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Motsinger Farm Walkertown, Walkertown, NC (2026)

05/31/2026

Our 2nd chicken day is done. Well actually it's a chicken weekend, processed yesterday--bagged today. The dancing bee came over to help us process the chickens which was a big help. (FYI the dancing bee is moving to Fancy Gap in a few weeks but you still might see her at some vendor events).

Another friend brought over some roosters she needed to get rid of. Apparently the downside of incubating your own eggs is that you can end up with a lot of roosters. We processed those too but they will be used more for stock than anything else.

I'm not sure if we'll do more meat chickens. John is not a fan and since he helps when I'm at work...we'll see how it goes.

Next weekend...honey extraction!!! (Weather permitting)🐝🐝

05/25/2026

The meaties have come through the chilly rain without any problems. John put down some wood chips on the coldest, wettest days so that probably helped. Processing will be this Saturday so they have less than a week. There are some smaller ones but I think they just look extra small next to some of the giants we have this time! It seems weather can make a big difference but I did get these from a different hatchery than the last batch so maybe that's a factor too. 🤷‍♀️

After it warmed back up, we opened the coop door to see if the chicks had any interest in checking out the run. There's interest but still not quite sure. We put about 10 of them in the run to see if that would help entice the others out but no dice so far. Maybe next week when they are a little bigger. Now we have to collect those ten before then end of the day to put them back. We'll see how that goes...😄

It's not been raining as constantly as the weatherman made it seem like it would this weekend so the bees have been super busy. The sun peeped out briefly yesterday so we checked the hive were we put the last swarm that had the virgin queen. We didn't know if she had enough time to get mated before it rained but there were lots of eggs and larve. And we saw a big, fat queen this time so she's definitely mated now! I bet the hives were glad for a break in the rain since they don't p**p in the hive. I'm sure there were a lot of "cleansing" flights going on. LOL Honey extraction in 2 weeks!! (Weather permitting)

05/17/2026

Some finishing touches on the coop. Just have to install a couple ramps inside after we remove the brooder. These chicks are definitely much more active than the meat chicks are.

The meaties are 6 weeks old now. Processing day is scheduled for May 30. I just hope these 90 degree days aren't too harsh for them. They have shade and plenty of water but they aren't super hardy either. We lost one yesterday that developed water belly after moving to the tractor.

The pigs have been hanging in the shade but decided to come out when I was putting water in their mud hole. They used to run when I sprayed them but not this week! LOL

Checked the hives. Have decided to wait a couple more weeks for extracting. That is scheduled June 6 (weather permitting). The swarm John picked up last Wednesday was apparently a secondary or "cast" swarm. This happens when a primary swarm has left the hive with the original queen. If the hive is big enough, esp if multiple virgins have hatched in the remaining hive, a second swarm can leave but the queen(s) with it aren't mated yet. If there is more than one, they will get along until they find a home and then it will be a fight to the death until only one remains. Then she will need to go on a mating flight. We saw her and she is not mated yet (based on how small she still is). We will give her another week or so and see if she is mated and laying then.

05/10/2026

Busy weekend but we got a lot accomplished! The 50 egg chicks arrived Thursday. Well 52 arrived alive but have had 2 casualties. That's why they usually send extra--I only bought 50. So the coop and run is finally done and has chickens in it. 😊 I got Rhode Island Reds, Blue Australorps, Easter Eggers, White Leghorns and Amber Sexlinks.

The plan was to move the meaties to the tractor this weekend. I had gotten a wheel kit to move it around easier. While installing that on Saturday, John decided to add a couple more upgrades--put a lid on the other side of the top so you can access both sides, made and installed a trough feeder with PVC pipe and create roll-up shades for the sides so they can be lowered in bad weather for a wind break and rain protection.

While he was working on that, I went to check the baby chicks in the coop. When I got done there, I decided to see what the bees were up to. Good thing I did because there was a swarm in the black raspberries!! This is the 3rd or 4th swarm we've caught there over the last few years. They are attracted to where another swarm has already landed so you'll often get them in the same tree or similar. We collected the swarm and worked on the tractor some more but didn't finish so the birds spent one more night in the garage.

Today we finished the tractor and moved the meaties into it. Then we checked the bees (as we were planning to anyway). None of our hives have swarmed so that swarm didn't come from us--yay free bees! All the hives are doing well. The new ones (from the splits or swarms we've gotten) aren't going to be honey makers this year but we'll let them build up so hopefully they make it through the winter and give us honey next year.

Finally John mowed some while I cleaned up the garage and the brooder for storage until next time. Now time to relax a little!

Hope all the Mom's have had a Happy Mother's Day!!

05/03/2026

Piggy update...definitely getting bigger. Found the brushes on the trees. I gave them strawberry scraps and they seemed to really enjoy them.

Bought 6 gallons of strawberries from a nearby farm. Processed and froze most of them. Made pie filling with some. Have some left out for strawberry shortcake. Mmmmmm

So since May has decided to act like March right now, I had to postpone putting the meat birds in the tractor. They don't have all their feathers yet and would have been fine if it were normal May temps but it got down to mid 30s last night!

This meant we had to pivot our plans as the egg birds are coming Tues or Wed and I was going to use the brooder in the garage. So John used some bi-fold doors he had laying around to create a brooding area inside the coop for the egg chicks. (He had bought about 100 different doors from a discount salvage place for $75 a few years ago).

This also meant he had to get the coop fully closed up since there will be birds in there soon. Used concrete block for the bottom of the roost area, got the wood painted to close up the screens in the roost doors (to keep in the heat and keep out drafts), installed the chicken door (just to close up the hole for now and had to run a power cord out there for the heat lamps. But I think we have everything ready!

With the help of a friend, he also got all the hardware cloth up for the run. There are some finishing touches needed for that since he ran out of wood pieces and screws right at the end but it will be done this week.

Next week will be time to check the bees again. Honey extraction will be soon...

04/28/2026

We checked the supers yesterday since the weather was nice. Honey production is coming along. Also checked our newest hives (I call them: the home swarm, the horse farm colony and now the bonus swarm). All are settling in nicely.

The horse farm swarm have made some queen cells on the frame of eggs/brood we gave them so obviously we didn't get the queen but they are correcting the issue.

We saw the queen in the bonus swarm from Sunday and she has already started laying. 🙂

We checked one of our bigger hives--it had 3 deep brood boxes on it--to see if we needed to add a queen excluder under the top box. There was brood layed in all 3 boxes and there were tons of queen cells in all 3! It's strange though because there were normal swarm cells and other cells that looked like emergency or supercedure cells--some of each on the same frame. We didn't look though all three boxes for the queen because 1. We were running out of time 2. While we saw some larve, we didn't see many eggs. I don't think they swarmed already because there were still tons of bees in there. I wonder if they were going to swarm (and made swarm cells) and either something happened to the queen or they changed their mind and decided to supercede her for some reason (and made supercedure cells)?

We basically did a walkaway split where we split the hive and made sure both had frames with queen cells if they need them. We'll let the bees firgure this one out. 🤷‍♀️ So now we're up to 14 hives.

04/26/2026

There I was...just left the house at 8am to go to the grocery store when I get a text that says "Do you want to go get a swarm in Walkertown?" Ummmm....yes! So I turned around (hadn't even got to the main road yet), rounded up our gear and went to get another swarm. This hive is lucky number 13 now. Lol

Not the best weather day for swarm collection but that's probably one of the reasons they were still there today (the homeowner said his wife saw them land yesterday before the rain). We wore our jackets because they were not happy to break up their cluster when it's so chilly and misting rain. John tried to just wear his veil but got stung immediately. They were still fairly calm in general but we didn't take any longer than we had to. Didn't try to search for the queen but I'm pretty sure we got her. 1. We got almost all the bees and the ones left were definitely not a queen and 2. They were fanning and bees going in the box at the end.

John and friends got the concrete poured for the chicken coop before it rained. He also got one side of the run screened it. Just have 4 more sections to go. He'll need to finish up closing in the roost end once the concrete is dry. And (I think🤞) we'll be done and ready for chickens. Which is good because I have 50 egg chicks scheduled for delivery in a little over a week. If he gets the coop done, I can use the brooder in there instead of my garage.

The meat birds are 3 weeks old now. Scheduled for the chicken tractor next week.

I sure am glad we finally got some rain!! But it didn't have to get cold too. 😀

04/22/2026

We decided to go do this forced abscond today when I got off work.

A forced abscond is when you use smoke and/or a commercial "bee gone" spray to make the environment inhospitable to the bees. It will make them want to abscond which means the queen will come out to leave also. (Swarm: when only half of the bees leave with the queen. Abscond: when all the bees, including the queen, leaves)

We aren't sure if we got the queen. Ideally we would have seen her and clipped her. John was watching for her as he vacuumed the bees but she might have gotten sucked up. He gave them a frame of eggs from another hive because 1. Open brood will make them more likely to stay and 2. If we didn't get the queen, they will be able to make a new one. If they decide to stay, this will be #12 for us. Details in the pics.

John will return tomorrow to do a final check and clise up the openings in the tree.

04/20/2026

I'm loving the new feed bin. It makes our lives so much easier when it comes to feeding the pigs. Last year we had to man-handle 1 ton totes to get the feed into 55 gallon metal barrels--a very sketchy process. Now much safer and easier than scooping out buckets of feed everyday.

The chickens are growing fast (as expected). Haven't lost any others yet🤞so still at 31.

Things are sprouting so of course it's going get down to 35 and frost Tuesday night. But hopefully things will be ok. The blueberries survived the earlier frosts better than I thought. Most things start out looking the same until they start to get their real leaves--have some cucumbers, zucchini, pumpkins, watermelons, canteloupes and honeydews sprouting. Except the corn--it looks different. Lol

We may have a new bee adventure later this week. Have to wait for the weather to improve. A farm near us has a colony living in a tree. They would be happy to leave it but the opening is at ground level on a slight hill. This puts the bees flight path right were people and horses go by on one of their riding trails. They don't want to disturb the very tall tree they are in so we are going to attempt a forced abscond to be able to remove them. Stay tuned....🐝

04/12/2026

We did a little bit of everything this weekend.

The pigs are getting used to us and will let John touch them sometimes. They'll sniff my hand but that's about it so far. The new feed bin is scheduled to be filled with 3 tons of food tomorrow. Hopefully this will be enough to get the pigs to processing.

There was a chick fatality on Friday. I'm not sure why it happened--maybe the cooler nights were too much for it? 🤷‍♀️ It was fine when I went to work but not by the time I got back. The others are all doing well so far🤞. They are already getting wing feathers coming in.

John tilled for me and I planted pumpkins, watermelon, canteloupe, honeydew, zucchini, cucumbers, ornamental corn and okra. It's early for pumpkins but they'll be for the pigs and chickens. I had to plant seeds instead of starting in the greenhouse. I may have a herniated disk so I can't be bending over to hand plant starter plants at the moment but Mother Nature waits for no one! 😄 With the seeds, I drop one on the ground about where they need to be and use a long stick to poke it in the ground. My rows probably won't be as neat and some seeds may not sprout but it was this or nothing. We'll see how it turns out...

Progress on the coop run. John finished the framing last week while I was at work. First sections of hardware cloth have gone up. Egg chicks will be here in just over 3 weeks--of course they won't need the run right away though.

Checked all the beehives. Not a lot going on in the supers yet. Good news is that it doesn't appear that any of our hives were the origin of that swarm we collected 2 weeks ago--that means they were free bees! 🙂 The hive I thought it came from hadn't swarmed but it was about to. It had grown very big, there was lots of drone brood and multiple queen cells either closed or almost closed. Luckily they hadn't left yet so we found the queen, put her in a clip, split the hive and moved her to the new hive in a new location. Now we're up to 11 hives. The swarm has settled in nicely and the Lazutin hive John split 4 weeks ago has a new mated queen.

Bee quiz: do y'all remember why it's best to find the queen if you can and move her when making a split?

Motsinger Farm Walkertown

05/31/2026

05/25/2026

05/17/2026

05/10/2026

05/03/2026

04/28/2026

04/26/2026

04/22/2026

04/20/2026

04/12/2026

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