Day Trip to Pigeon Mountain Trading Company

We got down to Pigeon River Trading Company General Store today. We had a fun day exploring and shopping. It rained this morning, but had cleared up by noon, so it was a cool, partly-cloudy day.It took us about an hour and a half to get down to Lafayette (la FAY ette) GA. The directions were really clear and it was really easy to find.





It looks like any small town hardware feed/seed store and it is. Except most of it inside is extractors, frames, hive boxes, bee suits, observation hives, and other misc. bee stuff. There's hives in the back of the store. I don't think they have their entire internet catalog inventory in the store. There were several other buildings on the block that had their logo on it where I'm sure they store a lot of stuff. You can buy onions, potatoes, etc., for your garden there, too, and overalls, washboards, wood stoves, all kinds of general store stuff.



I bought a ventilated bee suit. They didn't have my size, so when I asked, they went to another warehouse and looked around and found one for me. The lady behind the counter was answering the phone advising people about bees. It sounded like some guy had bees bearding on front of his hive already and she was advising him about that. So they're really knowledgable bee folks there. I was impressed. It's a friendly place. There's a good video on their home page done by a Chattanooga TV station news department about the store that shows different aspects of it, too.



They had some observation hives there in the store and one had bees in it. I had never seen one in person before and these were quite unique. They are totally enclosed, and have an entrance feeder built in at the bottom. They spin on a lazy-susan type deal so you can see both sides.I may go back this fall and buy some overalls there. They sell Pointer Brand overalls still made in the USA (even Liberty overalls are made in China now.)

Day of Adventure!

A couple of things to write about this morning.  There is a Apiary Section of the State of Tennessee website.  There is a lot of good information there that I'll bet a lot of people don't know about.  It has a listing of honey sellers, swarm catchers, info on fire ants, etc.  It also talks about registering your bees with the state.  There are advantages to doing this, plus it's also the law.  So I figured I'd send in my info so I'd be in compliance.

It's been raining yesterday and today, and things are very wet outside.  Too wet to garden or work in the yard.  So my better half and I are going to go down to Lafayette, GA and see the Pigeon Mountain Trading Company store.

Besides beekeeping stuff, they have a General Store that should be interesting to explore.  They advertise ventilated bee suits at a very reasonable price.  I'm hoping to get to see one (and maybe try one on).  It's only about an hour and a half drive from here, so it should make for a good day trip off the beaten path.

I'll try to get some pictures and post them when I return.

I didn't get the syrup made last night like I had planned, so I'll probably do that this evening when we get back from our trip.  I'm hoping the weather clears up and things dry out, because I'm really getting behind outside!

Bonus Posting!

I went out this afternoon walking around and I saw that the gals are really taking the syrup!

Yesterday we had put out three blueberry bushes we got from the Co-op.  They were working the blooms that are just barely open.  I guess they're encouraging them to grow!

The picture is from the phone camera and the bee is blurry, but if you look hard you can see it.  If you look behind the bush, you can see the hive, and the blocks where it used to sit.

Here's a picture from the garden (where it's been to wet to plow or plant.  I'm really getting behind out there!).  There's lots of henbit, and the bees are working it hard.  I also saw the first bumble bee of the season today.

And now........the rest of the story.

All I have to take pictures with is a phone camera.  And, the way my luck goes, the battery went dead before I was finished yesterday.  So I charged it up last night and went out this morning to take a picture of the "finished" product or the "after" picture.  The hive is really actually level.  It's just me that's out of kilter!

If you look at the upper left, you can see where the hive was.  There was a couple of bees still flying around there.  But, I didn't see many dead ones that might have froze last night (we had a pretty good frost), so I assume they all finally got home after the smoke cleared and the commotion settled down.

I added the hive stand (I call it a landing board).  It's the slanted piece under the entrance.  I also swapped from the 1" opening to the 4" opening of the entrance reducer (I'm just estimating the sizes of the entrance holes) to eliminate congestion at the entrance.  There had been a lot of bees on the side of the hive waiting to get in.

It's going to be a beautiful day today and I hope all the bees get reoriented and have a productive day!

Inspection, Moving, and More

Got to go into the hive today and moved it to a more sunny spot.  Overall I think things went ok. I didn't really know what I was going to find, so it was a real adventure. I didn't get as much done as I wanted to, as time was working against us toady.  But there will always be another day.

I started by preparing the next site for the hive. I tried to get it level, but it's probably got a little slant to it, and it will probably settle some. But it's close, I think.

Got the equipment down to the hive and got the smoker going. Got suited up. Here's me (right) and Dad (left) ready for bees:



I took the top off and looked in. Lots of sugar left and about half a pollen patty. This picture is of the top frames after I took the medium off that had been around the sugar. The sugar had been to the left of the picture where the newspaper remnants are:



They had started building some comb up in the empty area.

I took the sugar out. I was surprised the newspaper held it. I was afraid the newspaper would be mush and split and all the sugar would go down through the hive.

I pulled out the two side frames (I guess you would call them either 1 and 2 or 9 and 10). The inside of the inside frame was mostly drawn, but there was 1 1/2 sides that they hadn't drawn out yet. Also, it was like that in the bottom box too, but I'll get to that in a minute. Here's a picture of the inside of frame two (the inner most frame I pulled out):



The comb looks really white and well formed, but it is a little bit wide (going into the empty space where the opposite side of the next frame is not drawn out).

Oh, there are two things to mention here. Up to this point, there were several times that we had to walk away. The bees were not happy at all. And, walking away seemed to calm them down.

Then, the smoker ran out of fuel. Walk away again (a little quicker this time). I went up to the house to get some more fuel for the smoker, then I realized the fuel was in the tool box at the hive.

Back to the tool box and fuel in the smoker. I also learned that a smoker will stay really hot for a while after the fuel is gone. ouch! 

Anyways, got the smoker going again, (I'll probably get another one. This lid is really hard to get on, especially when it is hot).

Being short on time, I put those two frames back in and tried to get the top box off of the bottom box. Wow. That propolis is some strong stuff! It took both of us (me lifting and him hive-tooling) to get the boxes separated. And they had built some comb connecting the bottom box frames to the top box frames. We lifted and twisted and it finally came loose. Whew!

More unhappy bees and we walked away again.

When we got back to the hive, here is what I saw:



Since it had been so hard to get the two boxes apart and it was getting late, I didn't get to pull any frames out of the bottom box. I wanted to get it off the Screened Bottom Board (SBB) and get that cleaned off and get everything moved. I was curious about those worm looking things on top of the frames, though.  Right now I'm not sure what they are. The bees were just walking all around them though and not paying them any attention.

The bottom box frames were full in the middle. The outer two on each side were barely drawn out. But it looked like they were strong and vigorous in the middle 6 frames on both levels, and it looked like they were starting to draw out comb on the next frames out.

We got everything moved and the boxes restacked and the top on. A lot of the bees were still at the old "residence" but hopefully once all the smoke clears and they can smell the house, maybe they'll get back. I moved the hive maybe 10 feet (or maybe a little more).

Oh, the good news is that I didn't see one hive beetle. I'm sure it's just a matter of time before they find me. But, I was very happy about that.

So, the hive is moved, no hive beetles, and no stings. I didn't get a picture of the hive after it was moved as the battery was dead in the phone. I'll do that tomorrow.  Hopefully next week I can go in and worry more about pulling frames instead of moving the hive.

Oh, one more thing, I got the Yellow Jacket trap up today.  I mixed up the ingredients about a week ago and it's been "curing" and I think it's ripe now.  I hung it from an old a-frame that I have an anemometer and rain gauge on.  The black spot between the y and the j is the entrance hole.  The black things inside the jug are bits of banana.

Catching up

Tuesday, March 6, I saw bees on the syrup.  They looked hungry and happy.

It frosted the other day, and we had to cover up the peach tree to protect the blooms.  It survived and is thriving.

We're going to town today to check out the Co-op and may come back with some chicken equipment (I guess that'll have to be another blog/adventure!)

Getting Ready for Spring

Thursday, March 1, went to Lowes to look around.  Ended up getting some cinder blocks to raise the current hive and make a base for the second hive.  I got some paint, and some screws to put some woodenware together.  It was too late when we got back from town to do much with what we bought.  Friday was the day of the tornadoes, so we couldn't do anything.  Saturday and Sunday were windy and cold with snow threatening.  It looks like it's going to be this coming weekend before we get into the hive and set up some new stuff.

The sugar water was gone.  I think that it rained so hard, it beat the syrup out of the bag.  I put a new bag out Saturday (day 15), but they still aren't on it.  With the temperatures going up and down, and the rain (and maybe snow), I'm sure it's got their schedule all messed up.

The peach tree blooms are opening up.  If they don't get frostbit, the peach tree should have a good crop this year.  yeah!