Mouse Wine?

I was out a couple of weeks back to do some work on the tractor and wrap the bees up with the roofing paper like I did last year. The tractor has had some issues since last fall and since I haven’t been out to the property all summer I hadn’t done anything about them. So it was finally time to get it going again. Unfortunately the mice love the tractor. I don’t know why they like building nests in it so much more than anywhere else in the shed it is in. The shed is actually an old barn that they kept goats and cattle in back in the old days and I haven’t cleaned out much of it except for where the tractor is so it is basically a dirt floor building with a bunch of old wood and junk strewn about inside of it. You would think all those little nooks would give the mice ample nesting sites but, no, they have to build nests in the engine compartment of the tractor, just behind the fan blade. This year there was an add ed twist, though. They had gathered tons of wild grapes and stuffed them into most open spaces in the tractor. There was a pile under the seat, on the foot rests, inside the engine compartment, and my personal favorite, between each fan blade. I pulled a 5 gallon bucket worth out and then pulled out another 2/3 of a bucket. I guess they planned on eating raisins all winter! I didn’t even know there were that many wild grapes around. Looks like I will be have to find them and make wild grape jam next year! I finally got all the grapes, leaves, and dried grass out and could start the job of changing the oil. I finished that and decided to start it up. All the lights came on but it wouldn’t turn over. The battery was on the charger so it should be ok so I started tracing wires. Another thing the mice like to do is chew through wires. I could understand the coating but when you get to the actual copper wire it seems like it would be really irritating to continue to chew through it. But no, they love it. I found one that was chewed through but I didn’t have anything to fix it with so again the tractor didn’t get started. The one picture is from the front looking back at the seat, the second inside the engine compartment.

It was only 50 degrees that day and windy so I didn’t expect much activity at the hive and there wasn’t any. The cluster is big enough now that you can put your ear against the hive and hear them buzzing to stay warm. I started at the back of the hive and stapled the roofing paper around. I had done one corner of the front when one lone bee flew out to see what all the racket was about. I had to duck pretty quickly or she would have run right into my face and then I took a couple steps back. She did a slow flight around a bit, decided whatever was making the noise wasn’t worth getting cold over, and went back inside. I finished up without another one coming out. I did the "heft test" to get a sense of how heavy it was and it was very heavy. They should have plenty of honey to make it through the winter and since I never took any honey off this year it is all pure honey, no sugar water honey. After only 3 years I have already come to hate the winter waiting game to see if they will make it to spring.