Thank you, Thank you for all videos! I’m probably speaking for a lot of people , but you encourage us all to want to live life to its fullest as we get older. I just gave up a hair salon and 3 full days of doing hair because I wanted to get back to taking care of our farm, gardening and helping with our grandsons more. I told my clients, I’m not retiring, I’m aspiring!! Thank you again for inspiring this 58 year old to get back to when I was raising our own kids,,growing a garden and home making. The money was wealth, but gaining time makes me rich 💕
Hard work, good weather and lov'n life! What more can we ask for out of our time on earth--family, and you are blessed by having your's close. God bless y'all and keep growing
here in Sweden the weather has been strange in April, there were two days around +15-20˚C then one day with snow in May. it has not been stable weather. You really want +10˚c in the ground before sowing seeds. I have growth zone 4.
It was fairly up and down here with some very hot days in April. We're zone 6B and the weather for the next 2 weeks is pretty warm. In the tunnel, if we do get a late freeze/frost we can run a heater in there at night to keep the temps high enough to keep the plants alive. (We had to do that one night last year....not fun to get up in the middle of the night, but definitely worth it.)
Wowzers, that's crazy with the bees... we just got our hives and are preparing for next spring. Ruby is such a cutie... Yes farm work is hard, however, there's no place I'd rather be... Thanks for sharing Blessings ❤
Crazy is the only word to describe this spring with the bees. They are fascinating and the honey is WONDERFUL! You will enjoy it. Thanks for watching and for the kind words.
Happy spring! We thoroughly enjoy watching your journey. You may know but if not or for others that might read this. Every hive that comes through winter is going to swarm without intervention as you experienced. That first swarm and second swarms were probably secondary swarms with a virgin queen meaning the primary swarm with the overwintered queen had already left. The size is the tell. The rest were primary swarms. I would suggest moving those new hives. With them right behind the original hives and with the openings point the same direction you’re going to have some issues when inspecting. The bees in the back will be blocked by you but the biggest issue is that when you have the hives open and we get into robbing season all the bees from the back will be flying right over the front hives and when they smell that honey it’s going to get very chaotic. I use 8mil nitrile rubber gloves and the only time I’ve ever gotten stung was is I pinch or crush a bee with my hand. It makes it so much nicer to inspect with dexterity and also working your phone or camera. I live about an hourish north I’ve you so feel free to reach out if you ever have a question and if you ever want to try horizontal hives I use Layen’s horizontal hives I build so I’d be happy to donate one to you. They make life easy.
I was not aware of primary and secondary swarms. Interesting. I designed the apiary for just 3 hives. We put the heavy wall up to protect the bees from wicked winter winds. It seems to help. Actually we wanted to split the hives this Spring but we thought mid May was best. We had never done that before. Oh well, we were too late! We have a lot to learn but it has been a thrill to have healthy hives! I'll have to see if I can change my hive layout from 3 to 8. I think I'd like to keep the SE entrance orientation to keep the bees dry and keep forced wind out of the hive. Thanks for the insight. Don.
@@waardenburgfamilyfarm4764 South east is definitely the orientation you want just not with them stacked behind each other. My plan was to split my hives this spring also but with those warm ups we had they got started early. The state inspector came and inspected my hives on the day of the eclipse and that was the first time I had been in them since the winter. Found out I was already behind since they had queen cells going already. They will always make multiple queen cells even up to 10 or more. Typically it’s like Game of Thrones. The first queen out hunts down the others and dispatches them and by this time the overwintered queen has already left. She will leave right before or as they are capping the first queen cell. It’s not uncommon for multiple queens to emerge at the same time and is usually how you get secondary or even three swarms. The extra queen(s) decide to take off rather than fight and some of the bees will like that queen better band go with her 😁 It’s a wonderful and frustrating endeavor.
I appreciate your honesty. And to be honest, sometimes your perfection gets on my nerves. I love your channel and I find it very pleasurable to watch. However, my husband and I are pretty overwhelmed by 7 acres. I think I get jealous. We are 74 and 70 and we just keep plugging away.
We're also overwhelmed much of the time. We're just determined (or crazy) enough to keep 'plugging away' too. It is a lot of work and we do sometimes wonder how we're going to keep up. We've actually been trying to figure out ways to make it a bit easier....volunteers, growing less variety, possibly even paying a high schooler to work a day a week over the summer. We definitely can do as much as we used to. I hope we are able to keep working for a long time. Thanks for watching and the kind words.
Thank you so much for spending the time to take us with you. Always looking forward to see the new one. Could you let me know how you prepare your tunnel for the tomatoes? Only with compost? Lovely greetings from Germany. Madi
Thanks for watching from Germany! For the tomatoes I put a bit of compost and some organic, slow-release fertilizer in each hole before planting. Plus we've been adding tons of compost and other organic matter to the tunnel every year. The soil is finally getting to a very healthy point.
It is a treat to get to learn from you two. Thank you for sharing your entire journey with us…I can tell the efforts you put into your home brings you lots of joy. Hard work has so many wonderful rewards…
I appreciate the real look at all the work that goes into that life style. Maybe this is a dumb question but… are the same bees leaving the hive and “re” swarming over and over?
At times it felt like we were chasing our tales....same bees here and there. But no, all of the new hives boxes are full of bees. We could have "split" the hives a few weeks ago to reduce the number of swarms. Maybe next year. Thanks for watching.
I am excited you will have Paw Paws. I need a paw paw resource. They have them at the Carlisle market but they are absurdly over priced. Please reply to say what the time frame will be on those. Thank you! I was by the other day buying raspberries! Your husband waved to me! Bye, Coral
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but none of them are on the tree any more. We're not sure if they weren't pollinated or if the insane wind blew them off. We'll be watching for Pawpaws next Spring. I hope you enjoyed the raspberries. The blackberries should be ready in the next week or so.
I've never had a problem with them before, but I do use DE for other things so I'll give that a try. I need to figure out which plants they like the most. (obviously, one of them is cucumber.)
I bought it on Amazon. I use 3-4 bags/year so it doesn't wind up being any more expensive than things that need changed more often. I use 2 initially and then sprinkle more on top when I think it is needed. www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B075SP4X2W?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title
They are also known as pill bugs, doodle bug... They got the name Rolly Poly because they roll up into a little ball when threatened. I had no idea they liked cucumbers that much.
Thank you, Thank you for all videos! I’m probably speaking for a lot of people , but you encourage us all to want to live life to its fullest as we get older. I just gave up a hair salon and 3 full days of doing hair because I wanted to get back to taking care of our farm, gardening and helping with our grandsons more. I told my clients, I’m not retiring, I’m aspiring!! Thank you again for inspiring this 58 year old to get back to when I was raising our own kids,,growing a garden and home making. The money was wealth, but gaining time makes me rich 💕
Wow, you just made my day. That was so beautiful and encouraging. I LOVE your last sentence.....it's so true! Have a wonderful day. 🙂
Hard work, good weather and lov'n life! What more can we ask for out of our time on earth--family, and you are blessed by having your's close. God bless y'all and keep growing
We are very blessed and we're thankful for this amazing farm.
Love Ruby. Thanks for showing her.
She is a sweetie, that's for sure. 😊
here in Sweden the weather has been strange in April, there were two days around +15-20˚C then one day with snow in May. it has not been stable weather. You really want +10˚c in the ground before sowing seeds. I have growth zone 4.
It was fairly up and down here with some very hot days in April. We're zone 6B and the weather for the next 2 weeks is pretty warm. In the tunnel, if we do get a late freeze/frost we can run a heater in there at night to keep the temps high enough to keep the plants alive. (We had to do that one night last year....not fun to get up in the middle of the night, but definitely worth it.)
I love your alls videos -- thanks bunches.
Will always look forward to the Waardenburg farm videos however often you can get to them! So fun!
Thank you so much. The encouraging words make us smile.
You can only do what you can do, will look forward to any of your videos !
Thanks for understanding and for the encouragement.
Wowzers, that's crazy with the bees... we just got our hives and are preparing for next spring.
Ruby is such a cutie...
Yes farm work is hard, however, there's no place I'd rather be...
Thanks for sharing
Blessings ❤
Crazy is the only word to describe this spring with the bees. They are fascinating and the honey is WONDERFUL! You will enjoy it. Thanks for watching and for the kind words.
Happy spring! We thoroughly enjoy watching your journey.
You may know but if not or for others that might read this. Every hive that comes through winter is going to swarm without intervention as you experienced. That first swarm and second swarms were probably secondary swarms with a virgin queen meaning the primary swarm with the overwintered queen had already left. The size is the tell.
The rest were primary swarms.
I would suggest moving those new hives. With them right behind the original hives and with the openings point the same direction you’re going to have some issues when inspecting. The bees in the back will be blocked by you but the biggest issue is that when you have the hives open and we get into robbing season all the bees from the back will be flying right over the front hives and when they smell that honey it’s going to get very chaotic.
I use 8mil nitrile rubber gloves and the only time I’ve ever gotten stung was is I pinch or crush a bee with my hand. It makes it so much nicer to inspect with dexterity and also working your phone or camera.
I live about an hourish north I’ve you so feel free to reach out if you ever have a question and if you ever want to try horizontal hives I use Layen’s horizontal hives I build so I’d be happy to donate one to you. They make life easy.
I was not aware of primary and secondary swarms. Interesting. I designed the apiary for just 3 hives. We put the heavy wall up to protect the bees from wicked winter winds. It seems to help. Actually we wanted to split the hives this Spring but we thought mid May was best. We had never done that before. Oh well, we were too late!
We have a lot to learn but it has been a thrill to have healthy hives!
I'll have to see if I can change my hive layout from 3 to 8. I think I'd like to keep the SE entrance orientation to keep the bees dry and keep forced wind out of the hive. Thanks for the insight. Don.
@@waardenburgfamilyfarm4764 South east is definitely the orientation you want just not with them stacked behind each other.
My plan was to split my hives this spring also but with those warm ups we had they got started early. The state inspector came and inspected my hives on the day of the eclipse and that was the first time I had been in them since the winter. Found out I was already behind since they had queen cells going already.
They will always make multiple queen cells even up to 10 or more. Typically it’s like Game of Thrones. The first queen out hunts down the others and dispatches them and by this time the overwintered queen has already left. She will leave right before or as they are capping the first queen cell.
It’s not uncommon for multiple queens to emerge at the same time and is usually how you get secondary or even three swarms. The extra queen(s) decide to take off rather than fight and some of the bees will like that queen better band go with her 😁
It’s a wonderful and frustrating endeavor.
I love your videos!
Wow, that's a lot of work so far this year! Love the videos, keep them coming as often as you can xoxo
Thanks for the kind words. We'll get videos out as often as we can this summer.
I appreciate your honesty. And to be honest, sometimes your perfection gets on my nerves. I love your channel and I find it very pleasurable to watch. However, my husband and I are pretty overwhelmed by 7 acres. I think I get jealous. We are 74 and 70 and we just keep plugging away.
We're also overwhelmed much of the time. We're just determined (or crazy) enough to keep 'plugging away' too. It is a lot of work and we do sometimes wonder how we're going to keep up. We've actually been trying to figure out ways to make it a bit easier....volunteers, growing less variety, possibly even paying a high schooler to work a day a week over the summer. We definitely can do as much as we used to. I hope we are able to keep working for a long time. Thanks for watching and the kind words.
I think you did a great job on the intro! Love it❤
Thanks!!!
Don’t worry, I got a five year old cherry from Stark Brothers with less roots and it took off and is doing really well!
Oh good, I will take comfort....thank you. I know it pushed leaves in 1 week. Hopefully it keeps growing! Thanks for the encouragement! Don
You need a drill auger for planting those tomatoes.
That could come in handy, although after building up the soil for the last 5 years it's usually easy digging.
Thank you so much for spending the time to take us with you. Always looking forward to see the new one. Could you let me know how you prepare your tunnel for the tomatoes? Only with compost? Lovely greetings from Germany. Madi
Thanks for watching from Germany! For the tomatoes I put a bit of compost and some organic, slow-release fertilizer in each hole before planting. Plus we've been adding tons of compost and other organic matter to the tunnel every year. The soil is finally getting to a very healthy point.
It is a treat to get to learn from you two. Thank you for sharing your entire journey with us…I can tell the efforts you put into your home brings you lots of joy. Hard work has so many wonderful rewards…
Thanks for the kind words. Yes, it does bring us joy! (and make us tired too. 😁)
I appreciate the real look at all the work that goes into that life style. Maybe this is a dumb question but… are the same bees leaving the hive and “re” swarming over and over?
At times it felt like we were chasing our tales....same bees here and there. But no, all of the new hives boxes are full of bees. We could have "split" the hives a few weeks ago to reduce the number of swarms. Maybe next year. Thanks for watching.
I am excited you will have Paw Paws. I need a paw paw resource. They have them at the Carlisle market but they are absurdly over priced. Please reply to say what the time frame will be on those. Thank you! I was by the other day buying raspberries! Your husband waved to me! Bye, Coral
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but none of them are on the tree any more. We're not sure if they weren't pollinated or if the insane wind blew them off. We'll be watching for Pawpaws next Spring. I hope you enjoyed the raspberries. The blackberries should be ready in the next week or so.
Good luck fighting roly polys. I put out diatomaceous earth around the attractive plants to discourage them organically.
This! I’ve had good luck using DE as well.
I've never had a problem with them before, but I do use DE for other things so I'll give that a try. I need to figure out which plants they like the most. (obviously, one of them is cucumber.)
I'm definitely going to give that a try. Thanks!
Where do you purchase your bags of hemp from, for the chicken coop?
I bought it on Amazon. I use 3-4 bags/year so it doesn't wind up being any more expensive than things that need changed more often. I use 2 initially and then sprinkle more on top when I think it is needed. www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B075SP4X2W?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title
What are roly polys?😅
They are also known as pill bugs, doodle bug... They got the name Rolly Poly because they roll up into a little ball when threatened. I had no idea they liked cucumbers that much.
@waardenburgfamilyfarm4764 oh thank you for the explanation! I live in Minnesota and I hadn't heard of them. Maybe too cold here? 😁
an isopod