So I thought I would share a few pictures here and and a few pictures on the Facebook page.

Enjoy.

The 30x60 garden plot.

Potato patch with over sown Wheat.

Potted Elderberries, Mulberries, Blackberries, and Spruce trees for later transplant.

A Missouri Vineyard

In the Ozarks (Missouri, Arkansas, and parts of Oklahoma) viticulture (the agriculture of grape production) began as early as the late 1700’s starting in the towns of St. Louis and St. Genevieve and general area. The German settlers increased grape production in the early 19^th century as they settled the “Little Rhine” region of central Missouri near the Missouri River. It wasn’t until 1920 when Prohibition outlawed the production of wine and other alcoholic beverages that grape production slowed. There was still a small market for unfermented grape juice that kept many wineries afloat until 1933 when Prohibition (the part about Alcohol that is) was repealed.  During the 60’s, Missouri’s wine and grape industry exploded and is now a large industry in Missouri.

When choosing the grape variety for the Ozarks region, you have to remember to choose cultivars that are adapted to you area, consider the type of site you have, and what the best architecture is for the vines.

A viticulturist setting up a new vineyard must consider 5 to 10 years down the road what varieties will be popular, the water availability, the slope, the depth and fertility of the soil, as well as keeping track of which direction the prevailing winds blow.

To grow the best grapes, the vine must be trained. You train the vine along a trellis system and there are many varieties of systems. The purpose of the trellis system is to expose the canopy to the greatest amount of sunlight and to bring the ready to harvest grapes in closer proximity to the harvester. Keeping track of vine spacing specific to variety is very important for production. If you spread the plants too far apart, you will lose productivity. If you place them too close, you will lose quality.

When planning out your vineyard, it’s important to know the slope of you land so you can plant your vines in rows that run across the hillsides or slope (which is better than orienting them up and down the slope) which aids in erosion control and improves irrigation management. This is one reason it’s important to know the land you buy before you sign on the dotted line.  It is vitally important to align the rows so that the prevailing wind can sweep down through the rows to aid in the prevention of fungus growth.

Example of one Winery Map

When building your trellis system, be sure to take into consideration economies of size. Economies of size is this, if you’re a small producer (back yard hobbyist?) consider the amount of work you have for the labor force you can afford. For example, the trellis fence can have lots of end posts to erect which will take time. If possible use longer rows to minimize the end posts that must be set making the economical T posts much quicker and cheaper in the long run! If you’re building really long rows, be sure they do not go over 600 feet as work on a row of this length would be very exhausting. In this case it would be better to interrupt the rows with alleys to create a stopping point.

How wide you space the rows from each other depends on how you intend to train and harvest the vines and grapes as well as what the available space is of the vineyard. One rule is, however, that the rows should never be closer than what the trellis is high. In the Ozarks, row spacing is generally 10 feet wide to allow for vehicles to pass down the rows to harvest. If you were a small backyard grower, you could put those rows closer to get the most out of your limited space.

Within the rows, spacing depends on the vigor and hardiness of the variety of the type of vine you grow. It also is limited by the vigor of the plant with and without irrigation as well as the type of training system you decide to use. In the Ozarks it is typical to grow the vines in rows 6 to 8 feet apart.

It is very important to plan out the vineyard before you plant a vine. It takes around 4 to 5 years before the plants become productive and thus a decision in haste could cost even more time to repair.

So recently I have begun to be focused on Viticulture which is the cultivation of grape vines; not just how to grow them but also how to manage a vineyard for production using natural self-sustainable methods.

An example of a future Vineyard for Myerstown Family Farm.

I have found it very difficult to find information on “Natural Viticulture” but I have been piecing together bits of good advice from various places.  I suspect I will have to do experiments on my own to adapt some of the information to the “Self-Sustainable” or “Sustainable” models.  I have said it before but I’ll restate a simple definition again, “The Self-Sustainable Agricultural Model is a type of Agriculture that seeks to have no off the farm inputs. Everything is produced on the farm in a cycle to produce the end product of food”, and “The Sustainable Agricultural model is a type of Agriculture that seeks to have only minimal off farm inputs but that the methods of production do not degrade the farm in the long term (i.e. pesticides and herbicides)”.

So I am going to attempt to write about my experiences in this endeavor and while the articles may not be back to back, I will list them on my “Homesteading Skills” page so they can be referred to.

For Sale Sign outside our place

As you know from my previous posts, we have placed the farm on the market to sell and it will be up indefinitely until we decide it’s time to stay here or it sells. Regardless of if it sells or not, I will continue to do this research and experiment on methods as I have discussed.
For now, I’ll leave you with some music! A song I have written recently is now uploaded and available for review.

Enjoy!

It is not my most creative time of day but the early mornings before I leave for my day job, I find that I can get more writing done then at any other time.

So here I set and write as beside me the gentle “blope blope blope…” of the air lock on my first batch of honey Mead expires out its carbon dioxide. It’s a fascinating thing how water and sugar are transformed into a molecule smaller than its parental molecules!

Then measure that fascination alongside the fascination of the honeybee itself! Not only is she able to convert nectar into honey by ingesting it and regurgitating it but the transformation of the nectar becomes a healthful healer upon its return!

It is very satisfying to be able to make a product with the raw componential result of my own labor! And it is during this time of year that the bees become a prominent part of my focus and thought.  The early return of Dandelions and Chickweed signal the start of the season and the bees have responded in force!

Spring beekeeping duties include checking the hives to verify they are still alive, verifying there still is a queen, checking for any signs of new brood, moving out the solid bottom board and replacing it with a screened bottom board then giving them the powdered sugar treatment for mites, and verifying that they are bringing in nectar and/or pollen.

It is in this early spring period the bees seem weak and unable to sustain themselves because their numbers are so few as a result of the over wintering process. But within a few short weeks new brood begin to be hatched and young bees begin to take the roll of nurse bee.  As the young females become older, they are given other tasks such as guarding and taking care of the queen. Only after this, are they to become foragers where they leave the hive to go in search of nectar, pollen, and tree sap.

The honeybee will teach you lessons of life if you give them a chance. They can transform your thinking from a control based method to a partnership based method if you can learn not to demand your way. This would be such a revolutionary tale if human kind could understand this simple difference of Partnership and Control.

Some time has gone by since I began writing this post, I come back to it in this sentence and a few things have changed but not much. As a result of writing the opening statement, I was inspired to write a song using those words. This new song is called “Flight of the Honeybee” and I attempt in the song to draw a relationship to the plight of the honeybee and the human experience. Each line has some representation of a struggle or a victory to human kind that are viewable within the existence of the honeybee.

Music has always been an important part of my life, but if I can take the experience I have with traditional music, and write original music that relates to me, it is the ultimate creation for an artist. So often, it seems in the Old-time music world that people’s opinions of a tune change when they discover it is an original and not a traditional tune. I think this is sad, especially if the tune exhibits the normal characteristics of Old-time music.

As a result, I still plan to play traditional music, but I want to make Originals important as well because they are a snapshot of time. What people write about in music says more about the struggles they or culture deal with and if this is lost it is just as bad as if these precious traditional tunes were lost as well. We lose part of ourselves by limiting our repertoire.

My next CD is in the works and I am hopeful for it to be finished this year, but I am not making promises. This next CD will feature several originals I have composed such as:

Sweet Abby Rose

Hannah Put Your New Dress On

Casey Ridge Breakdown

Troubled Man

Flight of the Honeybee

I have several other unfinished ideas for instrumentals that may make it as well. This next CD will comprise of many vocals which is different than the last CD I created years ago and the quality of this next one is my highest concern.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post, more will come as life continues here at Myerstown Family Farm.

Yes, spring is coming! It is the time of year that drives mortal men to become poets and lovers of nature.  It’s a time that gives hope to dead winter limbs and buds new foliage to its life. But this time of year also brings hard work; the toil of the soil and all things loyal…sorry just had to do that rhyme.

I did not post at all in February due to the amount of “irons in the fire” I had and even now, I set at home early in the morning doing my best to drum up creativity in the face of 5:00am staring at me with one eye shut!

Though most of what has been going on in our home has been unrelated to farm work, we have started our seeds in the similar fashion as we have done before and are about to prepare the soil for tillage. On the farm front there is little change with regard to our plans for selling but we plan to continue as usual with planting and harvest, projects and fun, until we are dealt a decision.

I have begun to repair a few things with the property as well as continue with ongoing projects. One example of such work is the rockwork around the house. Originally, when I laid the rock, I made a walkway around to the side of the house with the rock, thus forming a pie shaped area for landscaping. It came to my attention that no one used that walk way and it actually served to be a dangerous walking area because of its unevenness. So I broke all the rock up around the walkway and was recently able to finish up the retrofit of the front porch.

I have been very side tracked this year by Blacksmithing and it has caused a lot of discord with my cleanup efforts for placing the house on the market and my blacksmithing efforts. As I blacksmith, the property sets unrepaired and unfinished, yet as I repair, that uneasy feeling that says “get out there and beat on some metal” starts wafting over me! It is a balance act of which I have yet to discover the finesse.

QUESTION FOR MY READERS:

I have generally posted one post - at least - each month for the last 5 to 6 years and have tried various ideas for writing. It never occurred to me to ask you what you want to read. So what do you want to read? Do you like the “Status Updates” of the farm life here in which I tell what we did or are about to do? Do you like the “Poetry” posts? Do you like the “Series” posts where I pick a topic and write over a few months on my take? Do you like the “Lamenting ” posts of which I have tried to steer clear from in recent years due to the fact I wanted to be more professional in my writing.

Due to the randomness of the comments, I never know what you all are interested in.  You’re not limited to these categories but these are the categories I thought of at this time of morning.

So please give me your feedback, I am interested.

Today I am reminded of the calm that is winter. While some days are filled with business, days like today provide time to reflect. That is the dichotomy of life. Winter season is both harsh and rewarding. It is a time when life appears dead and yet the time for rest has been provided.

So many times I find myself rushing to get that “big farm” I had imagined when I first dreamed the dream that I miss the calling for the lot I have been given. These are the thoughts that race back and forth in my mind; to sell this place or not to sell. These are thoughts of my own mortality and age progression yet the calling is not clear and the path is unknown.  It feels like a crossroad in my life and if I choose one direction I will go one way, yet if I go the other direction it will have great consequences and thus a stark contrast to the first option.

There are many “micro farming” things I could do at this location and potentially be profitable. I am beginning to see a larger picture for buildings and acquired skills and their relationship to one another.  I don’t have to begin right away with my team of horses or 40 acres plus, I can produce on 4 acres. The issue is am I ready to make it such for another 26 years or more? That’s how long it will take me to pay this land off. The kids will be grown and my time to raise them on a “Farm” will have passed. Is this place capable of being that “Farm” to which I want them to learn the values of hard work, grounding to the earth, and the reality of sowing and reaping?

With the days becoming longer I am finding myself with a little more daylight at night after I return home from work; time to think outdoors where my thinking is able to present me with all the options. Sometimes these options overwhelm me to the fact that this is a choice that is not easy. I can think of countless ideas to provide income here and I can think of countless reasons to leave. It’s come down to the fact that I have the same number of pros as cons and I am locked for a choice.  Ten years I have lived here and all the while I go back and forth wondering, “Is this the year I sell or not?” and “why did I move here in the first place?”

I had announced a while back we made the decision to sell and somehow the closer we come to the actual event of putting it on the market, the more I find reasons not to. Thus my dilemma, do I stick to my word and attempt to sell the almost established mini farm to remove doubt as to if I should or shouldn’t or do I choose to make a life here and raise my children to adults and change my production plans to that of a “Micro Farming” enterprise?

Well to move on, I cut down the really large tree behind the barn that I should have cut down when I built the barn but I didn’t thinking it would be better not too. But over the months of limbs falling on the roof I decided it was only a matter of time until a really large limb fell through damaging the roof. This tree also was in the way of expanding the barn out the back.

I received several 20 foot long light poles from my work, enough to build a 40×32 Building on the back of my barn. The idea was if I decided to stay, I would add on to the barn and the additional space would be the Honey Business that would contain a Certified Kitchen to extract honey and I would then be able to sell honey retail. The other areas would be for bringing in the honey for extraction because you need a large space for staging to keep the bees and other insects out of the honey. I also thought of adding a portion divided off for my blacksmithing so I could produce my blacksmithing products indoors out of the rain and cold. It would also allow me to work after my day job because I would have lights. This is a big deciding factor to whether I sell or not.

But an equally big deciding factor is the issue of our house. It has always been my goal to build my own house. I want a Timber frame home and I want to build it myself to take pride in every step! But now our county has building codes and requires building permits and many regulations to which I know nothing of nor have the time to investigate. I know how to build, I know how to plumb, I know how to wire up, I know how to do every step (for the most part) but I do not know what sort of “Got ya’s” are in the codes! This drives me to want to sell and move to the adjacent county that has no building codes.

So Pros - 1, Cons -1 where back to where we started, story of my life. I think the only way to decide this is to place it on the market for an allotted amount of time and if it sells, it’s meant to be, if it doesn’t sell, its meant to be.

The Orchard is now at 3 years old, I have hoped that I would be able to expand it so that I could produce more.  This February I plan to do some major trimming to begin to shape the trees now that they have had time to establish roots. I have two very large piles of compost that I have bought and built over the years. I plan to spread this compost in the spring over the entire area to provide a nutrient rich bed for the roots due to the fact our soil is a mix of clay rock and sand with about an inch of topsoil. Over the years I have added small amounts around the bases of the trees but this year I will expand that base to prepare for the growth spurt I am hoping for.

We have a couple changes in plans for the gardens this year. We are going small again to make other work we are doing easier. We have two main plots and had a plot where we grew green beans. I am changing how I grow them. I will be going from a woven wire fence method to an arched hog panel method. In this way the bean vines can grow up and over the arch allow us to reach up from underneath and pick the beans.

I have been doing more blacksmithing lately and at my day job a friend of mine and I are putting together a little group or organization if you want to call it, for blacksmithing in our area. It’s called www.boogercountyblacksmiths.com and we have discovered there is an interested in the group which is another reason for the addition to the barn to hold “hammer-in’s ” inside which facilitates the mission of the this farm.

All these things and more have been transpiring but I must leave you at this before I write a book.

Happy farming to all of you.

Much change has happened since the last post in many different areas of our life here at Myerstown Family Farm, most notably a setback with my band having lost both members within a short period of time. But I press on with hopes that the Creator will provide the people I need to make the old-time string band a reality yet again.

On my Facebook page I will be documenting the construction of an Old-time banjo that I hope to be able to finish by next summer. If I do not, it will be finished eventually. I do the work on the instrument after work when I am available.

I also have been teaching fiddle to 2 classes of 5 students and now have picked up another class, possibly two, so my weeknights are filling up quickly.

Again the age old question we have had on whether to sell our place in the spring has again come up. We are pretty set this time to place it on the market for the price we need to sell and if it sells we’ll start anew somewhere both closer to work and on land that is cheaper and debt free. If we do not sell, we will continue as we have, to plant, cultivate, harvest, store, and begin again. The goal of self-sustainability does not end with the sale, but would begin a new saga of cultivation both of the mind and of the earth.

The children are growing quickly and becoming feisty as every child their age does. We are enjoying the little things that are discovered every day. Brandy and myself have enjoyed having a friend close by to give us time to nourish our marriage such is what every marriage needs…to give time to ourselves and remember why we married each other. Thanks to our friends watching the girls, we have been able to take date nights ever so often

The family is why I farm. The family is why I labor to protect our food, our resources, our land through safe the safe practice of raising food without the use of chemicals or hormones, and why I study to find natural ways to keep bees or raise fruit trees. The family is too important to leave to a system that is broken. No matter who the culprit is that one considers to be the reason, mankind can overcome it by simply simplifying their life and returning to where God created mankind in the first place…in the garden. It is the work in the garden that completes a man.

The Ozarks Mountaineer is the only Ozarks-wide magazine in all 50 states, and a few foreign countries as well. The magazine offers histories of people and places, folklore, out-of-the-way places to see and visit, arts, crafts, pioneer skills, folk music and much, much more. In addition to articles, there are columns featuring cookery, poetry, humor, events, gardening, then and now, folk music, reviews of recordings and reviews of books.

Below is an excerpt of the article. Please take a look at the whole article on the Ozarks Mountaineer’s website and consider subscribing to this one of a kind magazine.

McClurg: Old Timers, New Timers, and First-Timers Keep the Music Alive

The screen door slams closed revealing the shapes of musical instruments cut into the hardwood door frame. The first bounce of the screen door startles most people, causing a glance at the commotion. The second bounce reveals timeseasoned hands holding a crock pot of beef stew in a savory marinade of broth along with carrots and potatoes. It is their arrival that is greeted by an excitement not only for what was made but for the maker, as well.

A passerby would hear from the old concrete porch the rumble of voices inside the old McClurg Mobil gas station, the clanks of silverware, and an occasional impatient pluck on an instrument before eating. A visitor would be rewarded with the smell and taste of fried chicken, lasagna, and of cooked sausage that the musicians and their spouses brought for the potluck.

Walking in, one gains a sense of nostalgia at the sight of the shelves still supporting inventory that was sold at the time of the gas station’s closing, though now a bit cluttered by 10 plus years of “put it wherever.” Looking to the right of the one-room open floor plan, the student of history would see images of the giants of the past hanging just above the couches spanning the wall: images of those musicians who had once been regulars at the store and some who to this day are still there. The pictures, taken and framed by local Ozarks Music Folklorist Gordon McCann, are a step down the “halls of history.” READ MORE…

The Harvest

In the first four articles, I outlined the methods I am using or plan to use for our self sustainable farm. Though this farm is not fully self sustainable yet, we hope to continue to work towards greater sustainability and to make this micro farm the most productive farm that it can be while I am still working a regular job. 

In this article, I want to outline my plans for harvest of the honey. The work involved in keeping the bees alive and healthy throughout the spring, summer and fall is all but over, now it’s time to prepare for the Harvest of that Golden Nectar.

The first year I was able to extract was last year, of which I had one super of 6 ¼ frames to extract. So it was not that big of an issue to extract in my little two frame extractor. I got the extractor for a really good buy back when I first started keeping bees, long before I would need it.  With ten frames of honey it took me 5 runs to do one Super of honey.

This year, thanks to a friend of mine giving me the heads up, I found a great buy on a 30 frame extractor.  This will allow me to extract three Supers per run rather than the 5 runs per Super!

Towards the end of summer I finished up my Honey house and as fast as I could afford it, I set out to establish the extraction facility.

The system I setup is designed to be “pumpless” so I have as little electrical usage as possible. The honey house currently is being powered by three extension cords, one for light, one for extractor, and one for uncapping plane. I’ll explain these in a minute. So the design is part of the larger design of the farm. My hope is to make the honey house completely “Off Grid” which most would assume easy. Yes, with the money flowing in, that would be easy, however, I do not have that luxury so I set the system up to use as little power as possible. The layout is simple, the uncapping tub is at the right height to uncap from the floor level, then that tub is piped in a food grade tubing to the holding tank which is at a slope but the holding tank is a sufficient height to get a bucket with a filter underneath the honey gate. The extractor is above the holding tank so that the honey runs down into the tank to be filtered into buckets.

When the bees put the honey into the comb, they leave the honey open until the right water to honey ratio is met. If the water content is below 18% the bees will cap the honey comb with a layer of wax. This wax is to protect the honey until the bees need it. The bees just know when it is the right time to cap the honey.  So as a beekeeper extracting your honey you must cut off that capping. The industry has come up with very simple machines that automate all of this for you. These machines are very expensive. So I searched around for the “Low tech” way to do a larger number of hives. Most of the small hobby beekeepers uncap using an uncapping knife. This knife is long and is drug sideways across the top of the comb, cutting the cappings. Well after time, your hand becomes very sore from the sideways motion, even if the knife was heated. So I found an alternative.  It is an Uncapping Plane. This rather than being drug sideways is pulled downward in a natural motion for the hand. It is estimated a person can do 10 to 100 hives using this tool.

This uncapping plane is heated and there is some debate over the effect to the label “Natural” when honey is uncapped. It is my opinion that the honey is not heated sufficiently to constitute it being “pasteurized” and thus not raw or “Natural”. So I will use the heated element on the uncapping plane. The wax is extremely hard to uncap if heat is not applied, and the majority of beekeepers use heat to uncap the wax.

Once the wax is uncapped, the frame is placed into the honey extractor. The extractor I have is an older model created before the Stainless steel regulation was enacted thus the reason for being able to get the extractor cheaper. But due to the large number of extractors existing, the workaround for these was to coat the inside of the extractor and all the inside parts with a food grade epoxy paint that can be purchased at beekeeping supplies and other food related suppliers. I purchased this epoxy resin and coated all parts of the extractor as required.

The extractor of this size must be loaded symmetrically. This means that if you put a frame in on the south side, you must balance the spindle by placing the next frame on the north side and so on. Once all the frames that can be loaded are loaded, the extractor is closed up and turned on. There are usually two directions on the extractors. It is a good idea to run the extractor forward and backwards so that every last bit of honey is extricated from the comb. Once the run is finished, place empty comb back in frames and set outside to allow the bees to rob out the remaining honey. They will clean the comb well. Just make sure there is no chance for rain, you don’t want to get your comb wet then store it and have mold for you in the spring.

Then the honey is filtered. I am using a bucket filter system that works well for a smaller setup. Some day I will get a better filtration system setup. I do not filter too much as I want to retain some of the pollen for allergy sufferers.

Storage is important. If you don’t store your comb well, it will be destroyed by wax moths. Many beekeepers place the empty frames back on the hives so that the bees will keep the moths off. You can store the Supers on a pallet off the ground and place a solid board with no gaps around stack your boxes then place a board at the top and to keep moths out. Be sure there are no cracks between the boxes where the moth can get in.  

I have a holding tank that all the freshly extracted honey goes into. This will contain wax and bee parts as well. I have a 5 gallon buck filter system. This allows me to place the filter on top of the bucket and open the holding tank gate and filter just the right amount of honey. Then my bucket has a gate that allows me to fill the bottles or jars for using or selling.

I hope you enjoyed this series on beekeeping and I also hope you learned a lot as well. So until next time, God bless you and yours.

Population Management:

When I first began to keep bees I was offered three different requirements to the needed size of the brood chamber. I first read in a book that said 3 hive body boxes (deep boxes for brood chambers) were the required number. Then, at the outset of my new adventure I began to work for a commercial beekeeper that had close to 1000 hives. He said in his opinion only one hive body was needed to survive the winter. So being the type to go with experience over book learning, I left one deep box on the hive for the winter in my first year and as a result, as any experience beekeeper could tell you ahead of time, I lost both my hives that first year. What happened? Well, for so many of us, we hear the wonderful words of wisdom but fail to understand the process that led to those words being formed in the first place. Truth is this should be a lesson to everyone to play it safe until you have a full understanding of what is going on. There was one hive body alright but in addition, a medium honey super was placed on top as well. The seasoned beekeeper, used to how he operated, knew that it needed to be there but failed to tell me most likely because he probably didn’t think of how green I was.

That first year was painful and I never want to repeat that but it taught me a vital lesson; error on the side of caution. If I had the three hive bodies the first year, sure there would have been a lot of wasted space as they barely filled up two in the first season, but I still would have two hives more to my apiary. As a result I have now come to the opinion that the number of boxes you use should be dependent on the general location you live. In Alabama for example, the winters are not as harsh and if you’re tight on equipment go do one hive body with a super of honey. Here in my area of southern Missouri, one needs to provide two hive bodies for overwintering (no super). For my friends up north I’d suggest being sure to have three hive bodies available. These are just my suggestions but I feel confident in their accuracy.

As part of the Fall routine, and you should have a general checklist that you use to prepare your hive for winter. My list now only resides in my mind but in the beginning I wrote them down to follow.

Mites, when they first began to come to beekeeping, had a destructive effect on the hive strength and overwintering ability. For those wondering why I have not covered Tracheal mites, I feel that through my research, natural selection is the best means of treatment. Bees are fairly resistant to the tracheal mites and using aids will only select hives that will become weaker to the tracheal mites.

Over the years, the bees have grown resistant to much of Varroa Destructor’s affects. Though it can still cause shrunken wings and affect the bees’ health, the honeybees’ ability to adapt has grown stronger. Most often a hive will keep the Varroa mite under control but it still is not something you want to ignore. As I stated in a previous post, I use the powdered sugar method to control Varroa Mites. Though there are traps and other methods available, I find this method to be working for me. This requires a screened bottom board and a flour sifter. The best sifters are the wind-able type. The hand squeeze type are very labor-some and will wear your hand out. As part of the fall routine place a screened bottom board under the hive (if it’s not already there) and open each layer of the hive and sift the powdered sugar on top of the frames and through the frames.

How this method works is that the little white ghosts (bees with sugar on them) flying around begin to groom other bees to get the sweet sugar off and in doing so remove the Varroa mites which are attached most times to the back of the abdomen. When the mite is removed the screened bottom board provides a place for the mite to fall through and out of the hive. Many beekeepers keep a pan of canola oil or sunflower oil under the hive for the mites to fall into and drown (avoid vegetable oil as it goes rancid quick). And admittedly, the success rate is higher because it prevents the mite from crawling back inside however this does require special grooved bottom boards with a pan that is the same size. Unless it is purchased, it is a bit hard to find a pan the size of a beehive bottom board. This adds extra expense. One other way is to use a flat plywood type material and purchase a sticky paper (applied after applying the sugar) that is sold in most beekeeper catalogs. Be sure the bees do not have any access to this paper or you will kill bees. There is a great site online to get plans for building your own bottom board. It’s at beesource.com and you can also find many other hive items you can build yourself.

Most beekeepers I know have a valid concern about the hive making it through the winter. If a hive is strong going into the winter, then there are only two things that one needs to think about when preparing for winter, food and warmth. With the issue of warmth, the bees have mastered how to conserve energy. They create a “Cluster” that vibrates and oscillates as a whole. As a bee becomes cold on the outside of the cluster, she will move to the inside where she and others’ vigorously vibrate their wings that will create a friction heat. As soon as she is warm she is pushed out by other bees going inside the cluster and so the cluster continues. At times the temperature becomes so cold that the bees will be unable to move much at all, during these times it is food that becomes the concern. Assuming you left plenty of honey in the fall, your bees should be fine going into winter but if for some reason the honey is not placed correctly in relation to the cluster they can starve only an inch away from honey. This happened to me my first year. I left plenty of honey (in fact I didn’t rob the hive at all) and the bees all died inside the hive. They used up the honey that was by the cluster (the cluster was well defined with bees still inside cells) and just an inch away, honey could be found. The lesson I took from that was I needed to adjust the frames inside the hive to make honey placed in the center of the hive. As part of my late fall list, I move the good honey frames (full frames) to the center creating a place for the cluster to have honey all around it. This has helped remove my hive losses due to starvation.

Now some might say that I am enabling the bees to make the mistake of bad placement of honey. Meaning, if you help the bees by moving frames closer to the cluster, you will in effect be selecting bee’s traits that are not sustainable. And, overtime the traits you will be selecting for is poor placement of honey in the hive. I see that as a valid concern and that is why I maintain two hive bodies throughout the year and in effect gives the bees the opportunity at correctly place honey before the year is up. What this means is that you the beekeeper only rob once (for mid and northern locations) and that one time should be early enough in the year for the bees to rebuild their honey supply. I never take the honey in the brood boxes and only remove honey from the supers (which have a queen excluder under them). There almost always is sufficient honey in the top brood box to support the hive through the winter.

Once the honey supers have been removed for the year and the brood boxes coated with powdered sugar, your hive needs to be left alone so they can rebuild their stores with what little nectar remains (a few late season blossoms remain here in southern Missouri) and re-establish the propolis seal around the hive joints to help insulate the hive from wind.

The final post in this series will be our Method of Honey Extraction. This year I have a new 30 frame extractor and will need to make a few repairs (that’s how I could afford it) and I am also going to have to finish my building to house the extractor (due to the fact I can’t get the extractor into the house through the standard doors) and so the last post my come later than the usual “Post a Month” that I have been maintaining.