The People in Darkness Have Seen a Great Light! Tour a Lit Up Camp Kreitzer!

I don't like the winter. I don't like the cold; I don't like the dark. Thank God for the holy days of winter! 
How I love the holidays. I love to fill the house with light when it's dark outside. 

I love coming home and seeing our Nativity scene out front with the wayward donkey straying off on his own and the star of Bethlehem over our front porch. I love setting up the crib, the tree, and my Christmas village that all shimmer with light. And I will leave them all up until the winter is on the wane -- until at least Candlemas Day on February 2nd. 

One year I didn't take the decorations down until Ash Wednesday. It was early that year, but I just couldn't bring myself to turn off all the lights and go back to Ordinary Time. So I skipped it that year and continued celebrating Christmas until Lent. 

Every room gets its little bit of Christmas. 

Here's the tour.

As you come in the front door, the living room/home chapel is on the right. I put my village there with all the trappings of an old fashioned Christmas. It begins with the little stable I fashioned out of an old shoebox and the Precious Moments nativity.

The Pumpkin Party!

One of my favorite October events is dinner in a pumpkin. Last Sunday we had a family party and invited everybody to bring a pumpkin to decorate or carve. Nobody took us up on that, even our daughter who suggested it. I had to laugh when she and her children arrived with no pumpkins. Our son's family had a late sports event with their second grader and arrived shortly before dinner, so they anticipated no time for pumpkin carving. And our other daughter's family had already decorated their pumpkins. So other activities, mostly catching up on everyone's news, took precedence.

The dinner was a success: chili in the pumpkin with rice, muffins, coleslaw, and broccoli salad. Dessert was pumpkin cheese cake, rice krispy treats colored and shaped as orange pumpkins, and a big box of European chocolate coated cookies from Costco. A good time was had by all! And hopefully this is one more memory from Camp Kreitzer to treasure in the future and maybe repeat in the next generation and others to come. It's still not too late to host a pumpkin party at your house. And if you want extra fun, watch the hilarious Steven Spielberg short, The Mummy.

Thinking about Prepping the Chickies for Winter! And the Bees as well.

This time of year is busy at Camp Kreitzer. We've been working on closing up the pool and getting our bees and chickies ready for the winter. The mouseguards are on the hives and we've reduced the hive entrances.  We've also been feeding a heavy sugar syrup to make sure they have enough stores to survive til Spring. Those preparations and the help of the beekeeping patrons give us confidence that all will be well. Hopefully we will come out of the winter with both hives surviving. They are strong now; we pray they will stay that way. And the reward for our efforts is the yummy honey. I've been making a honey egg custard that looks and tastes like flan -- delicious, light, and gluten free.

Bonnie Bluebeard is a Plymouth Blue.

The chickens are thriving and still giving a full complement of eggs every day -- except for our welfare chicken, Whopper, who is an Americauna and will lay blue eggs if she ever starts. Our five ISA Browns, one Orpington, and one Plymouth Blue are all laying big brown eggs which usually measure jumbo on my chicken scale. And despite the days getting shorter, they are still almost all laying every day. So we generally get seven eggs and six on a day when one of the girls decides to take a break. I love going out to collect the eggs every day! And we enjoy sharing them with our children. 

If you are in the neighborhood, stop and meet our girls. We will introduce you to the chickens by name, but the bees are nameless. We just say, "Hi girls!" when we go out to work the hives. Maybe that's why they are testy some days which is why Larry is holding the smoker. It's a lifesaver on days when the girls are not happy.

Two Hives Queen Right, Two Not!

We've never had such a hard time getting a split to rear a new queen! Bethesda still doesn't appear to have a queen so we gave the colony two frames of larvae and capped brood from Elkridge. Morgantown doesn't appear to have a queen either so we gave that colony one frame of larvae and capped brood from Wheeling. Hopefully, before the end of the summer we'll have four queen-right hives, but this is getting a little frustrating. We  took two frames of honey, one from Wheeling and I can't remember which other hive. All the hives are bringing in lots of nectar and quite a few frames are almost ready to harvest. Elkridge doesn't seem to like the box of plastic frames. Wheeling is doing a great job drawing comb on the plastic and filling it. I got the plastic frames from two different places. Both were supposed to be wax coated, but I'm wondering if one set of frames are more bee-friendly than the other. Hopefully, Elkridge will start to draw the plastic frames before the next bee inspection.

A Hot Day in the Bee Yard

After the wax moth invasion last week, we decided we needed to make sure we were on top of things. Since the mercury is climbing up to about 90 degrees today we headed out about ten after Mass and breakfast. Whooeee! Already hot as blazes in those bee suits.

Bee Inspection and a Hive Disaster!

 

Well, we're down one hive today thanks to an infestation by wax moth. Bethesda was the first hive we checked and they were doing okay but still don't seem to have a queen so we added another frame of eggs and larvae from Elkridge. Hopefully they will get queen right and give us a fourth hive.

Chicks are getting big! Only about six weeks until egg laying!

I took this photo on May 14th, the day we moved the chicks into the coop. When I looked at this photo today I could only say, "Wow!" They are so much bigger now.

Bee Inspection Today: Good News and Bad News

We began our inspection closest to the road. We hoped the kingdom of Bethesda would have a queen, but no dice. We saw no brood. I split the hive on April 30th so they should have a laying queen, but maybe she's just a slowpoke. We put in a frame of young brood from Wheeling in case they have no queen so they can rear one. Hopefully all will be well before long. They are going gangbusters with honey production. We took out two frames of capped honey to put in the freezer.

Not Doing a Good Job Keeping Track of Bee Management!

 I'm not doing a very good job keeping track of our bee management. I'll try to catch up.

April 30th: Larry and Chris were working on the chicken house so I worked the bees by myself. I did another split from Wheeling because that hive is still so strong. They should have a laying queen since it's been 24 days since the split. Next warm, sunny day I'll check. If they don't have a laying queen we'll add a frame with eggs.

May 12th: Bee check. Cleveland had lots of ants. We washed them out. Another hive had ants as well, but I can't remember which There was a lot of drone brood in Morgantown so we took some of it out and also added another box to discourage swarming. Everything looked pretty good. Lots of nectar and pollen coming in.

We did another check but I don't remember the date. We think that Cleveland swarmed since there seemed to be a lot fewer bees. But if that's the case they don't have a queen and need to rear another. So we'll need to keep watch and figure out what's going on there. 

I need to make sure I record data the same day as inspections because I can't remember what I had for breakfast, much less the detail about five hives. If I wait a few days I'm lost!

Naming the Hives to Make Management Easier: The Girls are Working Hard Bringing in the Gold!

Our five hives from left: Wheeling, Morgantown, Elkridge, Cleveland, Bethesda --
All of those cities are significant places from our family history.

I decided to name the bee hives after some of our favorite places to make it easier to record what's happening in each hive and keep it straight. I use the blog as my bee diary. I'll give the hives ABC names in an order that helps me identify them individually. For now they are Bethesda, Cleveland, Elkridge, Morgantown, and Wheeling.

• Bethesda is the recent split closest to the road (far right). No point checking it today because they are still a month away from having a laying queen. Bees are going in and out which is a good sign. 

First Campout of the Season with Two Happy Little Boys!

Shenandoah River State Park - View from the Overlook Trail

We took a quick camping trip on Monday with two of our youngest grandchildren who are five and eight. A lovely park close to home, Shenandoah River State Park, outside Front Royal, VA was the destination. One of the great blessing there? -- no cell or internet service!

Time for a Serious Bee Check of All the Hives!

But it won't happen today. I added another box to the hive farthest from the road. They are the mama hive of all the others and really needed it. We can't do anything else until we get more foundation for the boxes. I have some coming today, enough for two more boxes and I have more ordered from Dadant, but I'm not sure when that will come. It's a little frustrating that the local bee store had no frames made up and he wasn't sure when he was going to get to it. So we are doing the best we can at present. Hopefully on Wednesday we'll have the supplies we need and can add boxes to some of the other hives and do a queen check on the split we made six weeks ago. They should have a laying queen.

With Food Prices Rising and Shortages Possible in the Future, I'm Practicing Foraging

Dandelions! Yes they are dandy and edible as long as you don't use weed killer in your yard. We've never put anything on our property in 20 years! So today I decided to go foraging in my abundant dandelion crop. Everything about the dandelion is edible: the flowers, the leaves, even the roots. You can read about eating dandelions here.

The Chicken Coop is Coming Together - But it's the chicken mansion!

Bad Tempered Bees in the Bee Yard

 I think next bee check we'll definitely use the smoker. I looked at the swarm trap hive first. No sign of wax moth invasion so I left it alone. Hopefully we'll catch a good-natured queen and start a friendly new colony. I checked the hive next to it and just lifted the top box which is already pretty heavy. I looked at one end frame which was full of uncapped nectar. Added a box of undrawn frames which will give that hive plenty of work to do.

A New Adventure: Setting Up a Bait Hive in the Bee Yard

It's swarm season and a good time to try to attract one to our bee yard. So today I set up a swarm trap/bait hive. It looks the same on the outside but inside it has only two frames of drawn comb instead of nine frames. (For non-beekeepers drawn comb are frames the girls have already built on. You start with wax foundation which is like a blueprint. The bees build it out to make cells for pollen and nectar storage and egg laying. I added a few drops of lemon grass essential oil to provide a scent that attracts the bees. Now we wait and see. I'm asking all the patrons of beekeepers to invite swarms to check out our lovely little dwelling.

Bee Expansion! From Three Hives to Four.

We checked the hives last week and decided we needed to split the big hive on the first warm day. The colony is huge and will definitely swarm if we don't do something although there are no immediate signs in the hive that they're ready to swarm. 

A Sad Beginning to Passion Week

One of the baby chicks died during the night. I checked them last night and two had clogged vents (also called "pasty butt") when dried feces hardens around the exit hole and prevents the chick from excreting. I read about it and it can be fatal. I followed the instructions to gently remove the feces and hoped for the best. But when I came down this morning poor Raptor was dead. The other chick is doing fine. So I've buried my first baby chick and have been reflecting on how people can kill human babies with nary a tear. I'm crying over a five-day-old chick and abortionists are murdering babies who can live independently outside the womb.

The Babies Are Here! Six Little Chicks!

I've been bugging my husband for about ten years that I wanted to get chickens. He resisted big time and I didn't want to do it without his agreement. So, as I approached my diamond birthday. I said, "All I want for my birthday are chickens." How could he not say yes?

This little girl is a Plymouth Blue. Shall I give the chicks pirate names?
She can be Bluebeard's Daughter or Bonnie Blue(beard).

More Photos from the Pirate Party! A Good Time Was Had By All!

Plenty of Pirates at the Pillagin' Pirate Tavern

Argh, Matey! The Pirates all be Restin' after Seekin' the Treasure at Parrot Island!

Cap'n Poncy Hawthorne of the Ragin' Cannon with her rival,
Cap'n Jack Blacksparrow of the Black Onyx. Who will reach the treasure first
 and be the richest pirate on the Ocean Main?

My birthday weekend continued on Sunday with a mystery murder party with a pirate theme. what a lot of planning went into it and everyone was there at the "Pillagin' Pirate Tavern" (aka the Woodstock Brewery). Every one had a pirate character and the costumes were as varied as the personalities. 

Thoughts on Turning 75!

celebrating with six of my granddaughters and my daughter, the photographer

Today is my birthday. My parents named me Mary after Our Lady's feast day yesterday for which I'm deeply thankful. And now, here I am, celebrating my birthday for the 76th time as I journey on toward the final goal. What comes to mind as I reflect on the past, the present, and the future?

Brood Check -- Thumbs Up for all the Laying Queens

Well we did our second Spring check just to make sure all the hives have laying queens and they do. We saw brood and young larvae in all three hives which means things are progressing normally. We'll check again in a few weeks when we will probably split the hives. We saw lots of colorful pollen: yellow rose colored and a few flower petals still being brought in. Lots of shiny nectar being stored!

When we were new beekeepers we tended to overdo the hive checks. Now we have a goal and once the goal is accomplished we butt out! Today's goal was to make sure we had queen-right hives and to reduce the four super hive to three if the fourth wasn't needed. There were plenty of empty frames in three boxes so we took off the top box which was all empty frames and will clean things up and get ready to make splits. That way we can prevent swarming and double the size of our apiary. Thanks "bee" to God that we came out of the winter with three hives all strong and healthy.

First Spring Bee Check -- March 5, 2022

We did our first bee check on Saturday, March 5th and were thrilled to see all three hives active after the winter. It's the first time we haven't lost at least one hive to the cold. Our purpose in checking (We don't like to bother the girls unnecessarily) was to make sure they had enough stores not to starve in the last few weeks before the Spring nectar flow starts. 

Two hives still had some hard sugar from the winter and other stores. The other had eaten all the sugar but had a heavy box with plenty of food. All the hives were active and full of bees, so we are in good shape for the start of the season. Yay! 

One hive was on a wood table that was slanting because the front legs are starting to rot. So we took it off the stand, Larry leveled the ground, and we gave the girls a more stable bench stand. The yard looks very spiffy!

Larry leveling the ground for the new bee stand.