ALMOST FIVE YEARS OF RIOT! I’m a little late reporting again for June 2013  plus 5 days of July for the three of us plus my parents for three weeks, which makes an average of 4.8 people. My summary of our first three years is here. Edson fixed the calculator: all go tither to crunch those numbers! …
Author Archives: kaat
Black Bees Wax for Glass Blowing?
I often end up with “bad wax”: the dark brood nest wax, full of pupa skins and bee parts. What to do with it? It’s useless for candles and cosmetics. In these small quantities, it’s too little gain for the hassle to melt it down and filter it. And I can’t throw it on my …
Berries Berries!
I would never want to sell all of my honey. Honey is my “currency”! I’ve rewarded lots of friends, helpers and volunteers with it, for taking care of my chickens, helping us rototill the Community Garden plots, offering their house for a meeting, the use of a truck, etc. The day before yesterday I traded it …
More Honey Sold
Another day at the Market. This time Amie helped for about an hour, mainly explaining to customers about the layer of wax that will form like a seal on top of their honey in the next couple of days. You see, this honey was extracted only the day before (I was up till midnight cleaning …
Get your Honey Here: BEElieve Honey at the Farmers Market
Today I spent five hours at our Farmers Market selling BEElieve honey. It was incredible. We sold out in 1 1/2 hour. What we sold this week was my honey, harvested last year and still left over, even after all that eating and bartering with it. I had twenty-three 10 oz jars (by weight). I’ll harvest …
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Chicken Work
My parents are here and two of the projects that were mainly my dad’s are the chicken coops. The new small coop needed a roof: The big coop needed an extra run: Â The new part is that still blonde wood box and the front part. Their run space has more than doubled. I hope …
Goings On
Wild strawberries, which are said to be deadly when overripe, as these were: deadly because you die of disappointment: no taste, whatsoever. Bummer! A surprise patch of St. John’s Wort – this after trying to grow it from seed (50 seeds, only one germinated). Thank you! Hive 3 swarmed on the 16th and alighted in …
Swarm Update
A thunderstorm blew by, with pelting rain, thunder and lightening, and even some hail, but the swarm is still up there. They moved position to another, nearby branch, and are spread out along it. Poor bees. Maybe they’re thinking it wasn’t a good idea anyway. Maybe there can go back home? But then of course …
Swarmed!
Hive 3, my best hive, the one that gave me 70 lbs of honey last year and had already filled one and a half honey supers with Spring honey this year, swarmed! Around 11:30 am, my mom (parents are visiting) and I came around the corner into the veg garden and instantly noticed the noise. …
Community Gardens Bean Plot
The morning sky was leaden with promised rain, but three of us were in the Community Gardens, raking, weeding and dibbling, sowing and raking in the seeds. Here’s me behind the wheel. The bucket, filled with water, weighs down the light-weight contraption, pushing the dibbles into the soft soil. It got quite a bit of …