u/DumbestGuyOn3rdFloor

I had one hive make it through the winter here in Virginia. It was a really calm colony, so I was glad it made it.

I pulled two frames of queen cells from it plus two mixed frames of brood to split it on Sunday, making two more hives.

Today, the old queen and company swarmed to this common place on my farm: the dwarf apple tree 25' from the bee yard.

15 minutes to capture it and hive it up in a new box. I'll probably leave them buttoned up for a day or so. Historically, they've stuck around when I do that. We'll see.

Every year I get a load of wood chips or two from ChipDrop. I add grass, horse manure, chicken manure and some kitchen scraps that the chickens don't get to these piles. I have an area probably 20'x80' where this material slowly breaks down. I don't bother with worrying about green/ brown percentages or anything like that. I just pile things on and it breaks down eventually.

Occasionally I will take the tractor bucket and flip some of it over and move it down closer to this homemade soil screen constructed from two old panels and whatever wire fence pieces and old shelving I had in the barn.

It's a bit of a workout to shovel into the wheelbarrow, but it tends to work better than dumping it with the tractor bucket.

Anything that hasn't broken down small enough to get through the screen ends up going back in the pile.

Seems to work pretty well.

I'm designing a powered one that I just have to shovel it into and it spins. But for now this works.

I heard a squeaking sound when the mower was returning to base yesterday - the first weird sound I have heard. I put it up on a bench and found one bolt missing and the others all loose or backing out on one hub.

(The other was fine.)

I went to Ace and got a few matching bolts, put blue threadlock on them and tightened to 25 inch pounds.

I guess I'll need to be a bit more diligent.