New York Hillbilly

Yes. Even though my hives are basically in my backyard, and I look at them before I go to work and when I come home everyday, it may come to electric fence for the peace of mind.

I went to retrieve my ladder that got buried under my elevated deer house stand that blew over. Thank goodness without me in it! And when I got there I kicked up at least 20 deer. Tails going everywhere! Then I caught site a a really big Tom strutting across my field. I videoed some of him and tried to get a few pictures. Then after pulling my ladder out and stacking some of the salvaged wood, I rode up into the woods to check the couple cameras I have. I’m actually there now. And the woods were booming with gobbling for about 45 minutes I’m up here. It’s the first spring in many years I have heard this here. I may actually get the bug to try his Spring.

That’s for guys who like shooting while laying on their back. lol

I used to get excited when I began getting bear pictures on my trail cameras, because we never had them around here. Now, since I got into bee keeping last year, I’m happy when they do not show up on my cameras. Luckily, I have not had bear/bee issues so far, but, I know of people who have had bears rip their hives to pieces, and it is a costly, heart breaking situation. Bears will be bears, so I don’t blame them for doing what comes natural. I only hope they don’t stumble across my little apiary out back.

Question for Wolc or any of you guys/gals with any experience with pickled meats. I made pickled tongue on March 9th, fully intending to enjoy it on my birthday the 18th. It’s always tough for me to stay out of it long enough to give it time to soak, so I stuffed it way in the back of the fridge, after sampling it just enough to satisfy my craving. Well as things go, between work, chores, and family stuff, I forgot I made it. : ( Birthday came and went and I never remembered I made it. I just came in from working on the chicken pen, garden, and picking up the yard that was a mess from winter. I figured I would have lunch, and all of a sudden remembered the treat I was supposed to eat 3 or 4 weeks ago. My question is, will it still be safe to eat? I did taste some just now and it tastes good, but I freaked myself out and tossed what I had on my plate in the garbage. It would bum me out to know I wasted it, but would bum me out even more if I food poisoned myself. I sort of want to be around for a few more seasons, and prefer not to cut things short and have cause of death “cow tongue”.

I was never able to get my grandmothers recipe while she was living. Your heart recipe comes as close to what I remember as a child, so it’s all I use now. : )

In between taking care of our chickens, pruning my apple and peach trees, checking on my bee hives now that the wind died down, I managed to pickle three more cow tongue’s. I’m going to try to remain patient while they sit in their jars for the next week or 10 days, before I can start to eat them.

Now, that is the funniest thing I have seen in ages! hahaha.

I built the Hen Den about three years ago out of all scrap lumber I would pick up along the road. It served its purpose, but my wife grew our flock when she hatched eggs from our first hens. While still called the hen den, it is now the rooster coop! To make my wife happy, and better meet the housing needs of our 18 hens and the one rooster who lives with them, I built the bigger coop. In the summer she really has it dressed up nice and pretty.

Being new to all of this, I put a ton of thought into how I wanted to prepare my hives for the their first winter. And, what I came up with, I then found out some others were also already doing and had a name for it. They were calling them "condensation hives". I insulated my tops to an R30+ factor, and the sides R10 +or-, and with no upper entrance, only bottom entrance for ventilation. My thinking was to create an environment for my bees that would allow the heat to be trapped at the top, moisture to move and form on the side walls rather than around them in the upper chamber or rain down over them. This would allow water to be available for their needs, but not causing them to get wet. Also, with the hive much easier to keep and stay warm, I figured their energy expenditure would be far less, so their food demand would also be less, and if eating less hopefully less need to do cleansing flights in the middle of the winter. Less eating = less pooping! Finally, I thought if it stayed warmer in the hive, the need to cluster just to survive the cold might be less, and if they were able to more freely move about it would allow more bees to be reached when I vaporize oxalic acid for varroa mites. As much as I hated to do it in December, with everyone talking about how bees can starve over the winter if you don’t check on them, I caved to the pressure and braved it one afternoon for very quick peeks into my hives. Other than my obviously lost October colony from a cutout, my other hives all had lots of bees. And while I couldn’t see how much their honey stores were touched, the supplemental bee fondant patties I had placed in my feeder shims were barely touched. I snapped a couple quick pictures of each hive when I opened them in December so I could remember better what was going on once I got back to the house. Even though they had plenty of food, not knowing when I would be able to open them again, I added an extra fondant patty to each hive for good measure. Three hives had moderate numbers of bees in the top. The fourth hive had only a couple bees at first, but when they saw something going on, more started walking up to check things out. My one hive that is routinely the most aggressive really reacted, and as soon as I cracked the hive open a bunch flew out at me and attacked, and I had to quickly shut it and back up and fight them off for a minute. lol I was doing this December check without any bee suit or gloves, or smoke. I was really more worried too many bees would fly out and freeze, than what they were going to do to me. There were very few bees dead in front of my hives each time I checked on them. I’m really hoping for a break in this weather where it gets in the mid 40’s at least, so I can peek and check on them again.

Happy birthday belated! : )

I checked on my bee colonies a couple days ago. The winter weather has been brutal this year, and it’s my first winter keeping bees. My fingers have remained crossed every day since I started this adventure. There is a tremendous amount of information to learn, and then try to apply to be successful. One colony I obtained in October as a cut out from a barn with my mentor, despite my best efforts, did not make it all the way through winter. The other four hives, when I knock on the sides with my ear to the walls, have a lot of buzzing. I’ll be extremely happy if my four colonies get through the year. Spring can’t come soon enough for me and my bees!

Well, after repairing my plow twice today, got soak and wet plowing, got wet feeding chickens and roosters, got wet checking on my bee hives, I finally came in and got dry. Went to settle in with the wife to watch Daytona 500 and chow down on ribs I had slow cooking all morning. Just as they started around the track being led by the Beast, our power went out! Flickered three or four times as a tease, and then off completely. I HATE this Winter!

Is that what BMG means? Blew-up My Gun! lol

I'm hoping you have many more healthy, happy deer seasons ahead of you. And, I don’t think you will be alone here.

Not nearly enough!

I'm way ahead of the game. I sat mine down and demanded they all now social distance at least 6 feet apart. My rooster being the smart ass he is, told me to flock off!

Agree 100%!

I would not be surprised. Over the years, when it gets this cold, there have been times our deck sounded like a rifle shot going off.

I think I can make it the 23rd.

Where is deer season still open? And, lol…how are you not a$$ deep in snow like we are?

Never been there, but looks like a good choice.

With me still working full time at my age, it would depend on when and where. I would like to attend if it is possible. It looks like you all are north of me, but I am no stranger to the North country.

Yes! I was not able to open this site yesterday either. I too thought it was the end for this group of people to get together here. I went on FB (never saw this site on FB before) to see if anyone was saying anything there. Nothing! So, now that we seemed to have had that close call, what is Plan B if it does happen? Has anyone considered this yet? Sort of like a meeting place to do a head count during a fire drill at work. lol. Even though I don’t get a chance to post a lot, I would hate to lose touch with the few that never abandoned ship. I like almost everyone who remained, enjoy reading the posts, and the back and forth conversations.

I planned to hunt this morning. But with a house full of family sleeping here since last night, I didn’t want to disturb anyone. I’ll grab a couple hours this evening. 7M