The bees and the mites

One thing a beekeeper faces in this day and age is the relentless killer, the Varroe Mite. This mite was first discovered in 1987, was brought here from Europe and has reeked havoc on our honeybee population ever since. Setting up a treatment protocol is a beekeepers best defense against this deadly killer of our honeybee populations. Treatments are improving all the time but while doing my research it seems that a staggered approach as well as using a variety of methods is best not to allow the mites to build up resistance to one treatment type.

The formic acid treatment is our first treatment followed by two others staggered over time.

Our approah to this is so we can see frames like this one, a healthy queen and her healthy brood! 

A triple win of Fiber!

On a previous post I featured some blending I was trying with three fibers. I blended an Icelandic, black angora rabbit and white alpaca in this fine batt. It was a whole fleece of the Icelandic fleece with a whole angora rabbit fleece and a bunch of alpaca blended as it went on the drum carder.

If you look really close, you can see the guard hairs that are casting off the spun yarn. These are the guard hairs of the Icelandic fleece that were on the top of the fleece. This fleece had black guard hairs as well as a gray under coat which although somewhat on the coarse side, gave it a soft texture too.

I did not weigh the fleece prior to spinning but it did fill (after picture was taken) a whole Ashford Country Spinner spool! The weight of the yarns equaled 35.1 ounces, so in reality 3 pounds, 3 ounces! It was spun in bulky weight so it netted 428 yards of handspun yarn! The small white spool is to show a size comparison to the size of the big spool and yarn. 

Sadly once again, the picture just doesn't do it justice! This yarn along with the many others will be available so far at the only show that has not been cancelled, the New England Fiber Festival in Massachusetts in November. Covid19 has done a number on many Fiber Artist as well as other businesses. My hope is to see a back to normal one day. We may reopen our Etsy shop, but time will tell.

Who's the Boss of the Barnyard you ask?

I'm often asked who is the boss out of all the animals we have. I usually chuckle because of course it's me, but Pru runs a fast second. She commands control of the feed trough and has no problem with telling the alpacas that under no circumstances will she put up with their nonsense. She has no problem butting them and if need be using her horns to get her point across.

Of course Maddie, who is on the left here has no problem being assertive as well. So the answer to the question would be the two old lady Angora goats, they are the boss of the barnyard!

Only Teddy...

Every morning without fail, I open the feed bin, turn for the bucket, turn back and I will find Teddy head first in the grain. I usually take the scoop and fill the feed bucket working around old Teddy.

I just don't have the heart to close the gate on him. It's as if the grain in the bin taste so much better than the hay in the feed dishes. 

I fill the buckets for the others and he's still going at it! I save some for him and put his portion in the trough. Once that's done he takes his focus and locks it right onto the new grain that has been poured, as if that's even better  He is so predictable this guy.

I got this shot of Teddy and it just sums him up...munching away with not a care in the world. Only Teddy, you gotta love him!