When I get home from work, I go outside and watch them – it feels perverse. Like I should tell them to rub the lotion on their skin or something.“Killing is not so easy as the innocent believe.” – Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince I’ve said it once but I want to be clear…
Tag: journal
13 days Until I Murder the Goose (warning: explicit language)
The reason I bought two geese was so I could kill the mean one for Christmas (which ever that one turned out to be) and still keep the other as a guard-goose for my chickens. However, on releasing the geese into my backyard, all hell broke loose. My chickens hauled ass in every direction and…
My first tomatoes
“Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower My Papaw was a carpenter by trade and lived in the suburbs of North Miami. His tiny backyard always had chickens, fruit trees, and a small garden. Slowly, my backyard is beginning…
Wedding at Dr. D’s
My energy is split between what I have to do and what I want to do. However, it is absolutely impossible to devote time to everything. Family, work, and sleep are non-negotiable. So I am left to juggle downtime, beekeeping, writing, and inventing. While it sounds like a rationalization of my shortcomings, the truth is…
The Mating Sign?
Let me start this blog with a question: What does the “Mating Sign” look like? All 22 hives at Dr. D’s have bees in them. It has been two weeks since I made my last hive splits. There are lot of good reasons why I was too busy to get out to the apiary sooner…
2018 The Future Looks Bright
“Never pet a burning dog,” – movie quote from, A Good Year. I do my best to keep this blog purely focused on my beekeeping but something strange happened last week that I don’t want to forget – so indulge me and then I’ll tell about my extraordinary beekeeping year thus far. Or just skip…
Roasted Honey Mead – AWESOME!
Christmas Day 2016, we tasted my first mead… and it was bad. So while I am an amateur (for now) I am determined to get it right. “The secrete to doing anything is believing that you can do it,” – Bob Ross. If you have followed any of my Mead blogs, then you know that…
Pear Mead: One Month Out
“In wine there is truth,” Pliny the Elder… and with a name like that, you have to believe him. I spent the weekend doing chores around the house. Of my many tasks, Sunday I bottled the Pear Mead I made on 9/24/2017. Mistake 1: While I was preparing to bottle, I kept thinking there are…
Mead Note: One month tastes
This is our new stray cat, BuffyShe looks like I feel. “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough,” Albert EinsteinI posed a simple question on Facebook’s Mead Makers page. What should I expect a semi-sweet mead to taste like at the one month racking?Almost all the answers were the same: “You will get a…
Mating Nucs and Self-Loathing
I try to leave my personal business out of this blog but so much of my life is intertwined with my bees. Such was the case this weekend.I accomplished fuck-all. I was just exhausted. I’ve been working my day job and teaching at night… that combined with the 29lbs I have put on since Lent started…
A Walk In The Clouds
This is a short one… not the kid, the blog. I imagine everyone has a vision of what the perfect life would look like. For me, it’s the movie A Walk In The Clouds. In fact, it is the very reason I became a beekeeper – as I mentioned in a past blog. While I doubt…
God, Family, and Bees
My oldest and dearest friend, Chip Burnside (who is also my cousin) came for a visit. So of course I took him to my apiary. He had a great time and took lots of pictures. However, that is not what this blog is about today. Today I want to talk about God and prayer. I…
Supersedure – Queen Cell
Very little knowledge is ever gained through success – it is through failure that we truly learn. I’m sure I am not the first one to say that but nonetheless, it’s absolutely true. So it is with beekeeping. As Andrew Davis said in, The Wonders of Beekeeping, “Bees survive, not because of the beekeepers…
Failure to Thrive
Failure to Thrive is a medical term to describe children who are not gaining weight as expected and have poor height growth. However, today is seems like a good description of my beehives. Today I visited my hives at Dr. D’s place – I have been avoiding my 3 hives at the old farm since…
Keeping A Beekeeping Journal
Keeping a Beekeeping Journal is a great way to monitor your progress but it is also a great way to record your beekeeping journey. NC State Beekeepers Association suggest that you log the following items. 1. How much you feed your hives.2. Hive brood pattern and how the queen is laying.3. Treatment plan and alternatives.4….
Honey Homestead 