Vintage Home and Farm

We placed several empty Warre-style hives around our property, and incredibly, we had the good fortune of capturing our honeybee swarm! (If you missed it, see the article about our swarm - we had no idea what was happening!) It was interesting to see which of the three empty hives they picked. They liked the smaller one (less space to defend perhaps) that was in the best shape (who wouldn't choose the house that needs the least fixing up, right?). Now that the swarm has moved into their new home, we've been thinking about what they might need. I contacted our local beekeeper's association for advice, and as I suspected, they suggested giving them food. But, how do you put food in a Warre-style hive? We honestly had no idea. The feeders that work in a Landsthroth hive don't fit a Warre hive. It began to feel like we were back at square one learning about how to care for bees! But fortunately, I found a video that showed using a glass canning jar, poking holes in the lid...

We heard a loud buzzing sound outside the front window where I sit at my computer working (I work remotely), so I went outside and saw thousands of honeybees zooming wildly in every direction in the garden near the hives. Ten thousand square feet of garden space covered in a cloud of honeybees! The air was filled with the insanely flying bees, it was like a bee storm! They absolutely NEVER act like this. We couldn't get close to it because they were out of control. Eventually, the bee storm died down, but the loud buzzing noise continued. Perplexed, I walked around, trying to figure out what was going on. The noise was overhead, and as I looked up, further and further up, to the very top of our deodor cedar tree (about 100 feet or more), I saw the swarming mass of bees had moved up there! They were in a loose swarm, flying in circles near the top. I managed to get the whole experience on video, from the moment we saw the craziness going on in the garden, to when the swarm formed at...

It can be challenging to figure out how to help a sick hen get better, especially if you don't have a veterinarian who can assist you. After 8 years of raising chickens and ducks, we struggle with it every time. In some cases, old age is the culprit, but we've also had the good fortune of finding a few things that seemed to work when there is an illness or injury. I like to document what we've attempted to make it easier to remember the next time around; but also, it's good to share ideas to try to help others. So, here are 10 ideas we've tried that helped our sick or injured hens get better. 1. Feed the sick hen a raw egg, freshly laid, clean, and still warm from the nest. Have you ever noticed what happens when an egg accidentally breaks around your hens? They go nuts. They fight over it, gobbling it up as fast as they can. When we had a sick hen, it occurred to me that perhaps the best nutrition I could offer her was an egg. Most of the time, articles say to scra...