Sad News

Welcome back to the blog!

This week we went out to put the sugar board on the bees, as I was losing sleep worrying about them running out of food.  They shouldn’t run out until end of February or early March, in theory, but I decided I would feel better if the sugar board went on early.  We got out there, listened on all sides of the hive, and heard an eerie silence. Tentatively, we cracked the lid open, which should have resulted in a rush of annoyed buzzing.  Nothing. Our hive, which was alive on the 18th, had died sometime before Christmas Eve.

Things I learned:  Do the alcohol wash to count the mites.  It is not enough to throw a couple of mite treatment gels in and assume they’ve worked.  We made the decision to take our chances that the treatments worked, because we didn’t want to kill a couple hundred bees just to count mites.  As a result, ALL the bees died - tens of thousands.

Another lesson:  Facebook is generally a good place to find information.  I belong to several beekeeping groups, I posted pictures of what the hive looked like, and several beekeepers with more experience than I have suggested that it looked like the mites got most of them and the rest starved.  However, if you go to Facebook with a question, always be ready for someone to be cruel to you for not knowing better. I’ve got a pretty thick skin, and I only had one negative response, so it worked out ok, but for any of you reading - I didn’t kill my bees on purpose.  I didn’t load them with mites myself and ignore them to be spiteful. I’m pretty devastated that this happened, so I’m going to learn from the experience and go in to next year better prepared.

For any of you interested in how bees can starve while there are still pounds and pounds of honey in the hive, the explanation as far as I understand it goes like this - Bees have to eat food that’s relatively warm, because they are not warm blooded, so cold food drops their body temperature and causes torpor, which is kind of like bee-hypothermia.  They then can’t warm back up (because of the not-being-warm-blooded) and they die.  In the winter, bees form a cluster with their queen at the center. The cluster stays right about 92 degrees F (about 33 degrees C).  If the cluster is big enough, they sort of mosey around in the hive, heating nearby wax and honey as they go. If mites (or any other disease, parasite, or predator) drops the population count down to where the cluster is too small, they can’t keep the queen warm and also warm the honey, and so they starve.  I would estimate that I had lost more than ⅘ of my population. The remaining cluster was about the size of an egg (we want a grapefruit or softball sized cluster at least).

Unfortunately, they were collecting the honey while the mite treatment gels were in the hive, so we can’t use the honey even though the bees are dead.  Fortunately, we plan on trying again next year, so whatever bees we get will have a significant head start - they’ve got 2 deeps worth of fully drawn comb, and probably 6 full deep frames of honey.

We are still considering adding a second hive.  My thought is that we could purchase a new bottom board and inner and outer cover, along with 2 nucs, and give each nuc 1 deep body with drawn comb and honey.  The nucs come with 5 frames of drawn comb, so to get to 2 full deeps’ strength they would only have to build out a total of 5 deep frames plus the honey supers.  Mr. L. wants us to get one colony through a winter before we worry about adding a second hive. We’ll wait and see what the spring brings.

Meanwhile, I get to research Oxalic Acid Vapor treatments against something called the Thermal (or Mighty Mite) treatment to see which we’ll implement next year.  Anyone have any experience with either? I’d love to hear your thoughts below.

Thanks for coming along with us on our adventure!  See you next time.

Geeking out over Fermented Foods

Hey there!  Welcome back to the blog.

I have been making my own yogurt for several years now, because I like knowing exactly what’s in it; it’s also super easy, and I like the taste much better than what I’ve been able to find in stores.  I added making kombucha to my repertoire about two years ago. I enjoy the flavor, and it’s too expensive to buy routinely, so I make it at home.

I recently stumbled upon a page promoting a beet-based fermented beverage called kvass.  This page made all kinds of claims regarding the supposed health benefits of this drink, which immediately sent up red flags in my brain.  I used to buy in to one of those essential oil MLM companies, and over the years I found that while the oils do seem to help in SOME areas of life, they certainly weren’t living up to the claims that I bought in on.  Now I like to do more thorough research before I spend my hard-won money. *I am not saying that essential oils don’t work.  I am only saying that they didn’t work for me.*

This website wasn’t selling anything, they were simply listing off the benefits of adding this drink to your diet, but the way it was worded made me think there was no way that science supported ALL of these claims.

So you know me by now… I went and looked it up.  I was really surprised to find that, in fact, science does support the claims.

Claim #1:  Kvass (and other probiotic-dense fermented foods) support immune function, keeping you healthier.  

When I think of the “Immune system,”  I think of white blood cells, floating around in your bloodstream eating invaders like bacteria and viruses.  I knew that there were two stages to that process - there are white blood cells that are always around and there are the ones that your body develops to fight off a specific strain of bacteria or virus after you’ve been exposed to it (this is why the flu vaccine works, to the best of my understanding).  What I learned in delving in to specifically how probiotics could possibly “boost” one’s immune function, I learned that roughly 80% of your immune functions actually take place within your digestive system. White blood cells, for all the glory they recieve, only make up about 20%. Turns out you’re much more likely to get sick if your gut flora are not well balanced.  Ok. Moving on.

Claim #2:  Kvass will boost your mood, making you happier and less prone to things like season-induced sadness.

Um, what?  Apparently, there are cells in your digestive tract that release serotonin.  That’s the happy chemical the people keep telling me is released when you exercise.  I’ve yet to test that out. But through my research I found that there are actually MORE of these serotonin-secreting cells in your stomach and intestines than there are in your brain, so it stands to reason that eating foods that support the health of those organs would increase the availability of that happy chemical.  Sure. Next?

Claim #3:  Kvass will pull heavy metals out of your body, preventing heavy metal poisoning and protecting you from those heavy metals that exist in our world due to pollution.

No. Freaking.  Way. You want me to believe that drinking fermented beets is going to literally pull the heavy metals out of my body?  Apparently, yes. The lactobacilli (the helpful bacteria that exist in fermented foods and drinks like kvass, kombucha, yogurt, sauerkraut, kefir, and so on) actually bind to heavy metals and pull them out of tissues so that they can be flushed from the body.  In fact, the plants that are grown in polluted areas have developed strains of lactobacilli that do this better, and plants that are grown in less polluted areas have strains that aren’t as efficient. The lactobacilli actually help protect the plants themselves from the surrounding toxins.  Makes sense to me, and it’s one more reason to eat local!

I need to close this by saying that while I am absolutely going to be adding kvass to my diet, I am NOT saying that you should.  I’m not your doctor, I’m not a dietician, I am not in any way qualified to be giving anyone dietary advice. I am saying that when you read claims like that on the internet, absolutely feel free to dig deeper; I love knowing how and why things work, and I feel much better about listing the recipe here now that I’ve fact-checked their claims.

If you want to know how I make yogurt, the recipe is here.

The kombucha recipe I use is on this site.

I’m going to be super nerdy and include the citations for the sources I used in case anyone else wants to read my source material.  If you have opinions for or against fermented foods, I’d love to read your science also! Please leave it below!

Re:  Immune Function

Jungersen, M., Wind, A., Johansen, E., Christensen, J. E., Stuer-Lauridsen, B., & Eskesen, D. (2014). The science behind the probiotic strain bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis BB-12? Microorganisms, 2(2), 92-110. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms2020092

Re:  Mood

Cao, Y., Feng, L., Wang, B., Jiang, K., Li, S., Xu, X., . . . Wang, Y. (2018). Lactobacillus acidophilus and bifidobacterium longum supernatants upregulate the serotonin transporter expression in intestinal epithelial cells. Saudi Journal of Gastroenterology, 24(1) doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/sjg.SJG_333_17

Howland, R. H. (2015). Can a bug in the gut act like a drug in the brain? Journal of Psychosocial Nursing & Mental Health Services, 53(10), 22-24. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3928/02793695-20150923-01  

Re:  Heavy metals

Bhakta, J. N., Munekage, Y., Ohnishi, K., & Jana, B. B. (2012). Isolation and identification of cadmium- and lead-resistant lactic acid bacteria for application as metal removing probiotic. International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology : (IJEST), 9(3), 433-440. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1492053492?accountid=33850

Kumar, N., Kumar, V., Panwar, R., & Ram, C. (2017). Efficacy of indigenous probiotic lactobacillus strains to reduce cadmium bioaccessibility - an in vitro digestion model. Environmental Science and Pollution Research International, 24(2), 1241-1250. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11356-016-7779-6

Mrvcic, J., Stanzer, D., Solic, E., & Stehlik-tomas, V. (2012). Interaction of lactic acid bacteria with metal ions: Opportunities for improving food safety and quality. World Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology, 28(9), 2771-82. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11274-012-1094-2

Chicken Math

Welcome back to the Blog!

Mr. L and I have decided to increase the size of our flock again this spring, as we have done every year that we have had chickens.  We started with 6. At the end of the first winter we had 3 left. Now we have 12, a happy blended flock consisting of a Barred Rock, three Rhode Island Reds, a New Hampshire Red, two Easter Eggers, and five Americaunas.

This coming spring, 2019, we have decided to add a couple of Heritage breeds; dual-purpose birds that grow out big enough to eat, lay well, and go broody to hatch their own offspring.  We have settled on Speckled Sussex, and are debating between Jersey Giants or Buckeyes. We’re getting straight runs of each, with the intent to eat all but the nicest of the roosters. He (the remaining rooster) will get to live and (hopefully) procreate.  We’re looking at adding 12 of each! That’s 24 birds! Mr. L wants to build a set of chicken tractors that I can drag around the yard, to keep the girls safe from the predators we have around. He figures he can build each one big enough for 6 birds without making it too heavy for me to move.  

The funny thing about chicken math is that it’s easy to imagine keeping a small flock, just enough to make eggs for your own family.  It’s hard to imagine starting with a small flock of 6-10, and in just three short years jumping to 36 birds! During the summer, that could potentially be three dozen eggs a day!  I didn’t envision myself ever having that many chickens.

I am excited about adding the heritage breeds.  This year I wanted colorful eggs, so we got the Easter Eggers and the Americaunas, but the eggs are much smaller than my other birds lay and they don’t lay as reliably.  We had talked about adding meat birds, but I could not come to grips with the production meat birds that I had seen. They get so big, so quickly that they become immobile.  I don’t know about you, but I suffered serious growing pains throughout my adolescence, and it was agony. I can’t wrap my head around buying breeds that grow so fast they lose the ability to move.  That must be excruciating. Plus, they can’t breed, because they can’t move, so you have to start over every year…

Then my baby sister, M, sent me a copy of Backyard Chickens that featured heritage breeds, which are defined by their ability to lay prolifically, grow sizeable enough to eat (but slowly enough to continue to be able to forage), be smart enough and quick enough to evade most predators, and reproduce naturally.  Bingo! Problem solved (although we won’t be trusting their chicken-smarts against the predators we have around here!). According to my reading (because researching is my obsession, remember?) the heritage breeds have better flavor and texture compared to production meat breeds or grocery store chicken. Allegedly, they don’t get “gamey” like you’d expect, but rather have a more pronounced and nuanced chicken flavor.

The theory is that everything tastes like chicken because commercial chicken doesn’t taste like anything.

I’m excited to experience meat raised by us on our property for the first time.  Wish us luck! Anyone here have experience with Buckeyes or Jerseys? Feel free to cast a vote by emailing info@honeybunnyhomestead.com.  See you next time!

Discussion: Profitability of a Small Farm

Welcome back to the blog!

Confession time; I am a compulsive researcher.  I read on topics that will likely never impact me at all, and extensively on topics that do or may impact me.  I fall down the rabbit holes of the internet, fact-checking and note taking for hours. For me, this is fun.

One of the topics I’ve spent a lot of time on lately is how to make a small farm profitable.  Turns out, step one is defining what you consider “profit”. Mr. L. and I had a long chat about our goals and dreams for our homestead, and we have different ideas of what constitutes profitability in our venture.  This is good news, because I tend to overreach myself and then feel like a failure, whereas Mr. L. has a much more pragmatic and attainable view of success, and a totally different definition of failure.

I had in my mind that for our small farm to be “profitable”, we needed to make income that exceeded our initial investment and cost of upkeep, such that our income minus our expenses would yield an income that would allow us to expand without further external financial assistance.

Mr. L. simply wants our little farm to generate income equal to maintenance expenses, while reducing our grocery bill.  He figures that if we reduce our expense and break even everywhere else, then we’ve come out ahead. Seeing the way his nieces and nephews eat, and knowing that we plan on eventually expanding our family, I can see where he’s coming from.

Step 2 of making a small farm profitable is tracking those investments and expenses, so that we know how much we need to make to break even or reach that tipping point into traditional “profitability”.  This has been a touch depressing. My chickens are on strike. I was selling their eggs for $3 a dozen to my classmates (they’ll be $4 a dozen going forward, because I won’t be selling to my classmates anymore, as we are out on clinical affiliations for our final semester. I’ll see them again at graduation).  This was the only income our little farm was generating, and with the girls on strike we don’t even have that currently.

I’m working on spinning up more angora yarn, with the goal of listing that for sale online in January.  The bunnies have some work ahead of them to break even on their housing and vet bills - they were $200 each to get neutered!  The hope is that this will lead to lower cost of keeping house - it should fix the peeing issues, which over the life of the bunny will be significant.

Looking ahead at spring, much of the expense of the garden has been taken care of.  The goal this year is to keep the groundhog from wrecking my harvest, and keep up with the watering and weeding.  We may pare back the planting. We already have garlic in the ground and horseradish overwintering in the fridge to go in the ground as soon as it can be worked.  I have two black walnut seeds planted in pots outside. We will plant dill, cilantro, and kale for the bunnies. Tomatoes. I hope to get carrots, ginger, and beets to grow.  We have several varieties of hot pepper languishing under grow lights in the house - I’m not sure what’s wrong with them, except that perhaps the room they’re in is too cold.

I don’t think we’ll plan on doing farmer’s markets this year - I think that would be asking too much, considering we harvested only a single yellow bean last year and everything else died.  My goal for this year will be to have a useable harvest, and to have enough left over to experiment with canning. I’d love to do dilly beans, pickled garlic, and cucumbers as well as learning to make kvass and borcsht (hence the beets).

Wish me luck!  See you next time!

Winter Chores and Sprintime Plans

Hey there. Welcome back to the blog!

Winter is a different season for homesteaders.  We put our bees to bed, did what we could to winterize our chicken coop, and have been focused on getting caught up on the indoor tasks that got pushed aside during the hustle and bustle of the fall.

Our beehives are tipped forward on a 2x2, ratchet strapped in place, have an insulating board stuffed underneath (up against the screened bottom board from the under side), and have a mouse guard across the entrance.  We purchased some typar to wrap around the hive, but winter hit early and with a vengeance, so that part has not happened yet. We’ve been listening periodically through a glass pressed to the outside of the hive, and the girls are still in there, so that has been a comfort.  I hope to pick up an inexpensive stethoscope before Christmas to make confirming their presence easier. I have spoken to other local beekeepers who have already lost hives this year. Fingers crossed our girls make it.

Our chickens refuse to stand on snow, so they’ve been staying in these last 3 weeks.  Their coop is elevated on cinder blocks with logs between them, so Mr. L. affixed a hard plastic ramp under the roof of the coop, blocking snow from immediately in front of the chicken door, to enable them to get out of the coop and hide underneath it.  This effectively doubled their square footage, but they’ve not made much use of it. They’ve also all stopped laying eggs, in spite of the fact that only 2 of the 12 are old enough to be molting. This weekend I will go shovel their enclosed space and throw down some straw for them to stand on.  I may also try to find some pallets for them to use.

I have been working on getting caught up on spinning Theodore’s wool into yarn.  My hope is to have some of that for sale early in the new year. I know that I am getting a repair kit for my spinning wheel from Mr. L. for Christmas, so I look forward to more efficient yarn-making in 2019.  Right now I am using a drop spindle, which is convenient in terms of space but difficult to maintain consistent thickness. Theodore was neutered 11/20/2018 in the hopes that he and our new addition, Maxwell, will be able to become friends.  Maxwell goes in for his surgery 12/4/2018 and we’ll work on introducing them in early January.

When I do have yarns for sale, Theodore is all white, and that yarn will take color well.  Maxwell is a Chocolate variant (unsure if agouti, or chin, or something else - I will read more into this and come back with better information).  I’m excited to use Maxwell’s fiber myself. I’ve never enjoyed knitting or crocheting with white yarns.

Mr. L. and I have been working on defining what we want out of our homestead life.  He is very interested in providing as much of our own food as we can; he wants pigs and chickens and meat rabbits, whereas I am much  more interested in being able to financially support ourselves and am looking for products to sell, such as yarns. Food products are heavily regulated, so to sell meat would require a higher investment of time (regular inspections, etc) and money (licensing, inspections, herd testing, and so on).  In the immediate future, we will be adding a hive to our apiary in the early spring (April is when the nucs and packages become available where we are). We are planning our wedding for June, and hope to become property owners sometime soon thereafter. We intend to start breeding meat rabbits for our own consumption as soon as we have the space.  It will be interesting to see where all this takes us. Thank you for coming along for the ride!

:)

Garden Chores Swap

I spent yesterday doing a “Chores swap” with a friend of mine who lives outside of Boston.  I went to her house and helped her rip down a whole hedge worth of invasive vines, broad and deep and tall enough that we uncovered several trees.  In return, on the 30th, she is bringing me 1-2 box elder saplings, a black walnut sapling, and possibly an ash tree to plant. It was great to see her and her husband, and how neat to plan a visit such that you don’t lose a whole day of winter prep - by helping them one day, and them coming to help me on a different day, in theory the same amount of work gets done without me having to be a hermit.

While I was in Massachusetts I also nabbed a second French Angora; a free-to-a-good-home rescue bunny from a woman who was overwhelmed at the amount of grooming needed to maintain an Angora rabbit.  He is a 6 year old caramel colored male, and didn’t even have a name. He is well handled, docile and very friendly. He is also badly matted, has nails that are extremely overgrown, and is living in a too-small cage.  We have named him Clarence Maple McFluffin. Mr. L will build him a new hutch like the one that Theodore is in - 24” x 48” with wire sides for looking out and an enclosed cubby for feeling safe and blocking the wind. He and Theodore Rex McBun will obviously be housed separately; they are currently in opposite ends of the house in case of contagious disease or mites.

The fiance and I have our eyes set on the looming wedding date and the potential for purchasing acreage (whether we buy or build the home will depend on what we can find for price / financing).  I have been researching permaculture food forests. We have the bees buttoned up and are hoping they survive the winter.

Update:  On 10/29/18, Clarence Maple McFluffin was found dead in his cage.  He passed from GI Stasis, a common affliction in rabbits, most likely due to having been deprived of hay in his previous home.  Though we had him only a short time, he was loved and will be dearly missed. He is wrapped in towels in a cardboard box in the freezer - when the spring thaw hits he will be buried under the Walnut sapling.

Also, we got snow and frozen ground between the 22nd and the 30th, so the trees that were coming up are now waiting until early spring, and they’ll be planted as soon as the ground can be worked.