Bzzzzzzzz!

Worker brood.

Today is a great day; it is really warm and sunny. I thought it would be nice to give our surviving bee hive a quick checkup and remove the entrance reducer that we put in place last Autumn.  The girls are strong and healthy.  There is a lot of brood, and I think they might have re-queened.  They are also beginning to store honey.  Nice.

We are really hoping to get some honey this year.  Two years ago, we got several frames out before a bear decimated the hive (see our older posts for more on that).  Last year we started two new hives. The strongest of the two died off while the weakest one continues to be the Little Engine That Could.  We're pulling for them and so far so good!

Marching Right Along

Today was a beautiful day.  Sunny and warm.  I have the windows open and can here the chickens' beaks hitting the tin as they peck up the chopped apple treat that Ross just gave them. Max is groaning because he wants to go out and play with the chickens and his daddy.  Earlier I planted our large front porch pots with an assortment of annuals. Other than the black flies (oh how I hate the black flies, and I rarely use the word hate), it was a great day to be outside.  Each day seems to get warmer and sunnier!

I walked around and looked at our gardens.  Flowers coming up all over the place.  Most of our hostas have little heads popping up.  Our other perennials are also just coming back to life. Lemon balm that I planted last year must have seeded as it is back and looking strong.  Seeing all this new growth is exciting. Of course, as all these new plants are starting to grow others are coming towards their end.  Our forsythia and daffodils are at full strength. So are the hyacinths and bluebells.  Soon the tulips and allium will replace them.  Time keeps marching right along.

Our fruit trees are also starting to flower.  The peaches are at full bloom.  Our bees, plus some big bumbles, have been busy pollinating the flowers.  The plum has also flowered. The apples, cherries, pears, and blueberries are close behind.  I included a picture of one of the apple buds as I thought it was just stunning.  I have high hopes of getting some good fruit this year as the fruit trees are all now several years old.  Of course, I will have to wait until each of these fruits come into season!  Everything in its own time.

It's Official

I've always wondered if I was just overstating the facts a bit when I referred to our property as a farm. We have several acres of land which used to be pasture land of a much larger farm.  It is now mostly woodland.  I never thought that having a small orchard, a handful of chickens, and two bee hives really counted as having a farm (and I shouldn't forget the electric fence). I think the fates are trying to tell me otherwise.

For those of you just tuning in to my ramblings, we sell eggs via a cooler on the side of the road.  We work under the honor system-the eggs are in the cooler as well as a bit of money to make change.  You take a dozen eggs, you leave your money.  We don't produce that many eggs so our customer base is a pretty small and loyal group.  Many a time someone also returns their used egg carton.  Yesterday someone returned a carton on which they wrote "Ross's Chicken Farm."  I had a good laugh when I saw this.  We aren't sure who wrote it, but they sure do know who we are.  That was the first sign confirming our 'farmdom.'

The second sign came in the mail today.  We received the 2012 National Agriculture Classification Survey from the USDA.  This is a mandatory form that we have to submit. I picked it up with a "yeah, right" thought going through my head.  There are four qualifying questions on the cover.  If you respond no to all four then you just send the survey back stating that you are not farming.  We have to answer yes to three of the four questions.  

I guess all signs are pointing to us really being a farm.

The Purr of the Generator Running...

A freak October snow storm.  That's what the local weather men are saying.  At least that is what I hear the local weather men are saying.  We lost our power Saturday evening-cable too.  The battery backups for Internet, telephone, and cell towers went out Sunday evening.  Ross' cell phone came back up in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.  So for one full day we had no means of communication other than knocking on a door or writing a letter (I still don't think I've seen our mail person since last week though).  We have a fireplace and a generator so we are warm and cozy, our bellies are full, and most importantly, we don't stink to high heaven.

It was a lot of snow, being October or not.  I took the measurement in the picture at about eleven Saturday night.  There is a quarter inch of space at the beginning of the ruler so there was fifteen and three quarter inches of snow on our picnic table.  It continued to snow until about three in the morning so it is easy to guesstimate that sixteen inches fell in about fourteen hours.  What made this storm so bad was that so many trees still had leaves on them.  You could hear all kinds of cracking and thuds from branches breaking and falling.  We had a tree snap in two and fall into our orchard between the chicken coop and a bee hive and right on our electric fence.  It landed on two new fruit trees we just planted this past Spring (they both made it through).  This was just one of several trees and large limbs that fell on our property. Needless to say, we spent the next day with chainsaw in hand.  At least we're ahead for next year's firewood!

Of course we are just two of many people in the same boat.  We reached out to various members of our church and neighborhood making sure they were OK and if not to come over to our house.  Yesterday I was at the local hardware store looking for oil and an oil filter for our generator (both sold out go figure).  While waiting patiently for my turn I ended up in a conversation with a man who just moved to the area a month ago.  He bought a house just around the corner from us.  He said he had no heat so I told him if he needed a place to stay just come over.  Later I thought, "wow, he must think I'm a freak inviting a perfect stranger over."  Possibly.  In realty it's just I love living in my small town, and I love that people are in each other's business here, and the best way to be neighbors is to be neighborly, to genuinely care for the people that surround you.  That doesn't necessarily mean you have to like them, although we are blessed because we have yet to meet a neighbor we haven't liked.

Today we got our phone and Internet back so I am finally able to write thanks to our generator and its ever present humming purr in the background.  The outage has us feeling a bit old-timey lately.  Mainly from our weird, power outage chores, like bringing in the daily firewood and trimming the candle wicks.  I was feeling that Ross was missing TV so this morning I read him some short stories as he cooked breakfast.  It was a good time.  Taking it all in I can say we are making do with the situation given to us, which is the best I guess anyone can do!

I Sit With My Head In My Hands

It has been a trying few days.  I mentioned to someone that if this was a TV show and not my real life it would be quite entertaining...

I set my alarm to wake me up today.  I rarely wake up early on a Saturday but this one was different.  I knew that we would be entertaining people today; some coming to see the spectacle, the culmination of the past several days of our lives, and others to remedy it.  It can best be summed up by a quote from Kevin, my employer and our friend, when he said, "Shannon, you have a bear." (KC I think that this is a much better shout out than the farm tour!)  It was a moment when conceptual idea met reality.

Let me take you back to Wednesday night.  I decided to hop in the tub and try to relax.  Shortly thereafter Ross came running in and was barely able to speak.  The only comprehensible things I heard were "bear" and "bees."  I went from naked and soaking wet to shirt/pants/boots with no socks/bee suit in approximately five minutes; this was unfortunate because I did not put the bee suit on so well.  

The bear had come stealthily and knocked over the bee hive.  I instructed Ross to go inside and get me a flashlight.  Once I was outside alone I heard the bear over by the side of the house in the woods moving. I stumbled into one of those moments where you just don't know what to do-I could leave the bees strewn across the orchard and they could freeze or be eaten by predators, or I could go out, put the hive back together, and risk running into a black bear.  I decided to put the hive back together.  Ross wanted to help.  I told him he would be a better help if he watched out for the bear.  

Now when a bee keeper services a hive he or she will smoke the bees first.  A cool smoke makes the bees more docile and keeps them from swarming on the keeper in protection of the hive.  There is no cool smoke ready and waiting in an emergency situation, and this is where not having the bee suit on so well comes into play.  I received a number of stings as I picked up frame after frame and put them back carefully in the hive body.   With each frame came another assault from the bees.  I tried telling them that I was there to help, but they weren't interested in listening.  I ended up with stings on the back of my neck, around my wrists (my leather bee gloves have a small mesh section around the wrist to keep the wearer cool in the summer), on my hands (the bees were stinging the palm of my gloves and then as I would pick up the next frame I would push these stings through the glove and into my hands), and around my ankles.  It was not a fun time, and I was happy when I had the hive back together.  

Damaged Main Door

Happiness lasted about a minute because Ross asked me to go check on the chickens.  Now I never really thought about the chickens during all this.  TV has left me with the impression that bears gorge themselves on honey, and the small amount that I have read and heard indicated that black bears eat berries, fruit, nuts, and insects.  I must have selectively removed the, and small fowl and livestock part from my mind.  The coop looked fine from the front, but as I walked up to it I noticed all was not fine.  The bear had tried getting in the main door to no avail but was able to break open the nesting door that we used to collect eggs.  He had ripped it from its bottom hinges, but it remained in its latches and was able to swing open upwards.  I pushed up the door and counted mentally to myself one chicken, two chickens, three chickens, where's the fourth chicken.  Please God let her be under the nesting box.  Calmly but firmly I asked Ross to get me the keys to the main door.  He asked what was wrong and I repeated for him to get me the key.  I knew that we were about to hit a moment when Ross could lose it, and I needed him not to because I had chickens in an unprotected coop that needed to be moved to somewhere safe.  This was no time for emotions, just actions.

Nesting Door Removed

Ross brought me the key and my chicken was not in the coop.  I looked under the coop to see if she was there.  No.  Then I looked around and found a small amount of feathers.  This is not a good sign.  Ross wanted to continue to look for her, but I made him stay with the other chickens as I prepared the garage as a temporary home for our girls.  Once I was done we moved each girl one by one to the garage.  They were freaked, and I can't blame them.  I wish we had heard them when the bear was mauling their home; maybe we cold have saved our dear Flopsie.  Damn bear.

We ended the day feeling violated.  I had in the back of my mind accepted that one day we might have an issue with the bees, but I was unprepared for another chicken loss.  We were proud of the coop and it had kept the foxes, raccoons, and weasels at bay, but it was no match for the bear.  How much I have learned, and no end in sight.  I mentioned at one point after this episode that we were on a learning curve on how to protect our animals from predators.  The sad part is that little lives are being lost as we ride this curve.  It is my logical personality that helps me through these trying times.  Unfortunately for Ross he is more emotional.

One of the things I love about Ross is his sensitive soul.  Unfortunately, this is not a desirable trait when you are dealing with trauma.  The bear's attack on the bees and chickens really upset him.  He, having seen the bear during the day in the past, was scared to go outside.  During a conversation Ross told me that before the attack he thought the idea of a bear in the area was novel or whimsical, but after seeing its destructive force the idea became frightening.  He was so distraught, and I was worried for him.

My Precious!

These feelings only intensified when the bear came back the next evening.  Ross had been feeling down in the dumps.  I called him about 5:00 PM from work to check on how he was doing.  He said he was cold and tired.  I told him that he should take a shower to help him relax.  He was in the shower for ten minutes.  When he went in the bee hive was fine.  When he got out it was knocked over.  He called me very distraught to tell me.  I told him to just let them be, and we will get to them when I got home form work.  I didn't want him out there with no one watching for the bear.  When I got home we moved the bees to the back porch hoping that the bear wouldn't venture so close.  We ate dinner and then I washed dishes checking the hive every ten minutes or so.  After I finished the dishes I knew I couldn't sit and watch TV because I was just going to keep getting up so I decided to process some of the honey we removed last weekend.  Given the fact that the bear had now stolen more honey from the hive I decided to freeze most of the frames to give back to the bees once it got cold outside.  I processed two frames with a mixing bowl and some cheesecloth.  A crude setup but was quite effective.  I was able to get thirteen 4-oz jars out of it.  I was really hoping to have more to share, but the bear had a different idea.  I cleaned up my mess, Ross and I wound down for the night, and went to bed with the hive untouched.

Nature called early in the morning, and when I got up to answer the call I noticed that the hive was down again.  I'm cold, I'm tired, and I'm ticked.  I left Ross to sleep; he needed it.  At first I went out to see the damage.  I was in a night shirt.  I was not sure how long the bees had been exposed to the cold, night air. I subsequently got stung on both my calves.  More stings, how nice.  I went in and dressed, got in the bee suit, and put the hive back together.  I noticed that many of the bees were dead.  The porch was strewn with little bee carcasses.  I moved from annoyed to beaten.  At this point reality kicked in.  I knew that even if the queen had survived all three assaults on the hive there were probably not enough bees left for all to survive the winter.  They rely on clustering to maintain warmth.  Fewer bees mean a smaller cluster.  Couple that with depleted honey and we have a disaster waiting to happen.  I crawled back into bed demoralized.  Ross awoke and asked me if the bees were OK.  It took a second for me to answer because I thought maybe I should tell him a lie.  I didn't which is good because he noticed that the bear tried to get in the chicken coop again (the chickens were still in the garage).  This time he wrenched the nesting door completely off the coop.  I feel a spiral pulling me down.  I happily go to work; I need the distraction and the feeling that life continues forward.

Bear In a Can

Now I should mention at this time that bears are monitored by Connecticut's Department of Environmental Protection.  Bear sightings can be submitted online, and the state maintains a 24-hour emergency hotline in case someone is in danger.  The state has biologists and rangers and by Friday they were well aware of us and our struggle.  On Thursday morning, a ranger came out to survey the damage caused on Wednesday night.  Thursday night, before I got home, a ranger had actually seen the bear in the woods behind our porch after it hit the hive the second time.  The ranger didn't shoot the bear because he was not a threat at that moment.  That same ranger came over Friday morning, after the third hit, and was looking for the bear because at this point he was a nuisance to us and our agriculture (our agriculture-I can't tell you how tickled I was to hear this from Ross).  Later that morning, state biologists delivered a bear trap to the side of my house.  I have armed rangers, and biologists, and bear traps (oh my!).  By 5:30 PM I also have a bear in a trap.

What a sight to come home to.  Ross had seen the bear sneak into the back yard.  He scared the bear enough that he bypassed the bee hive but couldn't resist the banana peels and doughnuts in the trap.  Our neighbor Mike came over shortly after, and Ross sat down in a chair and started laughing uncontrollably;  three days of pent up frustration can do that to a man.  We all stood outside with our flashlights looking at the bear.  The biologist called and said that they would be out in the morning to take care of him.  Our neighbors from across the street stopped on their way out to tell us they had seen a bear on their property (we routinely call them when we see a bear heading their way).  We pointed to the trap and said you mean that bear.  They got their boys out of the car to see the bear in the tube.  Later the ranger from that morning stopped with his daughter and a friend so see if the bear sprung the trap.  They all took a moment to look at the poor thing.  I say poor thing because I really felt for it.  He was scared and wanted out and I could relate.  I hadn't forgiven him for killing my bees and chicken, but I did feel for him.  After all, he is just a bear and was just doing bear things.

Rangers and Biologists

So that brings me to an alarm waking me up on a Saturday morning,  people coming over to see the bear (like this doesn't happen everyday), and the biologists and rangers coming to take care of our prisoner.  I wasn't lying when I called it a spectacle.  The state's team came and gave us our options.  We could have the bear hazed on the property and released or hazed off site and released.  Either way it is hazed.  Hazing involves irritating, scaring, and causing moderate pain to the bear.  The benefit of doing it on site is that the bear remembers and associates the negative stimuli with the area and it almost always causes the bear to never return.  If they do it off site the bear is likely to return.  We had the bear hazed on site.  They banged on the metal tube of the trap, shot it with paint balls,  poked it with a stick, and yelled at it.  The bear was not too pleased.  When they finally opened the gate on the trap he didn't come out.  They had to bang on the tube again to get him to run and boy did he run.  As he left the rangers shot him with these bean bag shells that police officers use in crowd control situations.  You'd never think something that weighed 250 pounds could move so quick!  I felt for the poor guy, but it is in his and our best interest.  His other option was to get caught too close to the house and shot to death.  I didn't want him harmed, but I didn't want him back either.

Ross Bunyon

We breathed a sigh of relief and moved on with our lives.  We still had to get out the chain saw and take care of the tree that fell in the driveway Monday morning.  We took turns chopping up the larger pieces with the ax and put everything on the woodpile (the ax work was a little therapeutic).  That frees us up tomorrow to go source an electric fence for the orchard area (the chickens and the bees are both housed in the orchard).  As the biologist told me, this bear will probably never return, but there is always another waiting to take its place.  It is not a matter of if another predator will visit us but when. I want us to be prepared for the next one, and can you really call yourself a working farm if you don't have a four wire, barbed, electric fence (boo-yah)!

Ouchy!

Ross was being a trooper today and mowed most of the lawn.  He hit a stopping point in the orchard.  We located our bee hive in this area, and when I mow I try to go as fast around the hive as possible.  I've held on to the theory that the mower agitates the bees, and I guess I was right.  Ross was mowing around it and he got stung twice.  What made it worse was that the first bee stung him around his mouth and just as he was reacting to that sting (hence opening his mouth to gasp in pain) another stung him right on the fleshy part right next to his lip inside his mouth.  Talk about a boo-boo lip!

On the plus side, we got a good batch of cucumbers from the garden so Ross is working on canning me some dill pickles while he is also working on supper.  He made foil dinners to go on the grill, filled with squash, carrots, beans and potatoes from the garden.  I just love foil dinners.  They remind me of camping.