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Bottle Lambs: Reality vs. The Cute Factor: Most shepherds have a strong motivation to keep these young lambs alive. 

Going to the Birds!  I learned many valuable lessons that first summer in the chicken business. 

Farm Dogs - See Spot Work  Every once in a while you will find a dog who is completely suited for a job on your farm.

Adventures of a Beekeeper's Wife

by Trendle Ellwood  

“The bee is a symbol of wisdom, for as this tiny insect collects pollen from the flowers, so men may extract wisdom from the experience of daily life.”  -Manly Palmer Hall

“You are about to enter a whole new world,” the retired beekeeper informed me, his eyes shimmering with humor.  My husband was just starting out with honeybees and was buying some used equipment from the lively fellow who willingly bestowed me with this sage prediction.  Over seven years now, I have been living with a beekeeper and the old-timer was right on, it is a whole new world! 

As a beekeeper's wife, I admit, I participate as a co-dependant to my husband's enthusiasm for these buzzing insects.  Only those who love keeping bees, (and those who love their beekeepers) realize that keeping honeybees is not a hobby, it is not merely a business, nor is it just an occupation; keeping honeybees is a passionate obsession.

The whole world seems to be obsessed with bees these days.  I have been informed that honeybees are second only to human beings on Internet searches.  The recent Colony Collapse Disorder scare seemed to have caused the general population to realize how important bees are to our livelihood.  As a beekeeper's wife, bees are not only essential to my livelihood; they are a big part of my life.  I have had bees in my living room and kitchen, in my hair and bed... and even up my skirt.

One spring afternoon I went out our kitchen door to take some scraps to the chickens when I heard the unmistakable hum of a swarm of honeybees.  I looked up to see a mass of them swirling above the apiary (the place where bee hives are kept).  I could tell that they had not been away from their mother hive for long as they were still in the wide-open scattered stage.

I always get a thrill when I witness the fellowship of a swarm massed in the sky, numbered in the thousands, cooperating with one mind, revolving like a hurricane.  For a moment I just took a deep breath and let the wonder of the swarm wash over me.  They were striking out on their own, seeking to be independent of the mother hive, making their multiplying flight.  It gives me the same feeling that a new birth, or the first snowdrops of spring, does.  I knew that my beekeeper would want to know about our bee hurricane and that, if he could get to them in time, he might be able to entice the run-away bees to land in a hive box.

Our daughter then came running around the smoke house corner exclaiming, “Mom! A swarm!” (If you want things to get exciting around our place, you detect a swarm.)  I sent her to the black-raspberry patch where her father was picking berries.  He dropped his basket when she gave him the news and hurried to where I was watching them.  A few of the bees were still flying out and searching for a temporary staging spot from where they could seek their new home.

Soon they began to congregate, forming a tight little group, known as a cluster, on the over-hanging branch of the white pine which stands shading our apiary from the hot afternoon sun.  The cluster looked like a dark vortex hanging in the shape of an old-fashioned sugar cone.  By this time my husband had located his ladder and asked me to hold it as he shimmed up and to the top of the wisteria trellis positioned beneath the pine to get closer to the bees.  He placed his swarm bucket, which he carried with him, as close as he could to the swarm of bees.

 

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One day an actor tossed her ten dollars, "Here Loretta: go f___ yourself"