Nesting boxes

Another busy day. I finally bit the bullet and went out to catch the bumblebees I need for Lab 2. Yesterday, I tried putting out traps (yellow bowls full of soapy water), but I caught not a single one. I got the butterfly net that I bought for $1 at True Value a month ago out of my car, put on long sleeves and gloves, and set out. I checked both gardens without much success. I picked up the bowl of soapy water and walked to the wetland. The goldenrod was a few days from flowering. No pollinators there yet. Ah, but the Joe-Pye weed was blooming! I had to walk through the goldenrod and nettles to get to it. I’d worn my thinner gardening pants; the fabric was not up to the task of keeping out the nettles. The first bee I spotted was hanging upside down at a peculiar angle. On closer inspection, I saw that the bee had been captured by a beautiful white spider. So then I had to go back to the house to get my camera. It was a great example of ambush/piercer predators for my Ch. 47 lecture.

White spider sucking out the digested contents of a bee on Joe-Pye weed

There were plenty of bumblebees on the Joe-Pye weed. I discovered that bumblebees die right now when they hit the soapy water. Not like Japanese beetles that can swim around for many minutes, if not hours. Here’s another news flash: bees are black. All the yellow is in their hairs, for both honey bees and bumble bees. When wet, they appear as solid black. Wasps are yellow on their exoskeletons and look the same wet or dry. I’m learning a lot from developing this bee lab.
The other momentous occasion today was the installation of the nesting boxes. The girls are probably a month from laying. Terry built and painted the boxes Sunday and Monday. Today we shut the chickens out of the coop while Terry screwed the boxes to the 2X4s. The girls HATE being locked out of the coop. All the while Terry was working, they knocked at the door.

Terry positions the nesting boxes

 

What are you doing in there? Let us in!

When the boxes were in, I put in a layer of wood chips and the ceramic eggs. This is why we got the boxes in early. I have heard a couple of places that ceramic eggs serve two functions. First, they teach the chickens were the eggs belong. Secondly, they teach the chickens not to peck at eggs. Chickens sense their environment with their beaks. If the first egg-shaped objects they encounter are ceramic, they peck at them awhile, decide they are not interesting, and stop pecking at them. If they first encounter real eggs, they might peck the egg open and learn that eggs are good to eat. It’s a habit that can’t be broken, and the hen has to be put down (or, as Hilda says, “into the stew pot”).

Nesting boxes with ceramic eggs

Nesting boxes complete, I let the girls back in. They gave the boxes a careful look, but did not attempt to get in. I hope their instincts will once again take over when the time comes. I suggested to Hilda that she give them The Talk about becoming a hen. She laughed.

What are these things in the wall?

So the coop is pretty much done now. We are now on the countdown to the first egg.