Friday Photos from the Farm #7

Welcome back! I hope you all had a wonderful week. We did!

This week I have some photos and videos of the bees. It's important to check the bees before winter comes. We need to make sure this new hive of bees has enough food for the winter. They need food storage just like our family does.

Bryon is opening the hive to check on the bees. Honey bees are usually very calm and don't bother anyone. He wears a special suit because sometimes the bees don't understand what people are doing when they are opening the hive! This keeps him safe from getting stung.

He also likes to squirt the top of the hive with sugar water. The bees love sugar water! It's like candy for them. They are so busy licking it up that they don't worry about who is opening up their hive.

Look at all the bees on the inside of the lid!

Here they are on the frame. All that dark stuff that they are on is wax that is covering up honey.

Can you see them wandering all over? It's fun to watch bees working in their hive. All the bees you see are girls, they are called worker bees.
I'm not wearing a suit and they aren't trying to bother me because I'm being quite and moving slowly so I don't surprise them.

The chicks are growing up! Can you find all five? I'll give you a hint, one is hiding behind the mother hen.

I'm sorry I don't have a photo of me holding a chick. We took a photo, but it got lost somehow. Do you loose things sometimes, like I do?


We thought our black chicken was funny for hatching chicks so late in the summer. We have another hen that decided she wanted to hatch some chicks, too!

She is sitting the corner of Stall #2. She made herself a very nice nest where it is warm and safe.

She is a nice chicken and let me move her off her nest so I could take a picture of her eggs. She started sitting on them on October 2. That means if the chicks are going to hatch (sometimes they don't) they will hatch around October 23.

Do you see the 'X' on some of the eggs? I marked the eggs that were in the nest on October 2. I check the nest every day and leave the eggs with the 'X' on them for the hen to hatch. I take all the newly laid eggs for our family. There are a few different colors of eggs because many hens decided to lay eggs in this spot, but only one hen decided sit on the nest.

Here is our new nesting box. Quin and his dad built it for me. We are so happy to have a place for the hens to lay eggs. Hens don't like laying eggs in dog crates very much. Sometimes hens are sneaky and hide their eggs where I can't find them! The nesting box will make it easier for us to find the eggs.
Can you see the hen in the picture?

There she is! She has 3 eggs under her. She didn't lay all three. She was the last chicken to lay an egg in the box.

Quin likes to help gather the eggs when he comes for a visit. If children come to visit the farm, I always let them gather eggs.

Our hens are so nice that they don't mind Quin getting their eggs. Quin helped raise the hens when they were little chicks only a few days old. The hen in the picture is just watching Quin put the eggs in the basket so he can bring them into the house for me.

I thought you might want to hear what Charlie, our rooster, sounds like when he crows. What did you think?

Your teacher said that you are still learning about maps. She said you were going to draw a map of your bedroom at home so I thought you might like to see a map of our barn.

What do you think of my barn map? Do you understand what all the symbols mean?

Thank you for asking questions! I hope you start writing down your questions and sending them to me. If you do, I will pick a few and put them up on the blog for everyone to read. That means you have to have good handwriting so everyone can read what you wrote!

Have a great week!