The honeybees arrived on Thursday, May 23. I drove to Holland, MI, to pick up two packages of them, each containing about 10,000 insects! While I was nervous about putting these in my enclosed Rav4, the bees hummed quietly on the long road home. They spent the night in the tack room (with the chickens) before being moved to their permanent hives at Four Green Fields Farm just down the road.

The two packages of bees ready to be put in the car on Thursday. They were actually pretty docile-- a few loose bees landed on me, and then just flew away.  

The bees waiting to be put in their new home.

A can of corn syrup is included with each package of bees so they have food during transport. If you look closely, you can see bits of wax on the can where the bees were starting to build comb.

To get to the bees out of the box, you have to remove the can .

After removing the can, you take the queen cage, which holds the queen bee and her attendants. The queen cage includes a piece of candy (the white block at the top of the cage).  A small cork is removed on the side of the cage where the candy is-- the queen and her attendants, and the worker bees eat through the candy. After a few days, the queen can get out of her cage and start ruling the hive.

Posing for a quick photo after the installation-- what you don't see is all the bees swarming around! (No one was stung during this process-- honey bees aren't aggressive and won't sting unless they feel threatened).

First Time Out

Last weekend I finally got the chickens' outdoor run set up. It's simply an electric poultry fence, and a couple of pallets set up on cinder blocks for shade/protection from flying predators. The meat chickens are the only birds who are in the proper coop (the layers are still confined to their spacious dog crate), they got to be the first to enjoy the great outdoors.

As I opened the door to the coop, I thought they would naturally be drawn to the sunshine raining onto the coop floor. Not one was curious enough to climb the ramp to see the world that lay beyond the coop door. So, to encourage them, I picked up one of the big boys (SQUAWK!!!!!) and put him in the doorway. And then watched as he sat there. It took a bit of prodding (and a big shove), before he staggered out on to the ramp, proceeded to lose his balance, and flop to the ground, landing with a solid thud. After further thought, I realized that these poor chickens are so big, that they can't walk properly on flat ground, let alone up the ramp (you should have seen the poor things staggering around on the uneven ground once they got outside).

Contemplating the great beyond?

Contemplating how to get down--most chose to lose their balance and fall as a flapping feathery mess...

So, when the meat chickens go outside, they have to caught, lifted (and if I'm lucky I get one that's small enough to get the hands around its body and wings), and nudged through door. And when they need to come in, it's the same process. Fortunately, they aren't fast movers so I can catch them quickly at the end of the day.

Anyways, as cruel as it sounds, I'm ready for these birds to be in my freezer and not in my barn (not only are they really dumb, they're stinky). Next year, I'll make sure they have access to the run at a much younger age so they can get used to walking up and down ramps before they get too big.

Charlie and Jubilee seem to appreciate the chickens as entertainment.

Tractor

I spent Monday afternoon helping our neighbor drag a field so he could get his corn planted. It was far from perfect, but the field got dragged a second time and the corn seed got in the ground. I got to drive the tractor with the cab (so I could listen to music on the iPhone), but I was still a dusty mess at the end of the day.

Hay Field in the Spring

Rain showers in April followed by warm May weather means the grass is starting to grow. The hay field is looking good!

Chicken Update

The chicks have been with us for four weeks as of today. They are growing quickly and their feathers are coming in.

Layers
The girls are still kind of cute-- they've moved out of the house into the big dog crate that formerly held the meat birds. Their feathers are starting to come in, and you can start to see their feather patterns.

The crate is large enough for a branch, and they enjoy roosting on it.

They get a lot of entertainment from grass, sand, and digging through the pine shavings. They will be in the crate for a little while longer before moving into the coop. I'd like to have their run set up before I move them, and the electric chicken fence won't be here until the end of may.

They are also flighty-- they tend to panic whenever I move around above them or take the lid off of their cage. I won't be too worried about them getting  picked off by a hawk when they're outside.

Meat Chickens

These guys are not so cute and are getting HUGE! They're at least twice as big as the layers, and they moved into their side of the chicken coop a couple of weeks ago. They are always underfoot, and are obsessed with eating. They will lay down in front of the feeders and just eat. Right now, they only have access to feed for 12 hours a day so they won't grow too fast and break a leg or have a heart attack. 

Notice that some of the chickens have lost all of their downy, chick feathers, but haven't yet replaced them with regular feathers since they're growing so quickly (which makes them look kind of freaky). The wonders of genetics and selective breeding...

What a Drag...

Spent some time with my buddies Rocky and Charlie last weekend. We used a drag on their field to spread out their hay and manure that had accumulated during the winter. After that, their pasture was ready to be seeded.