Lovin' Our Chickens!

chickens in....

We forgot to close up the chicken coop last night. This morning our little flock were all out about roaming the yard. A quick head count found all eight well and accounted for.

I'm thanking our Camp Kreitzer guardians, St. Michael and St. Joseph for keeping the foxes and the raccoons away last night. A fox will take one off, but raccoons will kill them all even those he doesn't eat.

So the problem, since we are going out later. How to get them all back into the safety of the coop?

I proceeded to use bribery. I went to get a container full of chicken treat. When I came out of the house and started to shake the container with their treat, they come running. I always feel like the Pied Piper when I bring them their treats. And they followed me enthusiastically into their pen...except for one holdout, Pepper, who stopped at the door and decided freedom was better than treats. I tried to coax her in, but gave up after awhile and went back in the house.

Last Bee Feeding for the Fall?

The temperature got up to 72 degrees today, warm enough to do a complete bee inspection. Both hives have lots of bees and are heavy with stores. The bottom boxes were pretty empty so we moved them to the top and fed both hives, probably for the last time until late winter or early spring. We put in new swiffer sheets because both hives had lots of small hive beetles. The sheets that were in the hives captured quite a few Hopefully they will die back over the winter.

We used the smoker but the bees were pretty calm. We moved the hive near the road over next to the other hive because the bench was leaning forward a bit and looked a little unstable. Wouldn't want to come out some morning and see the beehive fallen onto the ground. So all is good in the Camp Kreitzer bee yard. May the patrons of beekeepers keep our girls warm and healthy over the winter so we can try expanding in the Spring. We'll pray for a better season than this one was.

Feeding the Bees again

I like to keep track of our bee maintenance, so I use this blog to do it. We've fed several times, the last was on Thursday, October 10th before we left for our granddaughter's wedding the next day. We plan to feed them again this week. I walked by the hives yesterday and there was lots of activity at both hives. When we fed them on Thursday there were lots of black hive beetles caught in the swiffer sheets. We'll need to put more in next feeding. Hopefully the bees will do well over the winter. We have the patrons of beekeepers on it. Whenever I bless our beautiful property with holy water, I never miss the bee yard.  

Remembering my Dad...

Remembering My Dad with Gratitude

Yesterday was my dad's birthday. He was born in 2017, the first of five children born to Raymond Michael Schneider and Marie Zurlinden Schneider in Cleveland, Ohio. His dad, my grandfather, was an organist who played in vaudeville for the silent movies and later was organist at St. James Catholic Church in Lakewood where his men and boys' choirs became well known. He taught his own children to play and Daddy played the organ later for the Catholic community at the Naval Academy when he was student there and for St. Augustine's in Elkridge, MD after he retired.

In 2009 my brother, Ray Jr. (now deceased), posted this on his blog:

Raymond John Schneider — Dad

Ray's first ship was USS DETROIT, which was at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. DETROIT subsequently transported the Philippine Government's gold and silver monetary reserve, which had been removed from Corregidor by submarine, from Honolulu to San Francisco. 

Bee Feeding and Inspection: Good News/Bad News

Well, the bad news today is that our Bianca hive is finished. We reduced it to two boxes since there are still bees in it, but we aren't sure whether they are robbers. We took out two frames with a little capped honey which would have been capped before we added the sugar syrup last Saturday. 

The irony of losing Bianca is she was the nucleus hive we paid $170 for in the Spring. It was a really strong hive, but it swarmed. We kept introducing eggs, but Bianca never reared a new queen. The hive that did rear a queen was the split we made from our own hive. So we will be going into the winter with two good hives, Anya and Charlie, and hopefully we can keep them alive until next Spring when we will try again to increase our little apiary. We fed Anya and Charlie with full Ziploc bags of syrup. The bees are also using the water source I left out there which was good to see, and our hive beetle traps have caught quite a few small hive beetles. 

The most exciting part of today's inspection was that we saw the queen in Anya. She's a beauty and laying well. It's always fun to see the queen and we don't very often so that was a thrill. We didn't inspect Charlie since that hive has been thriving all summer. We just added the syrup and closed up. 

We'll probably feed again in a few weeks.

Bee Update

The drought has done a number on the nectar flow. There's nothing much out there, so we've already started feeding. Larry did the deed yesterday and we put about two quarts of sugar syrup in each of the hives. That gives the bees something to do and lets them store up food for the winter. We need to do a complete inspection this week, maybe Wednesday to see what the brood situation is and whether we have three queen right hives. Asking the intercession of the beekeeping patrons. 

Saying Good-Bye to Bonnie Bluebeard

Poor Bonnie died during the night. For the past few days she's been acting oddly -- didn't want to come out of the coop, limped a bit, seemed to be feeling bad. I picked her up and petted her. she was extra docile. Bonnie was my favorite chickie, so I’m sad today. Silly, I suppose, to cry over a chicken, but I really loved her.

How can people kill babies? I think of Jim Lemon, the deathscort at the killing center where I counseled on the sidewalk for so many years. He loved his dog, Pumpkin, but championed child killing. He often told me that abortion just sent the babies back to God, so He could send them to someone who wanted them. I often urged him to think of the babies as puppies since they meant more to him than tiny human souls.

Jim’s gone now…I wonder to where. Think I’ll pray for him today. Despite his evil philosophy, I liked him. Poor, stupid Jim. So sad. I don’t want anyone to go to hell.