My Friends Elaborate Chicken House

This is a video of my friends newly completed chicken house. I think you will appreciate the thought that went into this project. Thanks

How to cook sausage and venison gumbo on a open fire pit.

This is how we made our gumbo. We used our new fire pit that I built as well as all natural ingredients, The family loves this stuff. Check it out.

Pouring The Honey

Video of my wife and I pouring the honey that we recently extracted.

Maximize Your Honey Production

This video shows how I maximize the honey that is extracted. Simple, easy, and best of all you do not have to do anything to get these results. Check it out.

Video of Local EAA 836 Fly In.

I know this has nothing to do with bees, but I thought you may enjoy this video I made of a local fly in that I attended. I flew my Challenger to the event and it was a day full of good conversation and entertainment. Who doesn't like to talk airplane anyway?

Check out this moth that has a Fleur de leis design!

This is a moth found on my garage door this morning that has a fleur de leis on his back. I could not believe it. You have to see it for yourself. Thanks for watching

Just Harvested

Yesterday I harvested the honey from the 4 hives that my Father has. Two of the hives were not ready to harvest in that there was largely uncapped honey. I did harvest the other 2 hives and they were full of capped honey. We received about 5 gallons of honey per hive. It was very hot in my bee garb but we made it through the 95 deree temp by harvesting early that morning. I need to figure out how to harvest these hive in the spring and fall when the temp is more tolerable. My hives are simply not ready to harvest in the spring. I just need to find out more about how this works because I know that the professional beekeepers harvest in spring ad fall around here. Any suggestions?

The Hive Now Has A Laying Queen

Just to review, I have 3 hives in my backyard. The nuc hive is the hive that I posted about in the prior post now has a laying queen. I plan to transfer the frames into a larger hive later this week. The middle hive is now 100 percent full of capped honey, plan on harvesting that this weekend as well. The 3rd and final hive was occupied by wax moths. I really dislike those little creatures. Had to destroy that hive.

How to light your Smoker

Quick video on how I light my smoker.

Queen Cells Galore

This is a video of my first attempt to manipulate the queenless nuc hive to form their own queen cells from fertilized grafted larvae from a gueenright hive. It worked and I have 7 queen cells to show for this. Check it out.

How To Make Your Own Queen Cells

This is how I make my queen cells for grafting. The mold is made from 3/8 inch hardwood dowels that are rounded on the end. Simply dip them into hot bees wax and once cool, pop them off. I add a little soap on the dowel prior to first dip to make them easier to remove. The video is self explanatory. Enjoy

Made a Cleaver Today.

I checked my bees today, and they are all doing well. The bees have not filled the honey supers yet. I had a little spare time today so I decided to build a meat cleaver. I know it has nothing to do with bees but I thought I would share this video with you guys. Thanks for watching.

Dont Kill the Bees!

The owner of a horse barn was going to have a bee hive exterminated. My friend and I interveined and saved the hive. This video shows how we salvaged the bees, the brood and wax were placed in a Langstroth hive. The bees were added and the last report was the bees were doing good. Watch the video. This is the bee vacuum that I made in action. See previous video of how to make the bee vacuum.

LSU Mike the Moth

I saw this moth on the side of our garage today. Looked like an LSU moth, tell me what you think.
Kind of crazy eh?

How to Capture a Swarm of Bees

Today is March 19 20011. This is the first swarm of the season that we have had at our apiary and I video'd how we go about capturing the bees from a swarm. These bees were placed in a nuc hive later that evening with no problems. Check out the video and enjoy.

Hive Inspection

Today I added my supers and queen excluder in anticipation of this years honey. I video'd one of the brood frames. All looks ok.

Early Hive Inspection

This weekend, I opened my backyard hives and did an inspection of the overall status of them. Not too bad, no hive beetles noted, no obvious diseases noted. The bees are going in and out with pollen. Overall, healthy assessment. Looking forward to honey this year, I am now out of honey from last year. Enjoy the inspection video.

Watson Brake Archeology Site

I took a video of the oldest known civilization site found in the United States. It is called Watson Brake and is near my home. The local archeologist at University of Louisiana at Monroe has actually performed carbon dating on items found at the site that date older than Poverty Point Civilization. Not much known about this site but will more than likely become a national site of interest one day like Poverty Point. The video was at 1000 ft above ground level and although it is hard to tell by the video, there is a series of mounds located there. Hope you enjoy the video. The weather was beautiful that day.

Home Made Bird Feeder

The little birds have been feeding around in the yard probably because food is scarce for them. I decided to make a bird feeder to help them out. I had no plans or photo of bird feeders so I just went into the shop and began building. I had some left over 1/4 inch plexiglass that I used for the sides and I have lots of cedar from when I had my sawmill. In about one hour I had a bird feeder that works well. The video shows exactly how I constructed the feeder, maybe you can build one as well, the birds will thank you by eating out of your feeder. I placed my feeder near my bedroom window so I can see them each morning when I am getting dressed for work. Just a little something to brighten your day. Thanks

Chicasaw Plum Trees are Budding

Today was a beautiful day and temps up to 49. I went to check out the foliage and saw that the chicasaw plum trees are budding. The bees love this little tree, it is one of the first trees to flower and usually flowers in mid March. Check out the photos. Sorry they are blurry, but you get the idea.

Home Made Soap Cutter

This winter I have been dabbling in soap making. Using the salvaged bees wax from previous uncappings and other oils I have come up with a pretty good recipe for bath soap. I use it in the shower. I needed a soap cutter, so I designed and built one. Check out the videos.

Warmer today, Bees looking good.

I checked out my bee hives today. The temp was around 64 F. They were very active. I could see them bringing some kind of pollen into the hives. I have no idea where they are finding this pollen but you can see for yourself on the video. Nice to see them finally get out and fly about. Looking forward to 2011 bee keeping.