Chickens? Are You Serious?

With the establishment of our apiary comes the repsonsibility of properly looking after the bees. As a mom, I understand this, I really do.

You need to feed them with sugar water and pollen patties when there isn’t yet enough natural food around. You have to give them little bogs of dirty water so they can sip contentedly from what Mother Nature provides. You have to monitor them to ensure pests haven’t taken root.

Despite all this bluster, bees are fairly self-sufficient. Like all creatures, they have natural friends, dangerous enemies, and annoying neighbors. The enemies include varroa mites — tiny, nauseating creatures that latch onto bees’ abdomens like headlice — beetles, and other invasive insects hell bent on destroying your colony. Not on Alex’s watch, my friend. He is expertly (though he’d say amatuerishly) versed on how to eradicate these little bastards, so no worries there (yet).

The role of the bees’ annoying neighbors is played by carpenter ants — big, black, gives-me-agita ants. The ants themselves aren’t a huge deal; one or two? Eh, fine. They come in, help themselves to a beer, and put their feet up on the couch. But when our weekly inspection discovered about 20 of these ick-inducing creatures crawling up the sides of Hive 1 and helping themselves to whatever they wanted, Alex put his foot down.

Chicken Decision 2021 was on.

Chickens are the aforementioned bee friends. They eat ants, along with other insects that I also find horrifying, including ticks. Yes, they may try to eat the bees at first, but chickens aren’t entirely without brains. Bees and chickens are symbiotic species. Peanut butter and marmalade. They go together so nicely; that’s the reason why you so often see them being homed together (or at least adjacent).

I just wasn’t entirely prepared for them to go together so quickly.

Over the next few hours, my dear metal-loving, tattooed, and occasional-suspender-wearing husband poured himself into research about coops, feed, eggs, predators, and, god help me, chicken breeds. He wants those bees to be healthy and happy, and damn it they will be. As I gently asked whether this was an overreaction to a few nasty ants, he dove headfirst into not only homesteading but poultry management.

As of this writing, we are patiently awaiting the delivery of our coop. Our friend Heather, a chicken momma herself, has gifted us with some warmers and feeders. We are researching places to get gendered female chicks so we don’t futher annoy our sweet old neighbor with yet another backyard project. I can just picture her looking our her window and saying “What in the hell are they doing now?” Deep breath.

I mean, I shouldn’t be so dramatic. Chicks are probably the most adorable little bastards I’ve seen outside my dog. The Barred Rock breed look like fluffy little penguins; even the garden variety N.H. Reds are pretty damn cute. They clean up the yard and provide eggs (though I personally don’t like farm fresh eggs) to feed my household of multiple men and teenaged boys.

And, you know, in the event of the oncoming apocalypse, we’ll have honey and eggs to trade. You can’t really ask for better than that. Now accepting chick name suggestions.