- Oh Spring, I’ve missed you… and wearing shorts.
- Today, after planting out more of a giant veggie patch, fertilizing fruit trees, teaching my kids how to fertilize fruit trees, getting to use my chainsaw and tractor, drinking home-made beer, eating home-grown meat, walking through our first crop, and planning our first breeding flock, I realised that I have the perfect life. MUCH better than a Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian, and not just ‘coz I could do better home-made porn. It’s all about sharing a dream with family. And the better home-made porn thing. Seriously, I’d be awesome at that.
- Was just looking at Bruce Atherton lying on his back, airing his manhood out for the world to see. I went to talk to him and say “Hey junk…”. My mind makes connections in very obvious ways sometimes.
- And here come the meat sweats…
- Today we found a swarm of honey bees in our pepper tree. It’s now safely residing in an empty beer carton under the tree. With luck, they’ll decide to stay and I can transfer them to a hive next weekend. Fingers crossed…
- My bees are still in the empty beer carton a week later! I’ve spoken to two commercial apiarists, have downloaded the registration form, and this afternoon should be buying a brand new hive, which is surprisingly cheap. Give it 5 hours and we’ll be amateur apiarists with completely wild-caught stock!!!!!!!
- The bees are in their new hive and NOTHING was the way it was explained. We got the hive together like pros, and after that it was mostly improvised. The smoker didn’t work at all like the apiarist explained – I’m fairly sure it pissed them off more. All of the how-tos talk about putting store-bought bees into the hive, as opposed to an angry swarm who had already quarter filled their temporary beer carton home with comb, honey, and eggs. I ended up getting them in there in about 10 lots – from the outside of the beer carton, from the inside after pulling out the bits of branch and leaves, and from the logs in our wood pile they ended up swarming over. I think it’s worked though, and they all seem to be in the hive. Fingers crossed…
- I think the combs full of sweet stuff we got out of the hive is actually Royal Jelly rather than honey. It’s clear and super sweet, and what they used to feed their young and the queen. Basically, I ripped off their royal baby food. Score! On a related note, it looks like they’ve completely taken to the hive. Now I just have to resist the temptation to go open it every half-hour to check on them…
- Who has two thumbs and roasts the best home-grown chicken in the world?! This guy!
You can see the wood littered around him. I was chopping inches from him, but he refused to move. Linhda says he’s just being a “site dog”.
The Atherton Farm Blog 