using a plastic planter as a bait hive for honeybee swarms

Eric made and hung a simple bait hive this spring.  The hope is to lure, catch, and transfer a swarm of bees that are looking to relocate anyway from the bait hive into your backyard hive.  Often a healthy hive of well established bees will make a second queen and half of the bees will leave with her to build a new hive.  Before they leave, the bees will scout out ideal locations (high above the ground, hollow, enclosed spaces) and then vote on where they'd like to resettle.  It's a democracy after all.

According to research by Thomas D. Seeley, documented in the excellent book Honeybee Democracy, honeybees most frequently choose cavities with volume around 40 liters (around 10 gallons). Eric thought about buying a 10-gallon plastic planter, but we had a 7-gallon planter laying around, so we used that. Eric covered the top with plywood and attached the bait hive with screws to the tree for smooth removal in case we do need to transfer a swarm some day.

We don't own a ladder taller than 6 ft., so we borrowed a neighbor's ladder to mount the hive. Eric uses a long stick (with a nail on the end) to periodically insert a cotton ball soaked with lemongrass oil into the hive.  The lemongrass oil is similar to queen pheromones which is supposed to entice the scouts.

 

chicken coop

Eric spent the warmer days this past winter building our chicken coop.  Isn't it beautiful?  It is based on one of the simpler designs from Building Chicken Coops for Dummies.  All of the lumber and sheathing is reclaimed wood from Craigslist free.  The siding is reclaimed fencing from our back porch.  The roof is corrugated metal.  The walls, floor, and roof are all insulated (R-19 roof, R-13 walls and floor).


With insulated 2x4 walls, a 4' x 4' footprint only provided about 12 sf of chicken living area, but with the 48 sf run, this will be enough for 6 chickens. Construction was made easier because regular wall framing with 16" o.c. studs was not required.


Interior structural sheathing with plywood and OSB. No exterior sheathing (to save weight), just asphalt paper (found in the garage when we moved in) for a water and air barrier, and the cedar cladding on top of that (spaced out with 0.25" furring strips for a rain gap, of course).


R-19 cellulose insulation for the roof (2x6 rafters). This used a lot more insulation than I thought, since it didn't get passed through the cellulose blower machine to loosen it up. Next time I'd probably use fiberglass batts, but cellulose was convenient because the rafter spacing was not 14.5" so batts wouldn't fit without trimming.



Fiberglass batt wall insulation, covered with asphalt paper.


 
Finished coop, still lacking a run.

The window is a reclaimed triple pane from our local Habitat for Humanity store.  Eric positioned it so that the roof overhang shades the window during the summer but allows plenty of sun during the winter.  There is a wireless temperature sensor inside the coop so we get alerts to close or open up the ventilation areas (removable 1" foil-faced polyisocyanurate rigid foam triangles). The sensor was also used to monitor the heat lamp/temperature during the first 10 weeks when chicks need supplemental heat.


The 1/2" hardware cloth for the 4' x 12' run was the most expensive component! A nice side effect is that the mesh is closely spaced enough that snow piles on top so the chickens won't be snowed in. Half of the chicken run can be separated to be used as a chicken tractor.


The whole back wall swings open for easy access for cleaning.


As for the chicks, we got 2 Buff Orphingtons, 2 Ameraucanas, 1 Silver-Laced Wyandotte, and 1 Rhode Island Red.  These chicks are already teenagers now.  At four months old, they look pretty much look full grown.  We expect they will start laying eggs when they are six months old which will be in October!

cloth baby wipe spray

What's with this blogging hiatus?!  Well... we had ourselves a baby!!  We also built a chicken coop, got chickens, restructured our covered porch, started a garden, planted grapes, hung a bee swarm trap, installed a patio, brewed beer (galactagogue oatmeal milk stout), brewed apple jack, hosted family, and ate many tasty meals.  We will catch you up on some of the highlights in a bit, but first I want to do a little record keeping and post the recipe for the cloth baby wipe spray that we've been using.

16 oz. filtered water
1/2 oz. olive oil
1/2 oz. baby soap/shampoo
a couple drops of tea tree oil

more pottery!

Not bad for my third and fourth pieces of pottery.   :)







Also, we finally got a digital SLR camera!  Yay for depth of field!  I have been wanting a DSLR badly for at least five years now, but there always seemed to be some financial hurdle to overcome (paying off college, paying for a wedding, buying a house).  With a baby on its way, though, we're going to want to savor those precious moments as best we can.  Plus I figure we'll be saving money if you compare buying a nice camera to taking a child to a professional photographer every few years.  Think DIY, people!

pumpkin pie brulee

Everybody's doing it!  And I think with good reason - this is a tasty food fad.  Honestly, I have never enjoyed pumpkin pie until this pie.  What changed?  The crisp caramelized sugar top makes things so much more interesting and in this case it was paired with a chocolate crust.   If I haven't sold you yet, doing a brulee means you get to play with fire!  I used a recipe from Bon Appetit though next time I will make a less fussy chocolate crust.

raised garden bed and sheet mulch

We built this raised garden bed with free wood from Craigslist!  I wanted a raised bed so that we could plant  more frequently harvested garden veggies like lettuce closer to the house and so we could easily put season extending hoops with a clear plastic sheet creating mini greenhouses in the spring and fall.

AND.  We filled the raised bed with sheet mulch - cardboard, manure, and wood chips (all of which we can source for free).  The layers should decompose over the winter and worms and other bugs should churn it up so that by the spring we have an excellent soil to plant in.  Here's a step by step:

Lay down a thin layer of manure.



Be sure to water each layer as you go.



Layout the cardboard.  Cover any exposed seams with newspaper.



Add some more manure.


Add a whole lot of wood chips.


We covered the top with leaves just because.

peach tree gummosis

Our peach tree got gummosis bad, up and down the whole trunk. I've never seen globs this big. It makes be realize how the amber-preserved mosquitoes from Jurassic Park could really happen.

Gummosis is just the descriptive symptom. Sifting through the internats, it is most likely the tree's reaction to holes drilled by an insect, peach tree borer, or to a fungus, cytospora canker.

I read that some dwarf fruit trees get gummosis as a matter of course, when watered heavily. Ours is a semi-dwarf, but this happened after Colorado's week of record-setting rains (we fortunately didn't get any flooding or hail, but some nearby farms got pretty devastated by hail).

Peach tree borer seems unlikely since they usually burrow below the soil/mulch surface. If it is the canker, that's bad, since you're supposed to remove infected areas and the whole trunk is infected. I'm hoping the tree will pull through. I'm continuing to give it plenty of water.

camelia sinensis blossoms

Our tea plant blossomed today. It, and the lime tree we got in the spring, seem to be doing fairly well. I've had them on the shady north side of the garage, tucked between irises and alliums. They stay pretty moist there. Surprisingly, tea can be planted as far north as Toronto with the right microclimate, which includes the shady north side of buildings.

You can make a non-caffeinated tea from the flowers or eat them, but I want to see what happens with fruiting.

deluge of tomatoes

Prior to the deluge of rain along Colorado's Front Range, we had a deluge of tomatoes ripen in our garden. I canned this pile of tomatoes last weekend.  The resulting 5 pints of pasta sauce will certainly taste good in the winter!

share your skills! worm composting class

Exciting things are happening in Wheat Ridge!  We are part of a newly developing group called Live Local Harvesters that is building community around gardening, urban homesteading, livestock, local agriculture, etc.  We have monthly potlucks sometimes accompanied by food politics movies.  We have informal skill sharing classes led by community members.  We have informative barn raising events like for example a group set up drip irrigation in one person's backyard and everyone left knowing how to do it in their own yard.  We have a message board where people can ask questions, post new discoveries, or host improptu events.  It's all very fluid and energized which is very exciting.

Anyway, Eric recently taught a skill share class on worm composting and building worm composting bins.  Everyone who attended and wanted a worm bin left with a worm bin that they helped to build and some worms.  It was an excellent community building event!