St. Patricks Day at Grand View Farm

 What a crazy winter we are having this year! March 17th when we are usually buried in snow, we are enjoying an early spring! The crocus' are out and so are the...

 ...bees!!!

Our birthday boy, Mr. St. Patrick himself with the bees, we had to add this one just for the record books! It was in the 70's and is predicted to be the same all week!  Instead of making maple syrup today, it looks like we are making honey!

And what were the bees in such a "buzz" about so early in the season? 

The silver maples had just blossomed! This huge tree is just in front of the hives, as soon as you got close to it you actually could hear it buzzing! It was an amazing sound!!! Something we have never witnessed before!

The high tunnels got a dose manure and soil amendments today too. They are now ready for spring planting!

Extracting Honey

 

The new honey extractor is in and it did a great job of spinning some beautiful honey out for us! The guys had to hold on to it while it spun since we did not have it bolted to the floor yet.

A close up of the honey pouring out!

We ended up with lots of wax mixed with honey when removing the cappings on each frame. This photo is of the cappings going through the strainer.  We wanted to save the was to use for products like candles and lip balm.

We tried melting the honey/wax in this big pan in the oven. As soon as the honey was warm we would pour it through the strainer and then put the pan back into the oven to melt some more.

 After LOTS of melting and straining we ended up with this beautiful block of wax!

After a long day of honey madness we ended with a delicious taste of our hard work on some fluffy biscuits!

There is still some honey for sale, prices are on our For Sale page.

Comb Honey Is In!

Saturday was comb honey harvest day! The first step was for the beekeepers to switch out the comb honey frames with some empty frames. This was a two person job so the frames of honey could quickly be removed without the bees getting too mad!!!

The bees are gently brushed off each frame so we do not bring any into the house with us!

Once inside the comb needs to be carefully cut away from the wood frame. A cookie sheet and a cooling rack makes a good base for this.

Next the large piece of comb is cut into four smaller squares for packaging.

They are then weighed and recorded and the cover placed on. This is one of the heavier slices weighing in at almost 15oz.

If you would like to try any of our delicious comb honey you can check out our for sale page for more info.

Honey Bee Update

Our hives are doing amazingly well here at Grandview Farm! These were taken on a really warm day last weekend and you can only see a small portion of the activity going on here. There were hundreds of bees flying to and from the hives all day!
All the hives except one needed more space so we added a deep super for the queen to lay more brood. The hives have all had honey supers added to them also. We hope this will keep them busy. The closest hive in this photo is even working on a comb honey super since they are so prolific. Comb honey is not usually produced in a hives first year.

Since it was so warm some of the bees did not want to be inside the crowded and hot hive. These girls are hanging out in the shade of the hive (maybe avoiding work??).

Here is a snapshot of a comb honey frame dripping with honey! The entire 9 frames were drawn out with wax and filled with honey in only 2 weeks! We even got a little taste before replacing the frame so the bees can go to work capping it over.

Our Big Weekend Day Two

Saturday started out with the guys working on pounding in more supports for the high tunnel hoops. They hit some major rocks on the far side of tunnel 2 and had to spend quite some time digging them out with the tractor.

Just after lunch was the arrival of the bees! They came in these little boxes complete with five frames of bees and a queen. You will notice at the bottom some of the bees on the outside of the box. They clung there for the whole 2 hour ride from Maine!

The bees looked great when the boxes were opened, David inspected each frame looking for brood.

Can you spot the queen bee in this pic? It is a little tricky because she is under another bee but you will notice on close inspection that she is much longer than the others and her stripes look a little different.

Here is Liz setting the inside cover in place.

Bee keepers perfume!

The lid from this box was loaded with bees!

They were even building comb on top of the frames when we opened the box.

This little bee didn't make it!! But it made a fun pic!

All the bees were happy by the time we got them loaded into the hives, added another box and then some sugar water for a little extra boost!

While all the excitement with the bee hives was going on the guys were busy erecting tunnel one! It was so nice to see one finally up!!

Some of the gang worked on hoop construction while the first tunnel was being erected.

Once the hoops were completed, team 2 decided to erect their own tunnel!
GO Team!!

Meanwhile... Emmy is guarding the greenhouse plastic which is rolled up neatly in these green bags...

...and Ethan is just hanging around, so much for help from the kiddos.

The asparagus is coming along nicely! We under-sowed it with white clover to keep the weeds down and feed the plants some extra nitrogen. Also the bees will love it!

The finishing touches needed to be done up in the rafters! David seems content to sit up there awhile and enjoy the "Grand View".

Two houses up! What a great day!!

At the end of the day Paul and the girls tilled more ground for veggies!
Heard it stated today "our eyes are bigger than our stomachs"!!! Time will tell...
And here is Pat digging rocks to make way for even MORE land to be tilled! Did I mention there are LOTS of rocks???

Day three coming soon...

Our Big Weekend Day One

Day one of our big work weekend really started on Thursday with the arrival of our high tunnels along with some personalized instruction on how to set them up. Bright and early on Friday the construction began. The first step was to level the ground a little and plot out where each tunnel was going. Then the guys moved on to pounding in the metal supports for each hoop.

All the supports for tunnel one were finished later in the day and then up went the first hoop.

The first hoop is up!

The girls were busy prepping and planting in the outside garden. The first crop in the ground was our snap peas!

James helping to cover out little seeds.

We also planted our broccoli seedlings.

Later that evening it was all hands on deck to get the site ready for the honey bees to arrive in the morning.

We have diligently been working on scraping and painting the hives to have them ready for Saturday. They look so nice all set up in the field! The electric fence was put up earlier in the day with some homemade fence posts!

What a busy first day! So much more still to do..
Stay tuned for day 2!