Thursday, February 13, 2014

Chickens and Bee Wax



Last Sunday we went to Charlie's farm in Hamburg MN, where Flight of The Turquoise Bee Apiary will set up a second bee yard this summer. Charlie has recently procured 10 hens and two roosters. Assuming female farmers I was a farmers wife in one of my past lives. The chicken coop could easily become a second playground for me. The hens were beautiful, the roosters handsome. I know nothing of the the art of keeping chickens but I want to learn. I love nothing better than being in the bee yard and hearing the crow of a rooster in the early morning, the wet dew on the ground, the sun rising and  the hope of finding our queens. I imagine heading in to the chicken coop in hopes of finding an egg or two is somewhat the same. I am looking forward to mingling bees with chickens.

I  spent two days this week in the bee room trying to harvest wax from our old frames. During our last visit to the bee yard, the visit were we discovered total carnage we brought back a few boxes of frames. I had no idea how difficult it would be to pull the wax off some of these frames. In fact some of the wax is so hard and packed with dead bees and old tacky pollen that I gave up. I am stymied as to why the wax is so tough and impossible to remove. I see a great deal of pollen, lots of dead bees and some old unhatched brood but damn I can't get some of the wax pulled to save my soul. It certainly confirms my suspicion that the wax is not habitable for the bees. I worked on about 24 frames and probably have a dozen left to go. Worse though is this is only a fraction of what is sitting down in the bee yard. There must be at least 8 more boxes waiting for us. Frankly its all a bit overwhelming. Although it is hard work I enjoy being up to my elbows in sticky wax.



I spend some time organizing, getting all the harvested frames separated from those that still need work and getting the wax all in one box but the amount of work to be done is staggering. Hopefully the temperature will warm up and I can get back down to the bee yard and pick up more boxes. Every single frame needs to be inspected, scraped clean and either kept or tossed, depending on the condition of the frame. Every single box needs to be scrapped and painted. Another bee bench needs to be made and a leveler for the new yard needs to be made. The equipment needs to be inventoried and new equipment ordered. Today, I just dented the work load.



This is about 1/3 of the wax I have harvested so far. Today's wax was so full of dead bees and pollen that I am not sure how easy it will be for Paula to work with but I will turn all of it over to her for candles. I am always amazed by how much wax we have and then it melts down to a few candles.

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