It’s that time of year again, folks.  The time where we start looking toward the spring and figure out how many packages we are going to buy this year and make sure we have enough mite treatment for our hives come next month. For us here at Priddy Acres, we have lost two hives so far.

For the Willamette Valley (pronounced [will-<soft a like in cat>-met], for you non-native Oregonians), a roughly 50% mortality rate is pretty much the average according to the Willamette Valley Beekeeping Association.  That being the case, we are still ahead of the curve. We had one hive blow over in a wind storm.  I went home from work to pick it back up and put it where it was.  There were a lot of bees still in the hive and it wasn’t a particularly cold day, so I hoped they would be ok.  It turns out they didn’t care about all that and either left or died. I am not sure what happened to the other hive, but I will find out this weekend when I pull those two hives apart and reclaim any unused honey from the brood boxes.  I’ll maybe post some pictures or something of the activity when I get them down to the shop and pulled apart.  We are also in the midst of planning out some upgrades to the hive location.

I purchased some pressure treated 4×4’s from the store a couple months ago in preparation for making a stand to put the hives on.  This will do a few things for me.  It will make it easier to get the hives slightly tilted forward, but otherwise level.  It will allow me to attach a roof to shelter the hives from rain that could seep into each one. Finally, it will give me the ability to strap the hives down to the stand which will be set in concrete.  It shouldn’t take me more than a day to dig the post holes and get everything square and level, then put the concrete in the holes.  It should be ready to have rails put on it the next day.  So it will pretty much be a weekend project. Given how far apart I plan to put the two ends of the rail (12 feet on the inside) I may put some cinder blocks with a short piece of 4×4 in the center of each rail for stabilization.  This will give me great access to the hives in the summer as well as allow me to mow around them without too much disturbance. Being it is now February, we are also going to be treating the hives for mites in preparation for the spring. If you happen to be near Eugene, Oregon, Glorybee will be having their annual Bee Weekend on the 19^th and 20^th of April.  It is a great event with lots of good information for new beekeepers. In other news, we have put a new ceiling on the woodshed!

We embarked on a pretty heavy remodel of our woodshed several years ago.  It was falling down and was in such bad shape that it didn’t even count as part of the property value when we bought our farm.  With significant help from my friends Geoff, Carrie, and Paul I have since fixed the walls and trusses, put new siding and roofing on, and put some new doors and windows in.  It is looking pretty good (pictures below), but I still have some work to go.  My dad clued me in to some tongue and groove pine they had at a local store which I went and looked at. It looked pretty good and was only $0.45 a lineal foot, so the price was also fantastic (about half the price of the cheapest flooring at Home Depot and Lowes).  We bought about 1250 lineal feet to cover the ceiling (which allows for some screw-ups).  After Michelle and Caitlyn (another friend we hired to help us) stained the pine, Geoff, Paul, Carrie, Michelle, Paul and I put the ceiling up using our tables as scaffolding. It looks amazing now that the actual lights we want to use are put up, but I am looking forward to the stain smell dissipating. Now that the ceiling is finished, I will be trying to level out the concrete with some leveler (which is oddly way more expensive than concrete).  At the same time I will be contacting an electrician to help me ask the power company to come put in separate electrical service to the shop (which feeds the woodshed). This will have the benefit of giving us a more robust power source for all of our needs and get my welder back up and running (since I need it to build the new coal forge I want to build), which hasn’t worked due to a dead leg from a nick in the line from the house.  We are also going to put the bar back in and start figuring out what to do with the floor. We want to make it look like slate whether through slate tiles or stamping doesn’t matter, though I haven’t looked into the cost comparison yet.  We are aiming for a rustic look and plan to use this as the central gathering area for use as an event venue.

I guess that is pretty much it from Priddy Acres. Get those bees treated and have a great early winter!