Hi Everyone!
How has your week been? Hopefully it has not been as challenging as mine has been. I’m a day late and a dollar short thanks to the crazy. There will not be a drawing lesson this week either. I will do my best for next week.
People who live fairly urban / suburban lives probably think not much happens out in the country. Let me assure you that it may be a different kind of drama and excitement, but it is drama and excitement just the same. There has been some Royal Drama in the news lately and someone asked if I watched the interview. Nope. Don’t really care. I have my own form of royal drama around here to deal with.
Tuesday night – dog wakes me up around 1 am needing to go out. This is very unusual. Odie has a very set schedule that does not include going out after 9 pm. He is also known for his 17 hour bladder. Seriously, he has gone 17 hours without peeing. His choice, not ours. There might have been cold rain involved. Anyway, lets just say that he had an upset tummy. And he had an upset tummy at 2:30 am. Then again at 3:45 am. Wednesday was just a joy to get through. For some reason he didn’t have all the tummy issues during the day.
Wednesday night – dog wakes me up around 1 am needing to go out. Repeat above pattern. I am feeding him rice and pumpkin for his intestinal problems and he doesn’t seem to feel bad. On the other hand, I am barely functioning.
Thursday is difficult, but Odie seems to be better. Mid-afternoon I drag myself outside to do some work in my garden. I hear banging and rattling coming from the barn. No one should be in the barn. I peek in the crack between the doors and see two horses helping themselves to food in the feed room. One, the door on the other side of the barn was closed earlier. Two, it is a bad, bad thing for horses to feed themselves. Three, the feed room is supposed to always stay closed and latched.
It seems that the “too smart for their own good” horses have learned how to bang their heads against the back door and jar the brace loose to pop the door open. Normally this would not be a huge issue, but the feed room was accidently left open. Horses, for all their big, burly size, seem to be somewhat delicate in my opinion. Like, if they eat too much grain or rich grass they can Founder (Founder (laminitis) in horses is a serious condition of the foot caused by the pedal bone rotating and pointing towards the horse’s sole. It is also one of the most common reasons for disability and lameness in ponies and horses. This is extremely painful and in some cases it may be necessary to euthanize.) or Colic ( “colic” means “abdominal pain,” which can have a variety of causes and treatments. Colic also varies greatly in severity. A horse may have a mild bout of abdominal pain that is resolved with a single dose of medication. Other times, colic may necessitate surgery, or unfortunately, euthanasia. All instances of colic in horses should be treated as a potential emergency.). No matter how hard we try, we have lots of horse drama around here because we have smart horses.
As I am running the two horses out of the feed room and the third one who is trying to get into the feed room, out of the barn, I see the two remaining equine. Christy, our oldest horse and Spark Plug the donkey. Somehow they have managed to get themselves locked into one of the stalls together. I try hard not to impose human emotions onto the animals, but I kid you not, the expressions on their faces said “IT WASN’T US. WE WERE STUCK IN HERE THE WHOLE TIME!” I had to stop and laugh.
Woven in amongst all the above crazy, I had honeybee drama all week. After last week’s post where I said the girls were ok, I began to get the distinct feeling that they weren’t. I kept seeing less and less forager bees. By Wednesday I had decided the Queen was dead and most of my hive as well. I had my usual cry over dead bees. Then I called a beekeeper to order a new nucleus of bees even though every time I say I am hanging up my veil when I lose a hive. I’m sitting out there with the hive, watching a few bees come and go, trying to decide what to do about the few remaining bees that I’m sure are still in there. Then I see something odd. A small clump of bees on the front. I look closer and I see what looks like a Queen bee. What the??? Then it dawns on me that the girls had probably sensed the old queen failing or dead and made a new queen and she was outside to go on her mating flight. Well, dang.
Today, I decided to break down the hive and see what was going on in there. Honestly, I was expecting just to see a lot of dead bees and nothing else. I really didn’t think that young queen would come back or make it back to a dead hive. I open up the hive and see a small cluster of bees. Probably no more than 50. These were the ones I was wondering what to do with if they were still alive. Then I see THE QUEEN! She was back.
From here I am going to do the quick version of several hours of work. Run get small hive box called a nuc that holds 5 frames of bees and beeswax foundation to concentrate food and warmth for THE QUEEN. Put queen and attendants in nuc, move old hive out of way and plop down the nuc in its place so forager bees know where to find home. Run around putting old frames of honey far from the nuc so robber bees won’t come hunting it and kill new queen (nature is harsh). Text my brother-in-law to see if he can spare a frame or two of bee larve (brood) to have new nurse bees to attend queen when she starts laying. Put sugar water at nuc for quick food. Look over at side of nuc and see a new clump of bees on the outside. THE DANG QUEEN HAS COME OUT OF THE BOX AGAIN. Put post on beekeepers site on Facebook to find out what to do. Told to leave her alone and attendants will walk her back in the box. They did. BIL brings me two frames of brood that I put into nuc. Run around cleaning up my mess in case it rains and look back at nuc. THE DANG QUEEN HAS COME OUT OF THE BOX AGAIN. At this point I’m done. She is on her own. I have stressed and slaved over the girl long enough. But I really, really, really, hope she is mated, gets back in the hive and is as good a Queen as her mother and grandmother were. Maybe not as cranky as her Grandmother. She had serious attitude.
The video is of the second time I found the queen outside with her attendants. She’s under the pile. Now I just wait and watch and hope this has a good ending. I hope I have not bored you with farm life drama. It’s what we love even though we need our heads examined to keep up with all these critters.
Have a great week!
Faith, Hope, Love, Grace
Christel
Crown Photo by Ashton Mullins on Unsplash
Video by yours truly
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