On the Farm- Bees and Zucchini

We have honeybees at the farm primarily to pollinate the produce and crops. I would say we are more or less lazy beekeepers except in the spring when we try to keep ahead of them and then do a split or two. We had a large hive that seemed to be working very quickly and filling everything we gave it at a rapid pace. Rather than continuously adding empty frames for it to work with, we decided to split it.

Sometimes this kind of split is called a "Poor Man's Split" because we don't add a queen to the new hive (and we hope that we have not removed the queen from the other hive). 

Now we are up to three hives as long as the new hive goes well. On the plus side, we just HAD to pull a few frames of honey!

Massive zucchini plants

Zucchini blossoms and zucchini

In other news, we have ZUCCHINI at the farm- producing prolifically! I grew up in Southern Ohio, and I never saw zucchini in early May. I can't say I have seen zucchini in early May anywhere that I have lived! Mike started zucchini in the new hoop house and I don't think he was expecting that it would take over the aisle and practically half of the hoop house! It's a wonderfully squeaky vegetable when you eat it raw or lightly cooked!

Tomatoes in the hoop house

Shell peas

Our tomatoes in the smaller hoop house are doing well and we harvested the first batch of shelling peas this evening. We will probably have snow peas, shell peas, and zucchini at the Greensboro Farmer's Curb Market this coming Saturday!

On the Farm - It's SPRING!

Arugula coming up in the greenhouse

Spring has sprung at the farm, and with a vengeance. We went from 30-40 degree (Fahrenheit) weather last week to 70-80 degree weather this week!

Zucchini went into the ground this week and into the greenhouse.

Small spring lizard spotted at the farm

I spotted our first lizard of the year while I was moving firewood the other day!

Honeybee on flower

Our honeybees are out and about. I spotted them on quite a few plants around the farm, including a flowering tree near the road that a lot of insects are enjoying (circled in red above).

We went into the hives this evening and saw a lot of activity inside. Mike unfortunately got bopped by one bee, but it looks like things are going well inside of the hives. Now we just have to stay ahead of them to keep them from swarming and leaving our hives!

Work on the barn/workshop is going well. Above is what the barn looked like yesterday.

We were on to the second bay of floor joists today. I had never heard floor joists called "sleepers" until I was talking to someone later in the evening. The person who said it told me that "sleepers" is just what carpenters sometimes called the joists.

We launched our "Help Raise Our Barn" fundraiser campaign in order to offset some of the costs for building such a large infrastructure for both of our businesses. We are grateful to the responses we have received and look forward to our 100 bottle goal!