Easy Steps to ‘Installing’ Bees into a Hive

Posted on April 23, 2019April 23, 2019 by Lisa Mobius

First off, we are no experts! This is our first attempt at honeybees but I wanted to pass some information along that was very helpful in our venture. Below you will find the steps that we used to make our experience easy, quick, and pretty much simple.

Find a Reputable Bee supplier
Purchase all start-up equipment
Ask a ton of questions while doing so… (of course you could make it easy and take a class from the extension office or your state bee club… we chose the hard way…never time to take a class this time of year)
Place an order for the number of hives you want (also match the hive set-up too)
Set up the site for the bees
Assemble the frames
Place the hives out in the prepared area
Pick up your bees……. ‘install’ method below

Our first step was taking a ‘bee introduction’ class at our extension office. This was in November (I think) during our slow time at the farm. It gave me a lot of ideas, but not the answers I wanted. Honestly, I am afraid of the bees. I was never comfortable with them and do not like getting stung. But then who does, right? I wanted to ‘rent’ some hives from someone with experience. At this point I only wanted the pollinators and was not interested in the honey. Anyways, since this did not work I was told to buy hives and bees and let them go each year. I did not like this idea either so here we are brand new bee owners with all the equipment to go with them. Actually, we are pretty excited about it too, even as apprehensive as I am.

So, I found a supplier all the way across the state that would help me and answer all of the questions I had. What a great person! Jim Cross from the Honey and Bee Connection in Morehead, KY. He suggested only items that I needed to work the bees and not all of the extras and super nice toys that some have. We bought four hives, suits, vitamins, and other items that we needed for the start. Oh, and of course four packages of Italian bees.

We picked out a site in our orchard. See picture above. This will provide the pollination for the orchard and also in a direct flight line with the produce fields. You want the opening of the hive to face South East. So I got out my compass on my phone and set up the site. We were going to remove the grass first… but ran out of time so I just placed the weed barrier paper on top and then we added a wooden barrier around the barrier. Then the gravel (we used limestone fines) was placed in and the hives set up facing southeast. Make sure to level the hives. We were told they need to be perfectly level. Off to pick up the bees.

Bee Packages
Queen Cage
Queen Placement

At the time of pick-up, we were given the instruction on how to place the bees in the hives. This made it easy. Jim’s employee walked several of us through the process of how to do this.

Tap the box on the ground to shake the bees down from the queen and the can that is in the box
Remove the lid to the can, then the can and replace the top cover
Shake the bees down again
Remove the top cover and pull out the queen, shaking as necessary to remove the bees from her little cage, remove the cap and put the little hanger on the other side of her cage
Take the queen cage and staple it to the middle frame at the top and push the frames back together
Take the box of bees and place upside down so the hole will be over the queen
Gently pull the cover our from the box
Place an empty super over the bees, then the inside cover and lid
24 hours later, remove the queen cage and pull the extra super then replace the lid and leave them alone for a week
One week later, make sure the queen is laying eggs
One week later, make sure

Bee Package Placement
Adding the empty Super
Feeding the bees

Sound simple enough, right? John had to do this himself. I had military duty so he was on his own and I have to say he did an excellent job. Even took the photos for me. If you have any questions, let us know. We will be glad to answer any that we can, and if not we can always ask The Honey and Been Connection.

How to Multi-Task Spring Farm Projects

Posted on April 15, 2019April 16, 2019 by Lisa Mobius

It never fails, springtime is busy and this year has been busier than ever. For many full-time farmers, this time of the year is a bit easier for them than those who work full-time off the farm and work the farm business as a second job. Well, the latter is my husband and I. We both have full-time jobs that take much of our time and in addition, we are both still quite active in our military Reserve careers, which only adds to the challenges when faced with the multitude of projects that need to get done this time of year.

Make a detailed list
Discuss all projects
Place in numeric order with highest priority on top
Determine what can be done personally, reflecting time, capability, and available resources
Pull out what can be done personally and start another list keeping the same numeric ordering
Determine what can be hired out, or convince friends for help if available
Start projects with highest priority first. Many can be done simultaneously.

My first accomplishment… finished my LAST required class for my Masters Degree! I have my capstone to do still, and will most likely do that this fall when the produce season is over.

The first project on the books this spring was the hay fields. John and I have some great debates sometimes. For the last year or so I have been talking about starting a ‘pick-your-own’ strawberry patch in the ‘front 5’ acres (we have names for each field that we both understand). He was so against it. Mainly because of our time restraints, but also to cut the huge cost of our yearly hay bill. I knew we had to do something to cut the cost, but my heart was set on strawberries! So last year we purchased some hay equipment to prepare for this year. John convinced me to give up my berry patch and plant a hay field there to lower the costs of our yearly hay bill. After much consideration, John won. More on that later. We missed the planting time last fall, so a friend of ours came over with his equipment and seeded in the front acreage and re-seeded some of our existing pastures. So thankful for wonderful neighbors, and the first major project is done! My answer to multi-tasking is to hire out what you cannot do yourselves. Consider all of the possibilities but place your priorities up front. This was a MUST for us and we were not able to do this ourselves.

You are probably wondering how John “sort of” won the battle. Well, he might have gotten his hay field but I am still getting to plant my strawberries. We decided to plant ever-bearing strawberries in our main field and move most of the peppers into another field. While this will not be a pick-your-own patch, it will give us berries to sell all summer. If this works and doesn’t stress us too much we will add to this by preparing another field and planting more this fall for a bumper spring crop. The berries will be planted on black mulch like all of the other vegetables and irrigated with drip tape.

The best onion planting tool
Ready to plant Strawberries

The next major project was preparing some of the fields for early crops such as onions and strawberries. I had prepped some of the fields while John was off in Germany on military duty and started planting. I have no idea what got into me when I ordered them other than seeing the more you buy the cheaper the bunches were. So funny! I’m nearly at the end of one of our larger rows… 550+ feet, and I still have some left over. Goodness. If I figured right, at a 4″ spacing in a double row… it is roughly 3000 plants. I have the most awesome planting tool too! I might even patent this one. LOL… We do not have any commercial high-tech planting machine for these so I opted for the old stick method and my hand. Yes, that is nearly 3000 onions planted by hand. Goodness, what was I thinking? I found it quite relaxing, however, and the next major project done. Again, priorities are a must. Sure other things need to be done too, but these were more important. I always make lists. Once I see what needs to be done, then I prioritize. It helps in determining what is more important or what is on a time constraint.

Tree must come down
Daisy on watch!
Davenport Excavating and Trucking
Davenport Excavating and Trucking

The next major project we had a partial role in. There was a large tree beside our back door that needed to come down. Not only was it half rotted and had the potential of falling we had decided to build a garage right there. Too close for comfort we hired an expert to cut it down. We cut the log into roughly 10-foot pieces to haul to the sawmill to be cut for barn siding. Then we rented an excavator and I dug the stump out and the footer for the garage. We had Davenport Excavating and Trucking come and level the site for us. Tracy’s crew was outstanding and really had the work completed in a very short time so I had them do some other small jobs that have been on our list for a while… like cleaning out the barn. We do not have this type of equipment to do so. Then hired a contractor to lay block, pour concrete and put up the main structure. Still under construction, but another project I can consider nearly done. Again here, priorities and know what you can and cannot do.

Fence time. Most of our property has the Kentucky 4 Board fence installed. It has been around for quite a few years and is severely deteriorating and the horses have broken through in several areas, including breaking the fence posts right off at the ground. While we had started installing split rail in another field last year, we did not get a chance to finish it. So, while we are busy planting berries and getting ready for the bees this weekend, we had someone come out and fix some of the boards. Yes, we are quite capable of fixing fence ourselves, and have done quite a bit of it, but right now we have other projects that absolutely need our personal attention. About half of the perimeter fencing is now fixed. Yes, had to hire out, but necessary in order for us to work on other projects.

Honeybee area preparation

On to the bees. Our honey bees will arrive this Saturday and we are not quite ready. I cleared an area in our orchard yesterday and laid down weed barrier fabric. We will place some stone in there to keep the area weed free. Today, John and I installed a boarder of treated landscaping timbers around the outside to keep the stone in place and make the area easier to mow. Another project done! We will now work on the frames that go inside of the hives this week and get them out there ready to go. Yes, I’d say we are a bit behind the eight ball here, but it will be done by Friday.

Time to enjoy nature. Spring flowers are popping up all over. I had planted several down by the new fence last fall (photo at top of page). I am so happy they have bloomed. The goal is to line the entire fence-line with flowers so we have fresh flowers all year. This is still a work in progress… you can see the string line still on the fence, and the tiller in the background. LOL… It also helps the bees too. Oh dear, our bees are coming next week too! We have to get busy. We haven’t even assembled the frames for them. At least I know what we will be doing this weekend during the rain. Stay tuned for more updates on planting, bees, and projects.

A Little Bee Told Me…

Posted on February 18, 2019February 18, 2019 by Lisa Mobius

When we started growing produce, we added lots of cut flowers into our fields. Mainly sunflowers and zinnias with a few others mixed in. One of my favorite zinnias was the giant queen red lime. I will add the link below where you can find it. Although we grew many different varieties of sunflowers, the chocolate and red varieties were my favorites. One thing we noticed that year were the bees. There were tons and tons of honey bees in the flowers. Before we planted we did talk to some experts at the extension office, who told us with the two acres of produce we would not need hives. We should have been able to rely on whatever was out there. I guess they were right since there were so many. The flowers had brought in tons of bees. There wasn’t a time where I went out there and didn’t find hundreds.

But last year, we could not find a single bee out there. The only thing we changed that year was that we skipped planting the flowers. This year the plan is to incorporate the flowers back into the fields in addition to purchasing four beehive set-ups. Yesterday, we picked up the hives and other supplies that we will need. The bees are scheduled to arrive in mid-April. I am real excited about them but at the same time a bit hesitant. I am not comfortable with bees or other insects that sting. John is allergic also and has been to the hospital a couple times for insect stings.

So, what do I know about bees? Well, that answer is just about nothing other than they pollinate flowers and fruiting plants. They are a necessity. One thing I learned at the vegetable conference last month was that there are certain plants you can plant that attract the “bad” bugs helping to keep them away from the good ones. So the sunflowers that we planted that year helped to keep the stink bugs and other insects away from our peppers. Sunflowers, buckwheat, and a couple others can be planted in blocks around the field will help lure the bad bugs there and keep them from the peppers. So the plan this year is not only to add the sunflowers back, maybe put in some buckwheat, and to add some flowers in the fields as well. That will naturally help remove some of the insects from the fields and reduce the number of sprays we use, which will help us achieve our organic goals. The flowers will help the bees and that will help our peppers and other produce that we have. I’m taking this as a “win – win” situation.

Let’s Talk Solar

Posted on February 12, 2019April 27, 2019 by Lisa Mobius

Have you ever been through a disaster? Well, here is a simple checklist of a few items that we use. It is not all-inclusive, but these items do make your situation more comfortable.

Food and Water
Medications
Flashlights and Batteries
Emergency Radio
Power Source such as Solar or Generator
Pet Food

I believe I had mentioned that we consider ourselves “preppers”. We believe in being prepared. No, we don’t go to the extreme but knowing that we can survive a disaster gives us a peace of mind. The mindset probably started with my emergency management background and being a paramedic for so many years, but it is important to know what to do and when.

For those who aren’t knowledgeable, the best place to start is with the basics. Food and water for three to five days per person. If you have pets, then the same would be relevant to them. With pets, make sure you have all applicable paperwork and photographs and registration papers if available for verification. Basic first aid kits are needed along with any prescription medications for each person.

This is one of the reasons we decided to use draft horses for part of our farming. Yes, I said partly. HaHa. One day the intention is to rely solely on them but for now it is only certain jobs that we can use them for. Farming with horses is a dying art and one that would be needed in the event of a meltdown of the country. Yeah, most likely will not happen, but it gave me an excuse to buy a team of horses. Rusty and Duke, our first two horses, are able to plow, cultivate, plant, harvest, and if necessary move us with wagons to where ever we need to go. Simple and old fashioned horse power.

Lastly, I want to mention one more thing. Solar power. It is quite necessary to have some type of alternate power source. We have not gone solar yet but hopefully by the end of this year we might be partially solar. In the meantime we came across Goal Zero. They provide portable power systems for just about anything. We bought this one below and it powers our lights in the barn along with small electrics. Check it out.

The New Year

Posted on February 4, 2018January 24, 2019 by Lisa Mobius

04FEB2018

Well, this is a new year and a new…hmmm …I’ll say everything. Last years experience with the horses and garden was pretty much a wash. We learned a lot, lost a lot, laughed a lot, and pretty much worked ourselves into serious overdrive. Yes, we are both laughing in a sense. Honestly, I wouldn’t have passed up the opportunity nor would I change much about it. Could things have gone more smoothly, of course they could have, but then we would not have learned as much. Life’s lessons are tough and we only learn through them. Pick yourselves back up and keep going! So here we are well into 2018 and starting over with the produce.

I am not picking out the garden seeds. We have a new distributer this year so we are scaling down but up at the same time. We are growing green peppers, poblano’s, and possibly serrano’s. Well, at least for the moment. LOL…. Our requirement jumped this year but at least two of these items are larger products, which will help the picking process.

Last year, we had some problems with the horses. Both Mike and Mark came down with cankers on their back feet towards the end of summer. I will post some pictures later of them. It pretty much stopped our work with them for the remainder of the year. They are fine now and we are looking forward to the weather breaking to allow us to get them back at work. Rusty and Duke are doing well also. We will start putting both of them to work with Mike and Mark, creating two new teams, I am hoping. The plan this year is to get some alfalfa and orchard grass planted in the new fields to help reduce the hay cost. We now have lights in the barn. Love solar power. Thank you Goal Zero. It is not enough, but we found a way to connect others to the system so that is coming soon. We also have added a walk-in cooler to our produce business this year and we are quite excited about that.

The fitness journey is on the back burner for the moment. Hope to get back at it soon. Last year I twisted my ankle and found out about a month ago that I tore two of the ligaments in my ankle so I am going through some therapy at the moment. Fun, Fun! However, I can still eat healthy so here is a new recipe I came across… thanks to a co-worker. I have fallen in love with this one so enjoy. I have found several variations online so feel free to change it up a bit. More to come later.

Beef and Cabbage Skillet

1 pound ground beef (grass fed if possible)

½ head chopped cabbage

½ diced onion

2 cups sliced mushrooms

1 cup organic salsa

salt and pepper to taste

butter as needed

Place a couple tablespoons of butter in a skillet; add onion and cook till translucent; add ground beef and brown well; then add mushrooms and cook till soft; (add more butter if necessary) add cabbage and cook until soft again; add salsa, mix well and serve.

Yes, it’s that simple. Next time I will add some peppers, maybe even some hot peppers, and more salsa. Hope you like it too.

Challenging Spring

Posted on May 4, 2017January 24, 2019 by Lisa Mobius

01MAY2017

Goodness me again! I am going to really try to get this posted at least once a week. As you can see I have failed so far and for that you have my apologies. It has been a challenging couple of weeks, with work, the produce garden, the horses, and trying to stick to some type of eating plan. I had to break down and order new military uniforms for the Derby. I was afraid of that and I am quite frustrated with myself; but I see no ability for a stringent workout plan with all that is going on. I really don’t know where to take this. Now for the produce patch… It is all tilled. I had to break down, put the horses aside, and use the tractor. No, definitely not giving up on the horses. We are crunched for time and need to get this moving forward and ready for the plants and flowers. Our distributor was here over the weekend and was actually quite impressed at our progress and said we were right on track. Well, guess our frustration was all for nothing. LOL...

The horses have been doing great and I’m excited to start using them more and more. We plowed about one-third of our garden and we will continue to use them for the other fields as we more towards them. These past couple weeks we had two tractors and two trucks break down.

We managed to get our main garden tractor going enough to finish tilling, but it still needs some work. There is something wrong with the steering and it’s making this horrid “clunking” noise. John’s afraid it’s the transmission or something similar. I have no clue!

We still have one truck down, but at least two of the four are back up for now. Rain has pretty much put a damper on most of our outside activities for the moment. We are just waiting for things to dry up and warm up so we can get this produce in. My distributor said the other day that the first year is always the most challenging. I will agree! I’m adding some photos of our progress and your enjoyment.

Off to the Butcher

Posted on March 21, 2017January 24, 2019 by Lisa Mobius

March 21, 2017

Goodness me how time flies. I must apologize for leaving the blog for so long. Life in general, the farm, school, work, and the Navy has taken a toll on me this past year. So for now, I have decided not to take any classes the rest of the spring session and for the entire summer to allow John and I to work on our new venture. Well, actually more like continue down the path towards our self-sustainable measures through working the farm with our horses and getting back to nature. So allow me to fill you in…

Yes, I am still working on my Beachbody programs. However, they have taken a back burner and my fitness…. Well, it has too and I hate to say it is back to where I started. So… it’s a work in progress. HaHaHa. I’m more than half-way done with school. I have 4 classes left and my capstone/thesis project to complete. My plan forward here is to start back in the fall, take all 4 classes and then take the summer off again and finish in the fall with the capstone.

What’s happening on the farm is tremendous. After our barn fire in 2015, we spent the entire last year re-building our equipment back up and getting the horses ready. We tend to take classes at the local extension office to learn more about farming, etc. and ran across a presentation last fall called Food Route. This company was looking for produce growers to provide them with produce of all sorts for them to sell throughout our local area. We signed up. So this year, instead of cattle or pigs, we are growing specialty hot and sweet peppers, eggplant, and assorted cut flowers. We have most of the horse equipment that will be needed and even added 2 more horses to our stock. This will give us the ability to change them out as needed and to have extra available when the unfortunate injury happens. Currently, our veggies are sitting in a greenhouse waiting to be planted. We are pretty excited about it. Even more so that we are going to do this with my horses is just a dream come true.

Mike and Mark

Last year we also picked up 2 pigs to raise. The week before last we were finally able to get them to the processor. We are still making sausages… LOL… it’s what happens when your piggies weigh in at 441 and 445 pounds. Gee, what porkers they were.

New Years Day Dinner 2015

Posted on January 1, 2015January 24, 2019 by Lisa Mobius

Here is the dinner that I have been working on today. One of my favorites! Enjoy!

Welcome Message

Posted on December 28, 2014January 24, 2019 by Lisa Mobius

Welcome to my journey to reaching my fitness and nutritional goals for myself and for others.

A few years ago I noticed my health in a downward spiral when I came back from my Iraq deployment. I started getting severe migraines that doctors were not able to control. They continued to get worse and I noticed I was getting somewhere around 20+ a month. This prevented me from working out like I used to and the weight started adding up. I was subscribed medication after medication and felt like a guinea pig because nothing ever worked.

When I felt better I did aerobics or went running, but it wasn’t enough and was way to sporadic. I tried every diet program out there and while some things worked, the weight always came back. As a Navy Reservist we are required to perform our bi-annual physical fitness test, which includes either a weigh-in or BCA where you are taped to figure out your body fat. I had to start doing this a couple years ago and although I passed with the taping method I still felt humiliated.

This past summer I really wanted to pass my fitness test without being taped. I came across an online support group through Facebook that provided coaching, mentoring, motivation, support, nutritional guidance, meal plans, meal prepping and so much more. I don’t know why but I knew it was going to work and I couldn’t hit the “like” button fast enough on the post and send the person a message letting her know my “why”. I guess I impressed her enough because I landed my spot in her free coaching group!

I found out the program used Beachbody’s workouts like P90x, Insanity and others but this time it was the 21- Day Fix. I had never heard about it and although I didn’t want to buy yet another program to sit on my shelf with the rest of my collection I decided to give it a go. Then it was the shock factor about the price. GULP!! Ouch! This was going to be pricy but again… something in the back of my head told me this was going to work. I did it. I bought the 21-Day Fix challenge pack with the Chocolate Shakeology. I wasn’t happy about the shakes. I don’t like them; I didn’t agree with them, I’m not good at drinking things like this… BUT…. it was part of the program that something in my head was telling me “it’s going to work”.

Fast-forward a little. Once I figured out some recipes with the Shakeology I was hooked. Here are a few of my favorites. Peach Cobbler, Pumpkin Pie, Chocolate Reece’s Peanut Butter Cup and more. Going through the first 21- Day Fix I only lost a few pounds, which was unlike many others who lose anywhere from 7-15 pounds in 21 days. Because I had a ‘good’ diet already I didn’t have to take out the bad stuff which many times is the reason for much of the weight loss. I decided to do the program again and lost a total of about 8 pounds or so. I became hooked because of the energy I had from the Shakeology and workouts. I wanted more so I rolled right into the P90 program and am now doing a hybrid workout of the Les Mills Combat and Pump.

Because of my success I have decided to become a Beachbody Coach myself and help others to reach their goals while I continue work on my own. I’m starting this blog to show my commitment to myself and to others who follow it. No, not all posts will be this long but I wanted to give a little background of my purpose. My goals are to post at least 3 times a week, if not more and will be a paragraph or more. Join me in my journey. Come find me on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest and lets do this together.

Crooked Beak Acres

Category: Life’s Lessons