It's Official! We are now Bee Keepers!!!

No surprise to many just how busy we have been. Yeah, yeah, yeah...you've heard it all before..but REALLY! We HAVE been busy!

Last weekend we were in Chicago for the National Restaurant Show (had a great time, LOVE Chicago!) and then came home to build the bee hives! This is what happens when you take something as earthly natural as Bees...and do what you can to replicate what they naturally do in nature. I think they are all chuckling as they go collecting nectar and pollen because we humans are looking after a lot of their needs and getting very little in return. Or so the bees might think!

We have had fun taking the classes (me), reading about it, building the hives and all that goes into the hives, visiting other bee keepers, reading the Sonoma County Beekeepers Yahoo emails (FABULOUS resource even if you don't live in the area) We have found beekeepers to be passionate, opinionated, passionate and oh, did I mention, passionate? It is the ultimate hobby if you like puzzles, mysteries, strategies, design, honey, and the general love of bees and what they do for us. Farmer Jeff has had loads of fun building and painting (the hive stand and the supers) and I have had fun putting the wax comb foundation into the frames and then embedding the support wires. It is a much more complicated process than I was previously aware. I was a little wary/daunted by the task, but then I figured if my brother could do it, so could I! (Sorry, Pat, I guess I am competitive at heart!)

We have been having lots of fun taking pictures and documenting the whole process of building the hives and bringing them "home". I have scads of photos posted on our official farm website: www.eastsidefarm.com

Just click on the photo gallery page and you can see all of our latest photos. Actually, we are getting ready to move the blog over to this website, so please take a moment to change your Eastside Farm Chronicles bookmark over to www.eastsidefarm.com and you will always have access to the blog and pictures! The general store is still in the works, but SOON!!!

Chicken Update:
All of the "little kids" have now been integrated into the various pens. The Ameraucana teenagers now look like young adults and are getting accustomed to living with the slightly bigger girls. The two males of the group still haven't discovered "their equipment" and probably won't for another couple of months.

The Welsumers and Lucretia Borgia, the bantam Booted Belgian hen, are spending lots of time together and are very docile, almost friendly. Lucretia is actually quite tame and not at all flighty like her counterpart, Katerina.

The four French feather-legged Marans are just now getting used to being out of their little cage. We tried letting them out last week but their little back feathers we too small and therefore drew attention. Attention = pecking mercilessly so they were protected until those feathers grew in...this morning! They are running around the pen like deer caught in the headlights...but they will get used to it all!