The Yellow hive, also with a Flow super:
About an hour later, while I was mowing the lawns, I noticed a bunch of bearding on the Cedar and Turquoise hives:
On the Cedar makes sense, as the treatment strips are pretty nasty smelling, so they might want to air out the place. Not sure why on the Turquoise, as it didn’t have treatments:
TikTok: trying to record bees, but chickens too noisy
A recent @YellowCottageHomestead TikTok video of trying to record the sound of hundreds of bees in a flowering tree, but the chickens were being too noisy:
Bee shed: door
It’s been a month since I last did work on the bee shed project, due to a vacation and rainy weather, but yesterday I made more progress.
The project of the day was the door. But first I tweaked the doorframe a little, adjusting the boards on the left side to make the frame more straight, and adding some bracing to help hold the frame to the posts, and provide more support for the corrugated cladding:
Then I built the door itself. I did so on top of three sheets of plywood (that will be used for the shelving), to help make it flat:
I added self-adhesive foam weather stripping around the frame:
The door mounted on hinges:
From further back:
The door (mostly) closed; the two middle cross-pieces are lower than the wall ones, to allow for where the corrugated panels will overlap:
For the door handle, I added a 2×6 block backer and a 2×4 on the left, to protect the hand from the corrugated panel:
Here’s the door handle and latch installed; it’s a bit close to the left, so can only be opened with a right hand, which isn’t ideal; I think I might tweak this to add another board between the left one and the handle, to enable left-handled opening too (nice thing about assembling with screws, easy enough to tweak it):
The latch on the inside; I chose this style latch as it can be opened from inside. I think I’ll add a handle on the inside too, to make it easier to pull the door closed from inside if desired:
The current state of the door; it looks like it sagged a bit while installing the latch (it’ll be braced by the corrugated panels when finished), so I might see if I can fix that too:
We need to do a beehive inspection, and I need to mow the lawns, so it might be a week or so before I can do more work on this. Next up will be the tweaks I mentioned, then I’ll be ready to add the corrugated cladding on that wall and the door.