Homesteading Craziness...

The past two days at our house have been pretty crazy. I should mention that before the strange-ness, there was an earthquake nearby... It happened two days ago, June 23 at about 1:45 in the afternoon. The epicenter was over 300 miles away in Canada, but some people in our community claim to have felt the shaking. I was in the garden weeding when it happened and I didn't feel a thing... Anyway, since then 3 mysterious things have happened.

1. Our bedroom door opened and closed by itself in the night. No windows open, so wind was not a factor and no other variables were different from any other night.

2. Yesterday, we had 1/2 of one of our bee colonies swarm. It was an absolutely amazing sight (and sound). I was working in our kitchen at the table when I heard a loud buzzing. I looked out to the yard and saw an enormous cloud of bees (maybe 25-30 feet across). I called to A and together we went outside with the camera (pics to follow) and watched the cloud shrink and condense until all of the bees landed in a clump way up high in our apple tree. I could NOT believe this was happening! The monthly beekeepers meeting had been just the night before and the topic was SWARMING(!!) and I chose not to go because I was running late.

The first person I thought of to call was the president of the local beekeepers association and she was at our house within 1/2 an hour. She and I did a full inspection of both of our hives to determine if, in fact, they were our bees. It looked as though they came from our Langstroth hive that contains Russian/Carniolian bees and that the bees left in the hive either had a new queen or one would be emerging imminently. She gave me several options about what to do with the swarm - it was pretty much out of the question to catch them ourselves by cutting them down because they were so high up and on the end of a branch. So, I could call one of two local guys to catch it for me and either let them keep it or pay them to catch it for me or I could try to catch them in an empty hive body with pheremones that would attract them down from their branch and start a new colony, or after removing the queen excluder during our inspection, they might come back into the hive on their own. Apparently, adding a queen excluder can make some colonies feel cramped, so they will swarm, but if you remove it and give them "more room" they may come back on their own and know it's ok to do so either by the bees at the hive fanning, or sending scout bees back. There were several offers to borrow equipment to catch them in, but I had to go buy the pheremone from the nearest beekeeping supply which is in Granville, NY, about 1/2 an hour drive.

So, I drove there and back as quickly as I could, all the while wondering how I would assemble my new equipment quickly and type the pheremone label info into an online translation site since it was all in French. I know a teensy bit of French, but not enough to know what to do with this tube of paste! So, I pulled into our drive way at 3:45, about 4 hours after the swarm landed in the tree and I could see that they were gone. My heart sank... I ran to the tree to see if they were still in there somewhere, but A came out and told me they were gone. Gone.

He had been on a phone call and was looking out the window when they left. He said he couldn't tell where they went, so we went around our property hoping they just moved a short distance into another tree. No such luck.
There was quite a bit of activity around the hive, so we're hoping they just went back home. Otherwise, some lucky beekeeper in our area may have an opportunity to capture a healthy swarm of bees!

3. Two of our hens (Little Pickle and Clemmie) are broody, so we got some fertilized eggs from a farmer friend and they have been sitting on them. The eggs were due to hatch this coming Monday, June 28. I had marked the fertile eggs with pencil so that I could collect our eatin' eggs, so everyday had to physically go into the coop, pick up the chickens and sort out which eggs are which. Well yesterday, the 2 that were under Little Pickle were gone! The only trace were a very few bits of dried shell near her. Well, I didn't think that L.P. ate them, but they have pecked their own eggs open on a few occassions, so I wasn't too worried, more puzzled.

This morning Little Pickle was missing, as well as the remaining 3 eggs that Clemmie was in charge of. Just gone. There were a few black feathers by their pen's fence and a lot of buff feathers. No blood, no guts, no trace of the eggs or their contents. I closed the gate myself last night, so I know it was closed. S is so very sad that her little chicken is gone. She knows there's not much hope that L.P. will come back, but I still have my fingers crossed. Maybe she wasn't in the coop last night (I did forget to check that) and wandered off. I can only hope that she's having a chicken adventure. S has already asked if we can get a replacement, she asked for the same breed and color and wants to name her Little Pickle so L.P. can live on. Poor kid.

I will post pics of the bees and some other fun stuff soon. Cross your fingers for the rest of our flock of hens.

Love, A, R & S