Recent content by Egghead_Jr

A member of Bee source in Great Lakes Region of New York posted an image I find alarming. I'll zoom and crop the image and subsequent image they said was 15 miles away on an outer cover, they've been seeing more and more of them. At least it's not a yellow legged hornet they are trying to...

Using this weekend to attempt and put a dent in my bee equipment upkeep. Always so far behind. Have frames from a bear taking out a yard years ago in boxes, unpainted boxes I'd been using for honey supers and need to use them again soon. After setting up a cell builder and grafting 20 larva into...

Agreed, move before the foragers fix on the location of the trap. late evening or very early morning I put a screen over the entrance and move them. If I don't know when the swarm arrived will move them to a far location for a few days then back to my apiary. Prime swarms have mated queens. The...

Other than black I've never seen a chicken with anything but bay colored eyes. As chicks they have green eyes and maybe what you saw was the birds transition to adult color.

Wild apple and crab apple trees are opening up here. Dandelion hit peak bloom, another week or so of that. Should have lilac in a week. We are finally into shorts weather. Forecast looks to be 70's and 80's until Friday. Moving queen cells into mating nucs tomorrow. I'll have to be aggressively...

Must be southern IL. Locust blooms in June here.

Northeast Kingdom at 1200 ft blossom report- Tuesdays sun brought forth the first few Dandelion and started blossoms on cherry trees. Willow is ongoing with weeping starting today. Crab apple is swelling to pop and apple still two weeks away when Dandelion have already peaked.

I hear you about overwintered Nucs getting very crowded. The ones that didn't run low on stores are booming! That's where I got the brood to boost things. Only took a frame from each and added a box for expansion. Those nuc stacks will be the back bone of queen rearing and started colonies in...

Warmer weather has taken its time to arrive. Unwrapped hives and completed full inspections last week then reversed boxes. Was pleasantly surprised to see capped drone brood meaning I could start queen rearing. That has to get pushed back a week because I had unsold package bees that need to be...

Hatchery stock are not very dual purpose. They are smaller and thinner than their breed implies. They lay more eggs than breeder stock birds and that's what the hatchery market is for- egg layers. The other hatchery market is meat birds. They don't deal with dual purpose even though they sell...

To specifically get hatchery stock that do not flesh out like breeder stock and are prone to aggression for the sake of sex links seems problematic. If your intent is to hatch chicks then soon enough you'll learn to identify sex by leg and stance when they are chicks. Just start with good...

They really don't care about the light. As chicks they eat and sleep. Middle of the the day they'll just flop and be sleeping in an awkward position that looks like death itself. Just like two year old humans. By the time they are three or four weeks old they don't need the heat lamp in that 70...

If you happen to have cod liver oil it's a great Vitamin D supplement to pour on feed. Little boost for spring laying.

It's a personal preference. I will say that if a person only wanted hens and eggs there is no need to specifically obtain a bird prone to brood. As replacement birds are easily obtained each spring from the feed store in an assortment of varieties. If you really wanted to hatch chicks then...

They won't push it though. Animals will try to chew it and can't then move to another spot then finally give up. I'm not sure why you'd have water getting in the high hats of metal to rust the steel wool. Regardless, whatever cheap metal material you can source. Even if it rusted some what's the...