Last night we transported our beehives home from Josephine,TX, about an hour outside of Dallas. I also set up two hives at North Haven Gardens in the large vegetable production garden.

Here are a couple of shots of our home hives. They've expanded so much that they'll be getting honey supers put on them today. I'll also put their sugar feeders on. I'll post more shots later as I inspect the hives so you can see what goes on inside them. So exciting!

Went out to the bee farm this past weekend to check on the status of my hives. Here are a couple of shots of me going through my brood boxes (I have 4) to look for my queens.

Beehive frames
PC: Leslie F. Halleck

Here is a shot of one of the brood boxes. After about 2 months, they've managed to build comb and lay brood on about 4 frames. It shouldn't take them much longer to get to the 8th or 9th frame, at which time I'll put on a honey super.

Leslie inspecting her beehive brood box
PC: Leslie F. Halleck

Here's me opening up another of the brood boxes. While the hat and netting are a must, I think I'll be losing the gloves pretty soon. They are just too cumbersome, especially when trying to pick up the heavy brood frames gently so you don't drop them.

Now I'm checking each frame to look for the queen. At this stage you want to make sure the queen is healthy and laying brood properly. Unfortunately, one of my hives was missing their queen. Something either happened to her due to weather or health, or the hive killed her. They were already raising multiple new queen cells, which is bad news. So all the new queen cells will have to be killed and a new queen introduced to the hive this week.

Checking a frame for the queen
PC: Leslie F. Halleck

Babies first time outside...April 2nd...The canine girls are most curious...Photos of the girls at 1 month coming soon..

After only two weeks the babies had already started filling in their big girl feathers... (Photos taken March 26th-Apr. 2)

Silver Laced Wyandotte...Still the smallest of the bunch

Salmon Faverolle...they have the prettiest coloring.

Silver Cuckoo Maran...starting to look very similar to Barred Rock.

Ameraucauna

Barred Rock...So far, this little gal is not only the tallest, but most curious and friendly of the bunch.

Ok, I've been remiss in posting ANY photos of the new babies! But it is spring...and it's crazy. So I'll post a retrospective of them now that they are a month old. Boy do they grow fast. Here are a few shots from their first few days...(photos taken March 16th)

Silver Laced Wyandotte - this one is a total sweetheart

Salmon Faverolle - I have two of these babies...they are so cute with their feathered legs.

Silver Cuckoo Maran...This one might get named Cybill..she's the most skittish of the bunch!

Naptime is always hilarious with baby chicks...they run full steam ahead and then plop to a dead stop, face down...too cute.

First strawberries are ripening...super yummy!

and one lonely fig....

Just a highlight of a few blooms popping out in the new front bed. It's a work in progress...It's the only pre-existing bed at the new house- a crecent shaped bed that sits in front of a concrete circular drive. It's really the main feature of the front landscape. It was full of Bermuda grass, some dead zinnias, groundcover junipers in poor shape and a large row of 30-40 year-old yaupons with trunks the size of large trees! In January, I ripped out everything in the bed, amended with compost, expanded shale and some humus...and started planting. Here's what's pretty so far...

Right now the bed is planted with chard, spinach, cilantro, dill, strawberries, rosemary, rain lilies, roses, tomatoes, echinacea, daffodils, violas and more...even have baby tomatoes on the 'Sapho' plants already.


Daffodil 'Delnashaugh'

Another split corona daffodil...blanking on the cultivar at the moment

Rose 'Easy Does It'

Rose 'Pat Austin'

Even after the harsh freezes and ice in January, the strawberries are blooming and fruiting their heads off...

Welcome to Fruitopia!

Sunday was project day in the home garden...With help from some of my guys, I managed to get the side yard, officially re-named "Fruitopia", cleared. We also planted a number of fruit trees and blackberry plants. Fruitopia is where my two beehives will reside as of next month and it should be the perfect spot for them.

The before shot above: There was a very old Ligustrum hedge planted along the foundation. These plants had probably been established for a good 40 years. While they'd been cut number of times, the trunks were huge. It took about half the day to get them out. The owners that remodeled the house and sold it to us planted a ridiculous assortment of random shrubs and many Leyland Cypress around the house, without amending any foundation beds. We pulled all of them out. They are sitting in pots and up for grabs right now, lol.

We amended the foundation bed with compost and expanded shale, although I didn't use too much because I'm establishing blackberries down the entire bed. They usually don't require as much prep as ornamental plantings. There are about 14 blackberries between the varieties 'Navaho', 'Quachita', 'Brazos' and one other....can't remember off the top of my head. Blackberry heaven! I also planted a Pomegranate 'Wonderful' down at the end of the bed on the South side, although you can' really see it in the photo. That South corner is where the beehives will go. Eventually, I'll also build some pathways and plant a few more ornamental bloomers in there just to pretty it up. But it is a production space.

The fruit trees we planted are:

'Santa Rosa' Plum
'Ayers' Pear on dwarf root stock
'Holland' Apple
'Dwarf Redskin' Peach
'Dwarf Ranger' Peach
'Brown Turkey' Fig

I also have a dwarf fruiting Cherry called 'Dwarf North Star', but I'm going to put that one in a large container on the South side of the back yard. It will only get 8'-10' feet so I don't want it shaded out by the other fruit trees. I plan to prune all of the trees to keep them more compact, but still planted the larger varieties to the North side, staggered down the the shortest variety (the 10' fig) on the South side to avoid shading.

We also ripped up all the randomly planted shrubs around the front of the house. There was no rhyme or reason to what was planted and none of the soil was amended. There were volunteer junipers growing right in front of the windows...even a "pruned" red oak growing right under the roof line. It was basically a hot mess! So now it just looks a little sad and empty, but better than the mess that was there before. There was an original grape vine in the front...I left that to see what it does. Might trellis it over the window.

Eventually, I will build burm foundation beds all around the front of the house, property and the back yard...but the next project is to rework a ton of the irrigation first. We did some of that on Sunday, but things have to be moved, repaired and rezoned. Can't build new beds till that work is completed. So..sad and empty it is, lol. I did do some extra planting in the front sidewalk bed. The herbs, chard, spinach and Iceland poppies are looking pretty right now. There are baby strawberries coming as well. I added some 'Pat Austin' and 'Easy Does It' roses, some new Echinacea varieties and a few tomato plants. Pulled weeds...and mulched.

Lot's of work...little by little...