Spring seems to be a busy time out here! The bees are becoming active again, and we see them out collecting water and visiting flowers. Babies are starting to arrive as well. Our first babies, in early February, were twin doelings born to our LaMancha doe, Dottie. The birth went smoothly, and these little girls…
A tour of the ranch
For the new year, I thought we’d start out with a tour of the ranch and an introduction to its residents. Our first additions to the ranch were three hives of bees. We didn’t get them established until late in the spring and it was a rough year for beekeeping, so we haven’t gotten any…
Growing population
Since our last update we’ve had quite a bit of growth at the ranch! First, the bees have continued to do well. We added supers (additional smaller boxes) onto the hives to give them space to expand and store honey for the winter. If they do very, very well we might be able to harvest…
We have bees!
On Friday, Mom drove to Navasota to pick up our three nucs of bees. She ended up with a few loose bees in the car, but they gravitated toward the rear window so they didn’t cause much disruption. (All the same, I’m happy to leave the bee transport duties to her!) When she arrived, I…
Update – Week of 5/21/17
Not much has changed since the last update. We expect the bees this weekend and have been making final preparations for their arrival. The hives are ready to go, and we’ve chosen a location for them. Unfortunately our first choice of locations, with morning sun and afternoon shade as bees prefer, had to be ruled…
Weekly update
There hasn’t been much to post about as we’re still in the planning and preparing stage. However, an empty blog is awfully boring, so I’m going to try to post a weekly update about some of the little things we’ve been doing and plans we’ve been making until we have more substantial updates to share.…
Settling in
It’s been a couple of weeks since we moved to the ranch, and we’ve been settling in and taking stock of where we are and what our next steps are. Our plan is to start with producing honey — especially since having bees on the property will be beneficial for just about everything else we…
First signs of spring
Less than a week till moving day and we’re eagerly looking forward to it. While doing some yard work to prepare our current home for the market, I saw that our ornamental plum tree in the backyard is putting out its first few blossoms. It’s always my first indicator that spring is coming, and I…
Moving to the ranch
In late December, we started the search for a property where we could revive the Dusty Boot Ranch. We thought it would be a long haul, but in January we found it. After looking into logistics and a bit of negotiation with the sellers, we were under contract! It’s a beautiful property and the sellers…