The Fighting Moose Podcast

Okay, maybe the title is misleading. He really isn't terrorizing a neighborhood but we think he is responsible for some damage to my neighbor's yard. We came home from hockey camp today and what did we see? We saw Johnny sitting in the yard of my neighbor two doors down. I ran inside, grabbed my camera and got some photos of Johnny. Here's Johnny sitting on the woodpile scoping our the neighborhood. Johnny knew I was on to him so he tried to hide under the trailer by the woodpile.

It was a bright and sunny day the other day and I took advantage of the weather and did some building. I built three screech owl nesting boxes. They aren't complete as I need to paint them still and make a modification but the majority of the build is done. You can find the plans here  Tennessee Screech Owl Box

The camera I used to take these pictures is a Canon Rebel XS. American Kestrel Red Tailed Hawk Short-eared Owl

Today was the day I started the waiting game officially. I havent seen any bee a activity for about a week now and we had three strikes after three nights if seeing no bees in the hive at night. So I took down the bee hive today and took out the tubes that contained some sort of occlusion. There were 37 tubes filled. Of these 37, there were about 75% of them full, end to end and the rest were partially full. Found this pollen clump in one of the tubes, almost like a kernel of corn. This was the first tube setup I used by cutting paper straws on the long axis. I decided these three weren't going to move on into storage so we had a science class in the garage explaining the building of the cells and the cocoons. Going from left to right in the tube, we see first the mud cap, then a pollen bunch, larva, and then another cap. This series continues from one end to the other. If you notice the small little black spots...that's bee poop!

I went and checked my bees tonight around 10pm.  I shined a flashlight in all the tubes and didnt see a single bee looking at me. So I guess that strike one. I'm going to give the hive three strikes and then I'll start the summer storage process.

So I saw this on Facebook last night. I did t have a chance to check the hive last night so tonight, I went out and checked it. I still have 2 bees hanging in there. Hopefully they will lay some more eggs and help produce another healthy generation next year.

Found this guy (or girl) sitting outside the give tonight when I went and checked on them. I think it was a bit too cold for him and he just stayed there because he couldn't make it into the hive.  The temperature was about 54 degrees farenheit which is at the lower end of what is optimal for them. I helped him out though and put him in a safe spot in there so he didn't become bird food. Also, the species of bees I have are Japanese Orchard Bees.

Went out checked my hive today, I have 20 capped tubes and 2 that appear to be half full. Assuming that all the bees in the tubes are healthy and the estimate of 3 to 5 cocoons per tube is correct, I should have anywhere between 60 and 100 bees for next year. That's pretty good I think since I started with about 37 cocoons. Preliminary stats say this experiment is a success!

Did you know, that with mason bees, each female is it's own queen?  With the solitary bees, which us what a mason bee is, each female is it's own queen. So with my hive setup, I can have a bunch of queens sharing the hive.  In comparison, social bees, like honeybees, have one queen each hive.  At the moment of this photo, there are 8.5 tubes filled in the hive. Here's a picture of what I believe is a queen, laying eggs in a tube. 

Checked the hive today, I now have 6 filled tubes with one being freshly capped!

Went out and checked my bee hive today.  When I got there, I saw two full tubes, at least, and a third one in progress.  It's so exciting, I was beginning to think they were never going to come back and lay some eggs. We will see when cocoon harvest time comes to see how many cocoons I get. If I get as many cocoons or more than what I started with, I will count this as a success!

Here is my journey with raising mason bees. I've never raised bees before and it seems like they are somewhat simple to raise from what I have read. I found the plans for my give here .  Here is the final product: I think ordered my bees from Crown Bees . When they were delivered, they came in a box which was attached to a tray and I just slid the tray onto my top shelf like in the above picture. After moving my bees from the fridge to outside, I found two had hatched! After more bees had hatched, I put in some more straws that I had ordered from Crown Bees and some that I had made myself from sheets of paper. Today, I saw two bees propagating the bee population today so hopefully soon, they will start filling some straws with cocoons!

Quick picture post here. We built this a few weeks ago and we are definitely looking forward to seeing if any of our nighttime flying friends occupy this.

 In the episode titled "Daniel Webster" the painting known as "Webster's Reply to Hayne" is reference.  I did a quick internet search and found the picture on the U.S. Senate's website.  Follow the link to view the picture. Webster's Reply to Hayne

The other day, we went for a family walk on the local boardwalk. On our way back, we saw about 6 minks climb over the sea wall and start running away from us. They got to a certain point and then they were trapped by a couple who were fishing ahead of us. When we got closer, we were able to snap a few photos and here's what I got.

So we recently visited Greenfield Village in Dearborn, MI.  During that visit, a few things I saw reminded me of podcasts that I have done. There are only two pictures below but there were a few more things I should have taken pictures of. This is the Smiths Creek train station that was on Thomas Edison's route when heading back and forth between Port Huron and Detroit. This is a steam shovel that was in a kid's play area in the village. I believe that it is modeled off of the book "Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel."

You may recall that a few episodes ago, I did an episode about rainbows.  Well, tonight, my wife and I went out for dinner while our son was at a friends house. As we were walking back to the car, there was a rainbow above Canada. What a beautiful sight! I've included some pictures below of the rainbow and the end of a double rainbow, that tried to appear. I tried to include the video since it was a full rainbow but I don't think I can add videos in here.  Also, here is a link to the YouTube video of the episode:  The Rainbow After the Storm

On a recent trip to Mackinaw City, MI, my family and I saw a mast poking out over the top of a restaurant.  Well, we walked across the street and we saw a tall ship, or at least something that looked like one.  As we got closer, we could see that it wasn't a tall ship but a smaller version. After looking at the ship, I went in search of some info. If you click on the name of the boat that follows, it will take you to an article I found with some great information about the " Welcome ."

In addition to the podcast with the same name, which can be found here , here are two links to a website published by Cornell University with identification of each bird and other information provided.  Clicking on the pictures will take you to each respective website. Redwing Blackbird Yellow Wing the Flicker (Northern Flicker)