Country

I decided to put these two together because I dont want a site just dedicated to the goats since we only have a few of them and dont really plan to get any more. We orginally got the goats to take care of the brush problem we had at other ranch. They were great for that little problem, however now that we live on our new farm there is no brush problem. Goat meat does not sale as good as we had hoped.

The goats are constanly getting into trouble and escaping with the sheep right behind them. I was going to get a nubian goat for milking eventually but decied on a jersey cow instead. So in the future you will see a link to cows instead.

Currently from our move to our new place we have only one hive left. It had gave me a lot of honey this year. Enough to give some to my neighbors in appreication for their flowers and some to give away as gifts for Xmas and some for my yearly supply for our homestead.

Husband bought himself some new tool toys this year so he will be making more of the boxes. He recently fixed up one really nice that I call the "Condo" to give the bees some more ventilation in this hot Texas weather. He made tiny holes at the bottom and top with a screen over it. This helped tons and instead of having so many bees outside trying to fan and keep the hive cool the bees now only have a few up top on the attic acting like ceiling fans while the rest go and hunt for more pollen.

I have been reading a lot about bees and studying them while I am outside. I used to be very scared of them. If you know the way bees act you will understand them better and not be afraid.

1. Bees are mostly females. They have a few drones for mating with the queen but by winter when its time to settle down for the winter they will throw the males out and starve them.

2. Bees usually dont attack while away from their hive. If they get caught in your hair or you squish them they have no choice but to sting but they would rather be out gathering food for their hive then attacking. If it looks like a bee and its most likely a yellow jacket.

3. Once born after being fed right away they clean out their own place and their job is to clean up the hive. Then they sort of get promoted and take care of the queen when they are old enough they are ready to go outside. The first job they do is guard the entrance. Then they get demoted to gathering food. The first day they will swarm outside the hive. Some people think this is a sign of swarming but its not. They go up and down and around the hive getting their directions down for a flight away from the hive, this way they know their way back. This is a very dangerious job and they will do this untill they die sometimes not even making it back to the hive.

4. Bee's will try to head butt you before they sting you, once they sting you they die so they are not in a hurry to do that even the africanized bees. They have a lot of those here in Texas the way we keep from getting those queens is to get a new domestic queen bee put into each hive each year. She will calm down the hive, otherwise the hive is lost and you will have to destroy it if you can you wont be able to get near it.

5. Africanized bees We have had a couple of run in with these bees some bee keepers have sworn that they put off a smell kind of like bananas but I havent gotten to close to one to sniff them haha.

My husband smoked one hive once and they went crazy usually this calms them. When he walked away they went after him a long ways then normal before they calmed down a bit he later went back and closed up the hive and then moved them to kill them off. Of course there were left over bees coming back and they terriozied us for three days by chasing us if we went outside even my neighbors, before finally dieing off. Lesson we learned was to never put them to close to the house incase they become Africanized again.

6. Getting stung a few times is actually good they say so you can get immune to the poison. This year I have gotten stung twice and I wasnt even tending the hive these were from the afranized bees. One on my nose and another on my forehead at another day. I can honestly say the second wasnt as bad as the first however my nose is very sensitive so who knows?

Ventilate your hive if you live in a hot climate by doing this the bee's will have less workers trying to fan the hive to keep things cool and instead have them out working which means more honey for you.

Capturing your own hive is a lot cheaper then buying it though not recommended for the beginners-If you do this make sure to requeen each year to make sure you didnt get any africanized bees.

Invest in a Honey extractor spinner or rent out one from a local bee keeper or club or even a nature center. By not destroying the wax cells you can replace it back in the hive and all they have to do is fill it up again otherwise they would have to build the cells again costing time.

My husband actually just wore white clothes a thick white sweatshirt with pants before we could afford a bee suit. Make sure its not loose where bees can crawl into it. He also used whie rubber gloves the thick kind you can buy from most stores that are disposable.

If you liked making the hives experiment with different designs that work for you and sell them and other equipment that goes with bee keeping.

A lot of people that have allergy swear by taking a tsp of honey a day from their local area can help them get immune from the polen around.