Bee Keeping and Honey

Spreading a Little Joy.

This is a short blog post.

A couple of months ago I added another honey super to my hive. It was flat packed and I had to build it myself. So it is with great joy I can announce that it's absolutely chock full of honey. Ooozing with it. 

Last week a photographer called Laura Allen came to take some pictures of the hive. We're working together on a book-details of which when the project is no longer a secret-and we needed some pictures representing honey. She also needs some eggs to post so she  was deeply disappointed (not) to leave with half a dozen freshly laid eggs in various colours.

There are lots of lovely pictures to follow but here is one to be going on with. 

This was never intended to be a glamour shot but boy do i look like a bee keeper and oddly, for those in my family just like my sister Ellinor who is much taller, slimmer and darker than I am. Goodness but genetics will out in the most peculiar moments.

What you see here is a honey frame. The white area is capped honey comb and that frame weighs around a couple of kilos. The ladies were surprisingly relaxed with us as we tidied up the hive and removed burr comb.

As soon as I have more pictures I will share them with you but in the mean time please pop along to Laura's blog. She is an amazing photographer and artist. I love her work and feel extremely privileged to be working with her.

TTFN 

Katherine

Catching Up

Lots To Say

The bee keeping season has been in full swing for a couple of months and we've been so busy doing I haven't had time to write. As a general summary, you know we lost a chicken, Goose our beautiful rescue kitten was a wanderer and was killed in the road and the two girls are buried together in our garden.

We have 3 new hens who are taking a little time to settle in partly because our older girls aren't keen to share. The new girls are two dominos, grey white with flecks of black in their feathers and nice red combs and wattles they are called Dolores and Matilda and a buff brown who is, imaginatively, called Buffy. Buffy is a golden brown and has brave and stands up for the three of them. Dolores got the first of the inevitable bullying in the struggle for a new pecking order. Buffy, who looks more like the hybrids, faced them off right away and hasn't suffered much more than the odd pulled feather and being chased of the food which, to be fair, is probably a good thing as she's a total greedy guts.

The bees are incredibly busy and we've had our first clear, golden delicately flavoured honey and it is, as they say, nectar of the gods. Ambrosia. However, you'll be pleased to know that the regular cock-ups have continued and there is plenty of entertainment to be had. Thankfully very little of it is at the expense of the bees but they really do like to teach us a thing or two.

The one thing I have learned is that box hives really aren't the natural way for bees to live and I want more than anything to investigate hexagonal hives or if possible a top bar hive. However I'll tell you all about these when I've caught up a little with what we've been up to so far.

I'll try and separate the information so it's easier to find so there's a couple of bee updates to come, pictures of our new hens and their lovely eggs, pictures of the bees.

However my picture for today is of our beautiful and sadly missed kitten. Goose.

Love and Light

Katherine

My Parents Didn't Tell Us About Life And Death: They Gave Us Pets.

Grief

We lost Goose.

Beautiful Goose Girl.

We went away for the weekend for a family celebration and left a great friend looking after the house and she didn't come home one night. On the Monday evening we received a call from the emergency vets surgery saying a pet with a chip registered to us had been brought in.

It was Goose. Our beautiful, semi feral, climbing genius of a kitten decided to check out the territory on the other side of the road and sadly didn't make it. She was a free spirit, keeping her in was impossible and we couldn't do it.

We have buried her in the garden with Beatrice the hen and hope they are some comfort for one another in the next phase of being whatever that may be.

Meanwhile the house is strewn with little reminders and it is all terribly sad.

RIP Goose Girl.
You brought Joy by the house full.
Love and Sadness
Katherine

Sick Hen Part 3. Goodbye

Difficult Decisions.

I was due to go away for a weekend of voluntary committee work and on the Friday morning Beatrice was looking very weak indeed. Her tail feathers were sodden with urates (the chalky and amoniac substances that were still passing through her digestive tract) and she was still vomiting. I really didn't want to go but it was a commitment I couldn't avoid. Before I went I sat her on my lap in the sunshine after I'd bathed her again and she rallied somewhat. She ate a little live yogurt, accepted her medicines stoically and settled in the crook of my arm making sad, weak little chicken noises.

I was very upset because, to be honest I didn't really think she'd still be alive when I returned. But Bob promised to come back from the allotment midday to check on her and make sure she was drinking and eating. I left her swaying slightly on one leg by the water dispenser in the coop.

When I returned she was looking wobbly so we brought her in again to sleep in he box in the sitting room. The night was cold and her poor bones were barely covered by feathers as she had lost so much weight. When I came home, earlier than usual, from work she was even weaker and as I picked her up she vomited again. It became apparent that she was ravenous but every time she ate solid food she was sick and she wasn't deriving any nutrition from the food she tried to eat.

I rang Mandy at All Creatures Vetinary Surgery and she got Erica the vet to call us back. We talked a little and I told her that, subject to Erica's examination, I felt our poor little hen was dying and it wasn't kind or fair to keep squeezing antibiotics into her and tempting her with food she couldn't digest. So I sat in the sun with her until Bob came back from the allotment and tried very hard not to cry. I failed and when Bob returned we put the poor soul into the cat basket and once more took the bus to Radcliffe.

There is something surreal about taking life and death decisions when the weather is warm and the sun is shining. It feels incongruous and as we walked up the road from the bus stop with our little bundle it had an air of unreality. I should mention here that there are women who can somehow manage to cry in a sweet delicate manner, crystal tears rolling fatly down their flushed cheeks displaying their grief without unduely disturbing their makeup. I am not one of those women.

By the time we got to the surgery I looked like I'd been punched several times and the bundle of kitchen roll in my handbag was sodden. Erica took one look at me and escorted us into the examination room. We opened the cat box and Beatrice was so weak she couldn't even spread her wings. Where before she'd happily have flown across the room we had to lift her out to be examined. She had lost another 150 grams in less than a week and she continued to dribble the clear brown watery liquid from her soft crop as I held her to be examined. 

To cut a sad story short we all agreed that it was kinder to put her to sleep than to allow her to slowly starve to death and so Erica injected her with a sedative and then adiministered the lethal dose. In the end her heart was fairly strong and it took a while for her to go. The vet suggested I put her down but somehow I couldn't let her go. We took her home in the cat basket which we placed in the outside refrigerator so we could finally lay her to rest the next day.

Rest In Peace Beatrice.

Sick Hen Part 2

Big City, Little Hen.

Arriving in the leafy village of Radcliffe on Trent Bob took our Beatie to the newly opened All Creatures Vetinary Practice. The observant among you will have noticed this is not the first time I have mentioned these lovely people. I am slightly biased because they were so helpful and so accomodating. You will see why.

The practice opened its doors for the first time on Monday off last week. Beatrice was one of their first patients and as it happened the new digital X-Ray machine needed christening. Beatrice Chicken to the rescue....sort of. Our lovely hen made her presence felt by vomiting mightily on their new fixtures and fittings. I suppose when a vet takes a hen's temperature a degree of surprise is to be expected-after all a hen cannot keep a syringe in her beak. I'll leave that one to your imagination.

Her temperature was normal but on palpation Erica was unable to tell whether she was feeling lymph nodes or something more sinister. So the X-Ray became necessary. These days it isn't necessary to wait hours for films to be developed. The digital image comes up on a computer screen and the vet can see immediately if there is a problem. Erica and Mandy have kindly allowed me to show you what this looks like.

My chicken anatomy is probably not a lot better than yours but the long white things on the right are leg bones and the shorter ones at the top are her wings. The large white speckledy mass near her leg bones is not, as I feared, an impacted egg but the pro-ventriculus. This is a part of the digestive system that contains grit to help the chicken break down it's food. I'm pleased to say this is normal. However the gassy area above it? Not so much.

Glad to know she wasn't egg bound Erica gave her two injections. An antibiotic and something to stop her being sick. Being an holistic practitioner she also gave us some Aloe Vera Gel to give her to help settle her stomach and restablish normal gut flora. With which Bob put her back in her basket and got back on the bus.

Over the next couple of days we kept her in and she started to look a great deal better. She was still sleeping inside so she didn't get chilled when out of sorts but able to scratch around in the garden a bit. 

We were starting to feel hopeful again.

Sleep well. Beatrice is.

Katherine

Sick Hen

When is a Hen Not a Hen?

Yesterday evening our lovely girl Beatrice was looking really sorry for herself. She was leaning against the coop next to the water feeder, her head hanging and her undercarriage sagging.

Frankly she looked really sick. I decided to bring her in

Now unless you know chickens you possibly don't realise that a chicken NOT eating a dish of catfood is a very sick chicken indeed. I grant you that as a diagnostic tool the Cat Food Test is possibly a bit of a blunt instrument but it certainly tells you if a chuck is off her food. It is also true that most packet cat food is rubbish and shouldn't really even be fed to cats HOWEVER.....I digress. We tried her on meal worms, another expensive delicacy and the same reaction. No interest whatsoever. So we set about picking her up to have a look at her.

Immediately a virtually inert chicken started dashing into corners we humans cannot reach. I crawled under the lower part of the run (knees in chicken poo, lovely) and eventually after Bob had unscrewed the top of the cage i managed to corner her and pass her out but it became evident she was vomiting. A lot. Once inside she calmed down enough for us to bath her and get another look at her vent. Vent is really a polite word for bottom. chickens don't have genitals as such. They have cloaca which is the exit for the entire gastrointestinal tract and the reproductive organs.

She still looked sore and red, she was still caked with poop and she was in a really sorry state. I put her in the sink and gave her a wash,

 the poor girl vomited through pretty much the whole procedure but then when I took her out, rough dried her and wrapped her in a dry towel she settled in my arms and nodded off dribbling yuk over my arm.

An experienced chicken person of our acquaintance sent us to the vet so we rang Erica at All Creatures Vetinary Center and having checked that she would probably survive the night made an appointment for the following morning. I sat with a shivering sleeping chicken on my lap while we finally got to watch some of the Indian Premier League cricket. At 1am we tucked her up in a nice large, clean cardboard box with straw and chipped card and a plenty of water and hoped for the best.

Bob put Beatrice who was, still looking pretty poorly, into the cat carrier and walked to the bus stop. You can imagine the kind of looks you get taking a hen on the bus in a largely middle class suburb. I guess we're already starting to sound a bit odd so we'll just have to get used to it. When my sister arrived later that night she was rather nonplussed by having a chicken in the sitting room warming up in her box. Possibly not as non plussed as she would have been had she seen me blow drying her earlier in the day.

More to follow

Katherine

Hen Washing-An Update

A little bit better.

Now we cannot claim she's exactly 100% but after her wash it took around an hour and a half for her fluffy little bottom to dry out. If I'm honest i'd say she needs another good wash in the near future but I might give her a day off for good behaviour. She was bustling about with the rest of them and there wasn't anything yucky hanging from the rear at the end of the day.

Tomorrow morning I'll check her out and let you know how it goes. There is another slight concern. She has a few feathers missing from the side of her neck. I noticed her pecking at them earlier so I don't know if she's been bullied or whether shes become irritable and done it herself but I'll keep an eye on it.

Meanwhile Henrietta's comb is looking very pale so i'll do a bit of research and get back to you on that one too. I don't like the girls to be out of sorts.

Please note No chickens were harmed during today's bathing protocols and gloves were worn at all times......

Enjoy your baths and showers in the knowlege that our little feathered girls are doing well.

Cleanly yours

Katherine

Washing Instructions: Handwash Only

When a chicken has a dirty bottom.

Our chickens were a sorry bunch when they first came to us but a diet of anything they can find in the garden, kitchen scraps, mealworms and organic layers pellets, plus sunshine, love and good old fashioned freedom they soon became bossy, healthy fully feathered girls. Ready to take on the world.

However Beatrice has always had a tendency to the runs. Her bottom feathers became more frequenly mucky, even when there was no mud in the garden and yesterday we plucked up the courage to have a good look at her rear end. Anyone who has animals knows this is not a thing to be done lightly. Aside from anything else there is no warning when the next load is about to be discharged. If you happen to have your face too close because, for instance, like me you really need a new pair of varifocals in order to see close up, the consequences are unpleasant to say the least. I can report that on this occasion I did not get chicken poop on my face!

Being sensible, scientific people we picked up the healthy looking chickens to have a look at first. It's always best to know what healthy looks like before you start jumping to conclusions. If healthy is bright green with purple spots then diagnosing martian flu is foolish. Our hens are not pure bred they are laying hybrids. We think, because of their lovely auburn colour and deep red combs that they probably have some rhode island red in them and Beatrice who is a little more blonde than the others may have some buff orpington in her heritage. The others, well it's mainly speculation so one can go too far. Possibly they have some royal blood or grandma had a run in with a turkey but hey? Who am I to judge? Anyway healthy for our hens turns out to be rather like my skin tone, beige-y pink and soft with no change of colour around the feather folicles. In Beatrices case she was red and sore around the vent-rather like a person might be after a nasty bout of food poisoning or a particularly hot curry. The skin around her feather follicles is also red and sore. To give you some idea her rear looked rather like a persons eye lid does when they have a sore eye.

At times like this the internet is a mine of information. Regrettably that information is almost certainly excessive. We've all checked our symptoms out on the internet and convinced ourselves that we have bubonic plague or yellow fever. I waded through terms like Egg Bind and Vent Gleet. Its possible the girls might have any one of dozens of parasites and other unpleasantness.  Mindful of my herbalist's training which makes the stern point (as does a doctor's training I am told) that when you hear hoof beats outside you window it is far more likely to be horses than zebras. In other words use Occam's Razor. The simplest answer is the most likely.

I'm going to digress a little here so if you're not interested in Occam's Razor skip this paragraph. A simple explanation is that when developing scientific theories one should always opt for the answer that makes the fewest assumptions. If you have to go piling on the "What ifs" then there is likely something wrong with your reasoning. The Latin phrase is Lex Parsimoniae. It is always possible that in the end a more complicated explanation may prove correct. However it makes sense to exclude the simple things first.  I cannot help but think that if this is the case perhaps quantum theorists might do well to go back and have a quick look at their assumptions. Just because you can make a theory work by adding in another assumption does not mean that your theory is correct.....

Back to Beatrice. Working on the theory that the simplest answer is the most likely I have decided to assume that walking round for weeks with a load of diarrhoea stuck to your skin and feathers is likely to result in a degree of soreness. To start with it's going to interfere with the ph balance of the skin and poor cleanliness never results in happy skin. So, sitting in bed last night thinking, as you do, about the problem of chickens bottoms, it became evident that Beatrice needed a bath.

Now when you read tales about travellers eating with primitive tribes they are always offered the "delicacy" this is usually something unconscionable such as testicles, eyes or the green wobbly bit that even your cat wouldn't eat. In a similar vein. It is said these things always taste far better than you expected (though I rather suspect it's the local's having a bet as to what they can make idiot tourists eat). I have read many books, blogs and articles which stated that CHICKENS LIKE WARM BATHS. And you know what? I didn't believe it. Not for a second. It's like all those people who tell you how their cat happily takes pills from their hand and doesn't maim the whole family while spitting it out of an upstairs window. Clearly tosh. So I took precautions. Shorts. Old clothes. Bare feet. Towels and a husband on standby to titter when I got most of the water and shampoo on myself.

I lifted poor Beatrice into a bowl of water about the same warmth you'd use for a baby. I'd put in some epsom salts and I used a herbal shampoo without paraben preservatives. Amazingly instead of flapping her wings clucking and covering me in a mixture of soapy water and chicken shit the little sweetheart stood with her sore little tail in the water while I gently rinsed her and soaked off the caked on muck. After 10 minutes or so Bob lifted her out of the water while I went for some clean warm water to rinse her off. She waited patiently and happily got back into the water. Even more amazingly she  allowed me to wrap her in towels to blot the worst of the water and sat on my lap while I did it.

Currenly she's a little damp but pottering happily about the garden with her damp tail feathers. I rather hope she doesn't pick up a load of dust from the mud flats but right now she's looking pretty happy and I'll let you know how she does when I've put a new plug on my hair dryer and given her a bit of a blow dry!

Yours cleanly
Katherine

In Praise of Eggs

What's in an Egg

Eggs have been a controversial food over the years. It has been insisted that because eggs contain cholesterol they must be bad for you. We have been exhorted to eat omelets made from just the white of the egg to minimise our fat intake and, in typical fashion we've lapped up this nonsense. But throwing away the egg yolk, that golden, sunny ball of complete and exceptional nutrition is nothing short of vandalism.

The egg yolk is one of nature's most complete and wonderful foods. Pasture raised organically handled hens produce the most wonderful delicious eggs and we really need to celebrate them. Sadly their caged raised sisters do not have access to such a wonderful diet and consequently their sacrifices result in eggs of lower nutritional standard. Let the girls out into the sunshine and the eggs they give us are orders of magnitude better for us, for the hens and for the planet.

It is by no means certain that cholesterol is the ogre it's been painted. It is the primary building block for the majority of our steroid hormones. Insufficient cholesterol can result in depression, muscle pain, personality change and menstrual problems in women. This is particularly evident in people taking Statin class drugs. I promise to stay off that particular soap box right now but suffice to say when government decides EVERYONE over a certain age should be on a drug we really have to wonder who is benefiting.

So What is in that gorgeous oval of flavour. The World's Healthiest Foods points out that a single egg contains 34% of our daily choline needs. Choline deficiency results in fatty liver disease and can cause cell signalling and nerve signalling defects. Consuming significant dietary choline can prevent these things. Eggs are the reference food for protein with a high biological value. This means they are easily digested and used to support the body's needs. Eggs are also a rich source of selenium and iodine. These minerals are significant because they are difficult to obtain from other sources and while they are freely available in fish, shell fish and mushrooms many folk avoid these foods but are happy to eat eggs.

According to Authority Nutrition eggs help weight loss. In a study of 30 overweight or obese women who ate either a bagel or eggs for breakfast, those who ate eggs ate less at lunch and less over the next 36 hours. The egg is certainly advocated by both Slimming World and Weight Watchers in the UK!

The egg is unusually nutrient dense. It is easily digested and forms a wonderful part of the human diet. It is possible but difficult to supplement in baking and, if ethically farmed or husbanded is an exceptionally sustainable food.

Our eggs come from rescued barn hens. Lovely ladies who hitch up their skirts to dash about the garden in search of insects, plants and entertainment. We know our hens have a truely relaxed and entertaining existance. If your breakfast comes from such a wonderful source its difficult to go to work without a smile on your face.

Happy Thursday
Katherine

Happy Easter and Honey Super Part The Second.

Now the bees are smoking....

Ok they aren't smoking we managed to smoke the hive so they calmed right down. Just so you know this shows some real close ups of bees so if you aren't too happy with insects watching this might not be your best idea.

What you see happening here is bees realising that they are being held over the main colony and without being encouraged at all walking down into the new honey super. Other bee keepers speed up the process by tapping the board so the bees fall off but we are really trying to look after our bees as gently and naturally as possible. Bob stood holding the board for about 15 minutes while they made up their mind and slowly trooped off back where they'd come from.

We loaded all the frames into the super and they look pristine and beautiful. In a few months no doubt they'll look exactly like all the other frames we have. Bees like things homely.

If the weather continues to be fairly mild we may get some early honey. I have to say I can't wait. However there are those out there, people who have seen me cook and decorate, who may feel that transferring honey from comb into jars is a job best left to the better organised. 

We put the crown board on top of the honey super and put the roof of the hive back. It doesn't really look that much bigger but we know there are possibilities in there. There is breeding going on, there are new bees hatching and soon there will be honey. The question is, will there be enough honey for us to share this year?

Easter is for many the celebration of the resurrection of Christ. In the pre christian/pagan calendar it is celebration of new life and fecundity. The harvest yet to come. The celebration of all that is possible. Our chickens have proven to us that a great deal is possible. The bees have shown us that a new skill is learned quickly where necessity dictates.  Introducing both into our lives have brought us the gifts of new friends and a greater appreciation of what is possible!.

So raise with us a glass, a mug, a cup or a bottle to what is possible and what is new.

Watching in hope

Katherine

Adding a Honey Super.

DIY Bee Keeping.

When we got our hive it arrived complete, put together and full of bees. They'd had a holiday in Tollerton and were happy to move lock stock and two smoking barrels into our 'hood. So, having done it the easy way it has come as something of a shock to the system to realise that pretty much all bee paraphernalia comes flat pack. There are numerous bee keeping Ikea stores out there selling bits you have to put together in order to enhance the "des' res'" you maintain for your ladies.

When Alex came over a few weeks ago he said he'd order some super frames for us-apparently its cheaper to buy in bulk. Two days later the above carrier bag arrived containing the bits to make our honey frames. Over the last week or so I put the bits together. I didn't realise the pins supplied came in two different lengths till after I'd put the frames in the hive so it is possible that at some point hence the frames may become over burdened with honey and fall apart. All part of the learning curve I guess.

What you see here is a wooden frame which sandwiches and supports a sheet of bees wax "foundation" This is sterile beeswax which has been pressed into an appropriate shape to help bees make comb in a convenient shape for people to work with. What you can't tell from the picture is how delicious the combination of new pine wood and fresh beeswax smells. Having suffered the smell of three cat litter tray during the wettest winter in living memory the pure fresh smell is such a balm to the senses.Ultimately I had pile of ten frames and felt pretty pleased with myself. The next job was to put the frames in the super so the bees can begin to make use of them. 

You will recall from previous posts that a combination of inexperience and hubris had lead me to several unfortunate incidents where I thought it would be ok to "just do this little job" without putting on a bee keeping suit or lighting the smoker. This time we both suited up, put on our gloves, zipped up sensibly and lit the smoker in proper preparation for our work. Our colony is pretty gentle but when you take the lid off, move the frames around and make strange noises even the most gentle strains of bees will locate their warrior genes.

Lighting the smoker is always more of a palaver than it ought to be. For goodness sake dry wood shavings in a metal can should light perfectly easily with the aid of a blow torch. Sounds easy. However the reality is impeded by basic physics. Because the shavings are, effectively, in the bottom of a brass can, when you put the flame of the blow torch near the tinder the FLAME GOES OUT. Insufficient oxygen in the enclosed space for the butane flame. Blessed ridiculous. Ultimately we put some dry holly leaves in and they set light but only after the bees had started to get a little jittery because we'd taken a frame out.

The ladies from the bottom of the garden have been pretty busy. What comb they have is completely full. The queen has been laying and it is clear that if they are going to maintain colony strength they are going to need more stores. Recently night time temperatures have been as low as 4 degrees Celsius again. It is only April and in the UK that certainly doesn't signal the end of frost on the ground. Bob went out and bought fleece to put over plants at the allotment because they still need protection. However it is a record year for blossom-and tree pollen as a result. No fun for hay fever sufferers however it means that our bees have a good supply of nectar to start spring production. Pollen is coming in by the basket load and is notably paler than the honey they collected in the later months of last year.

Back to the matter in hand. We smoked them down so they went about their business and took the crown board off the hive. Everything looked and smelled right. We took one of the frames out but, given that we were about to give their home a spring makeover we decided not to do a full inspection. 

Instead of replacing the crown board we put a small rectangle of pine on top of the brood body. this is the exact dimensions of the hive but only 2 inches high. This gives a bit of extra space before you put on a screen made of what look like wooden skewers. This is known as a queen excluder. Basically it prevents the queen from getting through and laying eggs in what you hope will be the frames that provide you with pure honey.

In this image you can see the new frames and the queen excluder between the brood body and the super. It doesn't really look like the gaps are wide enough for a bee to squeeze through but we realised, from observation, that clearly the bee is capable of sneaking through extremely small spaces.

Anyway. It's late and there's much more to tell you so I'll get this out there and follow up tomorrow.

Happy thoughts.

Katherine

Crazy Things You Can Buy For Your Chicken

I don't believe it!

After joking yesterday about taking chickens for a walk on a lead I was persuaded by a friend to do a web search for chicken leads. I can honestly say that I have never been more surprised by the variety of bizarre merchandise that is available in such a niche area.

We can start with THE CHICKEN DIAPER. Nappies for chooks. Seriously such things exist. Not only that but they are available in a rainbow of colours and prints. Not just, as you might think, the various colours of chicken feathers. Oh no, chicken nappies are available in floral prints, plain colours and many quirky prints including skulls for those of you with gothic tendencies or a need to honour Alexander McQueen.These nappies also come as integral parts of a chicken dress with bows on the back or with a pre installed D ring so that you can attach a leash. These "Leash Ready" diapers come in packets of 4.

Now I don't know about you but while I can't say I exactly love chicken poop I do not feel the need to attach a bag to the hen's rear in order to catch it before it soils the garden. I guess the kind of people who like a chicken nappy are the sort of people who want their chickens to have free access to the sofa and sky TV. After all what is life without "The Real Housewives of Orange County" or "Dog the Bounty Hunter."? Perhaps even a bit of  "Jeremy Kyle". Of course the mention of Mr Kyle has thrust an unwanted image of chickens sitting on high stools being interviewed about their dysfunctional families. There are at least two cockerels duking it out over who is the eggy daddy....

Of course when I did a web search for bizarre chicken accessories I didn't find things for chickens. I found chicken themed things for people . Masks, costumes, er.....the kind of bedroom accouterments we don't need to discuss here. Clearly the world is chicken mad.

On balance I'll stick to feeding the girls on organic free range pellets, the odd bit of bacon and grain and I'll continue wearing wellies, a grubby sweater and an old pair of leggings when i'm tending to them. and where it comes to the chickens bathroom habits and free ranging? Somehow I think Chicken nappies and leads are for other, perhaps less busy, people.

The Great Escape

Cover Me I'm Going In.

You may remember that earlier in the year we had to clip John's wings. She kept flying over into next door's garden and, as they have a lovely but enthusiastic lurcher we thought that in the interest of safety and sanity we would limit her access.All was going swimmingly, John and I were almost back on clucking terms, when Henrietta Chicken decided she was ready to investigate the world at large.

Henrietta is the first to leap on you at the first sign of a meal worm or a sunflower seed. She has come a long way from her early timidity and, we think, was the first to lay an egg. She has lovely speckled feathers and, aside from the patch of blue fence paint on her wing from her attempts at helping Bob to paint the raised beds, is a lovely roan colour. She has bags of personality (or is that chickenality) and we adore her. However she is a wayward hen at the best of times. 

Henrietta and Beatrice both have a taste for cat food. The moment they spot an opening they are in through the back door and chomping their way through whatever variety the cats have turned up their noses at. I've no doubt you share my horror at the practice of turning animals past their prime into protein pellets for their progeny. It was responsible in large part for BSE. Bovines are grass eaters. Pulping them up and feeding them to the next generation was always going to cause trouble-allegedly cannibals (human cannibals) that eat a great deal of same species flesh develop the shakes and terrible nervous system problems. If you look at the ingredient list for virtually any brand of cat food you will see chicken listed amongst the few meat ingredients. Now, to be fair, the avarage high street brand only contains 4% meat so there's little danger of the girls showing signs of dementia in the near future however the thought of them eating their sisters fills me with horror. Not so the chickens.

The single mindedness with which they apply themselves to breaking into the house or out of the garden is awe inspiring. People keep telling me how thick chickens are but if they aren't so clever they sure have native cunning. In the morning, when you go to let them out of the run, if you don't close the back door behind you the first hen is in the cat food before the last one has made it out of the hen house door. This is becoming true of their ability to escape the compound we call our garden. 

It's not actually Colditz but it is not the lush green garden it has been in the past. There is barely a blade of grass left. Plants are ripped from the soil as soon as they raise their spring heads and the hedge is gradually being denuded too. In view of this it is hardly surprising that the hens feel the urge to forage for greener surroundings. I doubt there is so much as a snails egg left to chomp on. The same is not true of neighbouring plots.Yet.

On Wednesday last week I was quietly reading when I heard Bob yell up to boy number one "Er, could you pop out the front a moment? I need a hand." I didn't hear what transpired but a few hours later I was treated to the tale of Henrietta's first taste of freedom. Evidently she'd got over the wall, had a dash around and then headed out to the side road for a look. Thankfully Bob was just walking down to the allotment when he spotted her. He tried to get his hands on her but she was having none of it. Evidently having chased her back and forth between two front gardens he finally gave in and called Joel to help. Between the two of them she was corralled and returned to secure accommodation.

I clipped her wings. She wasn't pleased, it wasn't fun for either of us. Having researched wing clipping I chose the kinder alternative of clipping only a part of each wing which meant she wouldn't be off balance and could still bimble about chicken fashion without too much interference. The following day I let the girls out for a run. Someone on the skills exchange came to pick up a keyboard and in the 10 minutes my attention was not on the rear garden she vanished. Vamoosed. Disappeared. No Henrietta.

I peered in both the next door gardens. No chicken. So I walked round the back into the private road that backs onto our rear fence. No Chicken. However there were the tell tale signs that someone with claws had been scratching around the neat border of primulas and miniature daffodils our neighbours so carefully tend. No. Chicken. I knocked on the door of the bungalow which was answered by an elderly gentleman who looked like the guy in that painting American Gothic. I asked "Have you seen a chicken around here recently?" "yes I have. Must be the third time this week. It's ruined the garden." "Did you see where it went?" "No, and I don't care. What about my garden" "I'm sorry, I have to find the hen first but when I do I'll come back and sort out your borders" "Just see that you do" 

Copyright the Chicago Art Institute.

By now I was absolutely beside myself. I was also limping a bit after straining an ankle running for the bus the day before. So I limped around the local streets asking those I saw "Have you seen a chicken?" I can only hypothesise from the looks and sniggers that the good burgers of West Bridgford thought I had been taking my chicken for a walk and it had given me the slip. I suppose it is unusual to be asked whether you have spotted a missing chicken. Perhaps given the surreal nature of the inquiry it was not such a leap of imagination to weird women with a hen on a lead.

I retraced my steps and thought I would try a little Sherlock style deduction. Looking at the neighbours destroyed flower bed I realised that there was a pattern of debris about the place that could only have been scraped up by the claws of a large avian. Knowing ostriches to be in short supply I moved around the clutch of bungalows and noted other tell tale signs and then heard a friendly chicken gurgle. A few moments later a tired but happy Henrietta allowed me to pick her up virtually without complaint. I returned her to the run with her sisters where she happily busied herself with the feed hopper.

I returned to our neighbour, swept up his path and replanted the primulas that had been dislodged. In general she hadn't done too much damage but I apologised and offered pay war reparations. Subsequently we have had to lock her in the run for most of the day because after a further two escapades it became clear that our neighbours are not of the friendly forgiving kind and, understandably, do not take kindly to a chicken in the herbaceous border. I have now saved up enough eggs to take round as a peace offering but I suspect it is going to take a bit more than a box of the lovely girls' efforts to draw a smile from the poor man.

Spring Bees

Are we through the worst of the winter.

When I looked at the bees the other day the warmer weather had drawn them out to forage and, thanks to the incredibly mild year, there seems to be a lot of blossom on the trees and spring flowers are opening earlier than you might expect.

I rang Karina to tell her the hive had survived the summer and she warned me that the same happened to her last year but come Good Friday they found the hive had died. I cannot begin to imagine the sorrow she must have felt. You become extremely attached to what is essentially a box full of insects. Somehow there has been a synergy between bees and humans for millenia and we remain connected.

It seems that, however much they take in in the autumn (and if you remember our bees had about 21 kilos of sugar syrup over September and October) if the queen lays early then it becomes a race to find sufficient nectar to make into honey. The bees were rushing in with their pollen covered yellow trousers and evidently this is a sign of new brood. Although they store a great deal of pollen in the capped wax cells, they still prefer to feed new brood on fresh food. A commendable approach. One I wish i'd been able to use for my new family.

The winter isn't over yet for the bees.

Yours pensively
Katherine

Our First Look in the Hive 2014: And Finally Me in a Bee Keeping Suit.

Over 10 Degrees Celsius at Last.

We have been aching to see inside the hive for the last month or so. I hefted the hive (the process of assessing the weight of the hive by lifting one side) It seemed a lot more maneuverable than it was last year and I cam promise you there has been no weight training going on in the interim.

What has happened in the interim is that I have acquired a bee keeping suit that fits a little better. It's still not an ABBA moment but at the very least I can bend down to pick up a dropped hive tool which is a significant improvement. 

You can't really see much here except me in what looks suspiciously like a babygro on the left hand side. I'm still using two rubber washing up gloves worn on top of each other to compensate for a lack of proper bee keeping gloves. Alex has proper long leather gauntlets but he's very kind and doesn't laugh.

We had planned to open the hive in the morning but when I checked the temperature it was only 8 degrees. The wind was blowing and it looked like threatening rain. Also, I felt like hell, so I went back to bed. The sun came out in the afternoon and as it pushed a balmy 14 degrees C Alex turned up to take me through the process. We smoked down the hive and took off the super and crown board. Underneath the bees were active but not overly upset at our intrusion. There was no agressive flying and the bees just fell to the joyful job of munching on honey.

Here you can see some bees enjoying the excess that they've built to fill up the spaces. We'd already scraped a fair bit off. You can see that most of the bees here are quite dark apparently this means they are winter bees. Some of them have been flying out for supplies and bringing back their golden pollen treasure hoards.

Here you get a better idea of how much they've built to fill the spaces between the frames.

This picture shows a frame propped up against the side of the hive while which gives us space to look at another without any unfortunate bee squishing. You can see the new honey built around the central section. It is common for the queen to lay her eggs in a rugby ball pattern through the middle of many frames. This means they are at the centre of the hive which is the warmest and the worker bees build honey comb around them in order to but insulate and provide stores for the new brood and the queen.

And here I am proudly and joyfully holding, not dropping, a comb full of honey and covered in bees. It's a strange thing to know all those bees could suddenly decide they needed to protect themselves. But here they are, chowing down on good old honey. And did I mention I wasn't panicking?

The net result was that the hive was clean, industrious and had supplies. The workers are already bringing back pollen and nectar for the year ahead and the queen has commenced spring laying. As long as the weather doesn't suddenly run headlong into an unexpected winter we should be able to avoid feeding them and be able to start putting on supers to collect the honey.

Watch this space.

Happy Hunting

Katherine

Whooping Cough: I thought I'd published this but forgot so here it is 6 weeks late. I'm quite better btw.

At My Age?

I was sent home from work last week because, frankly, I couldn't draw breath and I couldn't hold a conversation which, in retail, makes you worse than useless. I thought it was the tail end of an annoying cough but since I couldn't breathe I made an emergency appointment with the GP. He gave me some steroids and antibiotics and told me to come back on Friday. Cough still no better Friday so the GP gave me higher doses of steroids and told me to stay off work. Monday still no better. The coughing was beyond ridiculous so I went back at which point the GP said "Whooping Cough"

But I'm too old for whooping cough and anyway I was vaccinated. Oh and although I can't draw breath I'm not whooping. Just going blue in the face and choking a bit. 

I'm still waiting for the blood test results but it seems I probably do have what is considered a childhood disease. However it isn't a childhood disease. It is simply the case that complications are more likely in childhood and because a child can't express itself the paroxysms are particularly distressing for parent and child alike.

For those of you unfamiliar with the arc of whooping cough or Bordatella pertussis here is the skinny:

Initially the disease presents as a head cold, possibly a bit of a cough and a runny nose. There may be fever and there will probably be a headache. This will last a few days maybe up to two weeks but then seem to improve. During this period you are at your most infectious and likely to pass it on to friends and co workers who are susceptible.

After a few days the cough begins in ernest and this is referred to as the paroxysmal phase. During this time talking, breathing, changes in air temperature (and did I mention?) breathing can all set off paroxysms of coughing. In about 50% of cases these end in a desperate gasp for breath which produces the characteristic "whoop" which gives the illness it's name. According to a practitioner I know a good immune system can prevent the whoop but cant fight off the bug. I definitely don't have the whoop.

The paroxysmal phase can last anything from 2 weeks to 8 weeks. I'm taking loads of herbs so I'm hoping they will enable my immune system to keep this to a minimum but I discover that in a number of countries it's known as the 100 day cough. Which brings me to the convalescent phase which I hope is where i'm heading but can apparently take from three to 6 months.

Whooping cough is starting to make a comeback.  Another herbalist freind had it last year and when i mentioned it to a friend from the allotment she said someone else she knew had it. So I looked up the figures.

That's just the UK but the trend is the same all over the world. It is suggested that this apparent trend is simply the result of better awareness and testing but I can assure you that GP's knew whooping cough when they saw it in the past. But who knows, perhaps loads of adults had it and didn't know because they didn't make the noise? Who knows but make sure you know the symptoms because if you catch it early antibiotics or a whacking great dose of crushed garlic might abort it in it's tracks. Once you get to the paroxysmal phase the antibiotics just stop others getting it. You're stuffed.

Things that make it better. Hot dead sea salt baths. Sitting outside in the cold air with a chicken on my lap. Hot lemon and honey and cinnamon. Not doing much. Eating cake. Cake is proving to be specific for suspected whooping cough. It's also specific for my waistline but after all, it's medicine......

Dreams of Summer

The Bees Venture Out.

It has been cold and damp, mostly damp. Britain has been in the grip of the worst rain storms and flooding since records began. Now records began about 60 years ago but all the same the Somerset Levels are no longer a valley but a sea. In fact they've been a sea since before Christmas. However the stoical people of the west country didn't complain until Dawlish railway station fell in the sea and great lumps of ballast were thrown onto the high street by the waves. 

Politicians finally got their wellies on when the Thames started to rise a bit. Once people in the Thames Valley were getting wet feet tories could see their constituencies being reduced to silt and finally pulled their fingers out. Apparently the environment agency had been told that every pound they spent had to reap an 8 to 1 reward. That is to say if they spent £1 it had to return an £8 benefit in economic terms. Consequently farmland in the west country was less of a priority than Tory voters' homes  near the Thames.

And it seems that central southerners are a bunch of whingeing nancies. There they were on telly in their galoshes "We have heard there could be a lot of rain tonight. What are the government going to do about it?" while the West Country folk were taking the kids to school in a rowing boat and dressing them in waders "..Yes" said one woman "It's gettting a bit tiresome now. The sofa floated away and the cat wont come down off the roof but we're making the best of it" 

A friend of mine who lives by the sea but works in Exeter rang me in frustration saying it had taken her nearly 2 hours to get to work because the flooding had finally damaged her car exhaust and she'd had to go to work by bus. In london people take the day off if theres a danger of the wrong kind of leaves on the line. After all little Tarquin couldn't be expected to have to shake the dew off his jacket at school. He might catch a cold.

Enough with the sarcasm. It has been terrible. People have died and friends have suffered. Our garden is waterlogged but it looks worse than it is because agent chicken has completely defoliated the environs. However the clever little cluckers are laying an egg a day each now so they have earned the right to be a little demanding. We're very proud. They haven't really enjoyed the underwater aspect but we can proudly say that the only part of our back yard that isn't muddy is their Chicken Run. Cluckingham Palace is a Des Res indeed.

Bees

The ladies have weathered the winter. It hasn't been cold but it's been wet and that can cause problems of it's own. This morning when I let the hens out I ventured over to look at the hive. Over the last couple of months it has been very quiet, just the occasional brave soul checking to see all was clear but today you could hear the buzz from the back step.

When I looked out of our bedroom window I could see hundreds of bees drawing lazy spirals around the hive as they orientated themselves to their environment. At this stage in the year they may well be new bees who are venturing out for the first time ever. I know that bees communicate their location easily to their compadres but it is amazing to think that bees who have been quietly working away in the hive since their birth can know what is expected of them without ever having seen the outside world.

But for today, in the early spring sun they looked like drops of sunshine from heaven and made me dream of summer.

Feeding your chickens.

Variety is the spice of life.

Today I was mugged in my own back yard. However I'll get back to how this happened.

Having decided to render the remains of the beef suet I got for the Christmas puddings I was left with some beef fat crackling. Vegetarians, apologies for the mental image,  it's not pretty but I get such things from a local butcher who humanely slaughters his own animals which are pasture fed, locally raised and free range. I believe in using the whole carcass and not throwing away the bits we're not used to eating. 

Back to the suet crackling. Yesterday we introduced the hens to bacon rind. They behaved as though we'd never fed them before. Chickens eat anything. They have particular fondness for live protein-worms, ants, grubs, butterflies etcetera. We are looking forward to a reduction in cabbage white numbers next season. So we got the suet out of the freezer and put it in the oven on a low temperature (80 degrees C) to render or melt for about 6 hours. At the end of that time we had a tray of melted fat and the crackling. 

This morning (OK this afternoon-I'm still not that well. I didn't drag myself out of bed till after midday and even then not for very long) I chopped up the cooled fatty crackling, put it in a bowl and, taking my life in my hands put my new welly shoes on and opened the back door. 

Within seconds the bowl had been torn from my hands and four chickens were noisily fighting over the bigger pieces. There was clucking, there was pecking there was actual SCREECHING. This morning, even early afternoon it was much colder than recent days. The frost still silvered the grass and chickens need extra calories to keep themselves warm.

I'm hoping this will reduce their tendency to head for the cat food which-I'm starting to discover-does not always come from the most reliable sources, however renowned the brand. A friend of mine who is a packaging expert and has spent many hours in human and pet food factories said that while unpleasant human food factories do have a genuine commitment to hygiene. In his words "Pet food factories? Not so much." oh-oh "I saw 3 different types of cockroaches. When I raised the matter they told me it all cooks in"

I'm starting to question whether I want to used any brand of pre made food especially since the oldest cat (around 10 years old) has, since being placed on a kibble and meat diet, been diagnosed with diabetes. Reading around can be quite uncomfortable-I have to remember that for every thesis there is an equal and opposite thesis but I'm getting the idea that at the very least a diet should be SPECIES APPROPRIATE if you want to avoid health problems.

The plan with the chickens is to use the rendered suet to make home produced fat balls containing seeds, grains, meal worms and other tasty treats to keep them happy in the winter. I have yet to work out whether it's cheaper to make my own but that isn't the only criteria at play.

Whatever we're doing we're doing reasonably right by the chooks. If you compare the above picture with earlier ones you can see the healthy upright red combs on their heads. This is distinctive of vitality and health (as is their turn of speed down the garden at the first rattle of a feed bucket) These bossy, glossy healthy ladies are certainly much happier than the day we collected them by which time they had no doubt improved dramatically since their liberation.

Watch this space.

Happy New Day.

Katherine xxx

Industrial Action from the Chickens

Protests from our feathered friends.

I'm not feeling terribly well at the moment. I either have a chest infection or the one I had before Christmas has upset my airways causing asthma like symptoms. Consequently I've been sofa surfing and relegated to bed for the last couple of days. I don't like it and I get bored. However it would appear I am not alone.

Yesterday the girls dispatched Bob to our room with the information that if we want egg production to continue we are just going to have to consider more access to the house. They have taken to standing at the back door pecking at it if we're inside in view. Alternatively they stand on the conservatory window sill clucking.

Apparently yesterday Bob went out with the pail of meal worms and exciting corn type treats. John jumped on him the moment his arm was out of the door, Henrietta followed suit, Mavis pecked at his feet and Beatrice took the opportunity to dash through his legs and make a chicken-line for the cat food. Thankfully yesterday's kibble was salmon based so no nasty proto-cannibalistic experiences to worry about.

I will digress here a little regarding feeding regimes for chickens. As you will know from previous posts our back garden is no longer the haven of freely growing herbal joy it was in the summer. The combination of AGENT CHICKEN and heavy rain have reduced much of the ground to a Somme like battle ground of mud and stones. As a result we've been supplementing the chickens diet with dried meal worms, spinach and herbs picked from the allotment. I decided to look up recommended feeding protocols and found all the feed sites suggest you only give treats in the afternoon to ensure they get the lions share of their nutrition from the layers pellets. My dearly beloved made the point, To quote Christine Keeler. "They would say that, Wouldn't they" 

(Thanks to Getty Images-I chose not to use that picture of the lady)

After all what benefit is there to the feed companies if your chickens munch happily on free range pasture, insects and kitchen scraps? The feed pellet manufacturers market their feed and refer to other types of nutrition as TREATS. Its not like chocolate. It's all food and it's not surprising if the chickens have a preference for the nicer stuff. 

Please note these are not my girls! There will be more and newer pictures to follow however.

Regarding Christine Keeler: While I was looking for a picture of the famous lady I happened upon an unflattering paparazzo effort of her in her 70's pulling a shopping trolley. Interesting that while I acknowledge is demise in 2006 I could find no such image of Profumo. Rather he received a medal from the Queen in 1975 and attended Margaret Thatcher's 70th Birthday party. As I'm currently prone to a bit of soap boxing  I think on balance I'll stick to looking at pictures of chickens.

Happy Thursday

Katherine

2014 The Year Begins

Or "How the back garden was won"

Happy New Year to everyone. 

Among the many things I do working in retail during the festive season has rather interrupted the flow with this blog. SO time to catch up a little.

There are still bees in the hive. Their numbers have dwindled though the number of tiny corpses on the garden has diminished. We can still see the bees flying around on warmer days and when I hefted the hive a couple of days ago it still seemed heavy. There is nothing we can really do for them till mid February when, if the colony has been unusually active and used it's stores, we may have to feed them fondant. This is a solid sugar based food that rather resembles the ready roll icing you put on Christmas cakes but with a few more nutrients added.

Amazingly we have had very little cold weather so far. Largely in the UK we've had heavy rains and high winds. The chickens and the bees are reasonably well protected and the chicken run remains mud free. The same cannot be said of the garden. I'd just like to tell any new allotmenteers that a more effective way of clearing rough ground than digging or hiring a rotavator is to corral chickens in a confined space and leave them to it.

We had a little help in clearing the back beds from Joel however the chickens turned the soil over meticulously in their search for succulent morsels. Furthermore I am certain that insect life poses no further threat to our crops. Nor do grass or other plant life. More accurately we have a barren wasteland of mud with isolated outcrops of chicken poo. I'm sure that when it drier it will be both fertile and receptive to seeds. So will the chickens. No doubt battle will commence shortly as Bob came home with fruit tree saplings and the first vegetable seeds earlier today.

The chickens are hardly recognisable compared with the scrawny featherless creatures we collected from Brinsley Animal Rescue. They are fully feathered and strut around the place as though they own it. We have discovered a distressing tendency for them to head directly for cat food at the first opportunity. They have also made it clear that Layers Pellets are not their first choice of food. Layers pellets retail at between £13 an £20 for a 25 kilo sack in the uk. They prefer wild bird seed and dried meal worms Dried meal worms retail at around £8 for a 500g bucket. This is, frankly, taking the michael however since Bob says I can't take the lid off his worm farm if the chickens want extra meaty treats that wont cause mad chicken disease we'll have to suck up the cost of the dried worms.

Perhaps our greatest delight has been the sudden urge that first Henrietta and later John had to fly up onto our shoulders. We both felt honoured that our new feathered freinds liked and trusted us enough to come so close. As the garden has turned into a mud bath their urge to wipe their feet on something warm and dry has grown. It has become necessary to don head to foot protective clothing in order to exit the back door because the moment you do one or other of the feathered delights is stood on your lovely clean clothes, skin or hair proudly leaving their mark on you. The other day I was serving a customer in the shop when I realised I had muddy chicken foot prints on my wrist. Luckily I work in a soap shop and the customer saw the funny side.....

I hope each and every one of you had a wonderful festive season and that the new year is treating you well.

Love and Hope

Katherine