BeekeepingDaily 12.28.2012 - A day or two off

Christmas 2012 is pretty much history.

Unlike two years ago, it didn't snow. It just rained, and then rained some more. That's okay. We needed the rain and will appreciate the outpouring from the skies this spring.

The seed catalogues are beginning to show up, so there is plenty to look at and look forward to.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to get at clearing some fence rows at the back of the pasture. It's probably been 20 years since a lot of that has been cleared, and back then it was the cattle that my father-in-law kept that did the clearing.

The cattle are gone, but there is plenty of vegetation -- trees, vines, privet, and the like -- to take their place. If I can convince myself that it will warm up just a tad, I'll be out there.

Meanwhile, here's what the good folks at Google have been gathering for those of us interesting in beekeeping.

Web 3 new results for beekeeping
Natural Beekeeping | Walter T. Kelley Blog When I first started beekeeping folks snickered because I wouldn't treat my bees. I took some pretty hard comments from old time beekeepers and commercial ... https://kelleybees.com/blog/2012/12/1429/
Beekeeping in Western Montana | Walter T. Kelley Blog As readers have told us they enjoy hearing about beekeeping in areas different from their own, we asked him to tell us about beekeeping challenges in an area ... https://kelleybees.com/blog/.../beekeeping-in-western-montana...
Beginning Beekeeping Class at Sacramento County Cooperative ... Get details for Beginning Beekeeping Class, including date, start time, driving directions and more. Find other - Workshops & Classes events in Sacramento, CA. events.sfgate.com/.../299655465-beginning-beekeeping-class

x 

News 1 new result for beekeeping

County eases restrictions on beekeeping Napa Valley Register The Napa County Beekeepers Association devised some best-management practices for beekeeping, which directs that hives should be kept as far away from neighborhoods as possible to keep them from being a nuisance. The association promotes using ... See all stories on this topic »

Blogs 1 new result for beekeeping

Southeastern CT Now Offers Beginner Beekeeping Class ... By Bree Shirvell Denison Farm Market Master and the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center partner up to offer a beginner beekeeping class. Waterford Patch

x

Web 1 new result for beekeeping

Beekeeping at Home with To-Bee Beekeeping at home has never looked so good with this new design from students at the Bexalel Academy of Arts and Design. www.finedininglovers.com/blog/curious.../beekeeping-at-hom...

x

Blogs 1 new result for beekeeping

Ask the Beekeeper: Where Have All the Honeybees Gone? | Care2 ... By NRDC Jennifer Sonntag is NRDC's resident beekeeper. Here she talks about why we need honeybees, the issues they're facing right now and what it's like to be a beekeeper in the middle of busy New York City. Care2 Causes

Web 1 new result for beekeeping

Introduction to Beekeeping / February 16 - Fairview Gardens This beginning beekeeper's class will introduce participants to the respectful and organic ways of keeping honeybees. Overall focus will home in on the unique ... www.fairviewgardens.org/.../introduction-to-beekeeping-april-...

BeekeepingDaily 12.21.2012: Catching up

Well, not so daily, is it, when I manage to skip a daily. Still trying to catch up. Enjoy two day's worth of beekeeping news in one from our friends at Google News alerts:

Web

Five-week, apprentice Master Beekeeper sessions slated for Everett EVERETT, Wash. – A majority of the foods we eat depend on honeybees for pollination. Without healthy bee populations, our fruit and vegetables would be ... news.wsu.edu/pages/publications.asp?Action=Detail...

Beekeeping at Isles | Isles, Inc. Hopewell and Trenton Beekeepers Partner to Raise Bees in Downtown Trenton! Read More. www.isles.org/features/beekeeping-at-isles

Web

Beekeeper from Israel Shalom everyone, I am the Israeli beekeeping and hive products forum manager. I am new here and always looking to learn from beekeepers around the world. www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?276642...p...

The Beekeeper's Bible by Richard A. Jones and Sharon Sweeny ... [img]http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61sbXlxhxHL._SL500_AA300_.jpg[/ img] [size=18 ... www.permies.com/t/.../Beekeeper-Bible-Richard-Jones-Sharon

Backwards Beekeepers: Getting a new beekeeper going Michael is a new Backwards Beekeeper in LA. He and his wife Vinh have a great urban farm setup in Glassell Park with lots of happy chickens, vegetables, fruit ... www.backwardsbeekeepers.com/.../getting-new-beekeeper-goi... *** The spring-like weather that we have been having lately turned normal yesterday evening with some cold temperatures. They were ushered in by high winds that could have endangered the hives. Fortunately, when I got up this morning, everything was in tact. All the hives were still standing. A blown-over hive is no fun for bees or beekeeper -- as anyone who has deal with one can attest. I had to put one back together this spring, and while the bees had calmed down when I got to them, I knew they had gotten wet, which is the thing the bees hate the most. I sometimes think about anchoring the hives and would certainly do so if high winds were a regular occurrence around here. They are not, and for that, I am thankful.

BeekeepingDaily 12.19.12: Encouragement for African beekeepers

Not much news today. Folks still pushing beekeeping for farms in Africa. Good idea:

News

Beekeeping Pays, Pinda Tells Mpanda Residents AllAfrica.com PRIME Minister Mizengo Pinda has reiterated his call for farmers to actively engage themselves in beekeeping, saying it requires minimum capital, and yet yields huge profits. Addressing wananchi in Mpanda and Mlele Districts yesterday, Mr Pinda ... See all stories on this topic »

Well, the horse doesn't look too embarrassed.

Personal note:

I went horseback riding for the first time in DECADES.

Glad to report that I embarrassed neither myself nor the horse. Photo accompanies.

BeekeepingDaily 12.18.12: Urban beekeeping in Australia

The good folks at Google sending us news reports of beekeeping here there and everywhere has passed along this report on urban beekeeping in Australia.

Web

Urban buzz about beekeeping - YouTube It's been called liquid gold and home grown honey - the new trend in some Australian cities ... www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSoqSpO4VFY  Here's the intro from the Australian TV network: Published on 11 Dec 2012 by australianetworknews It's been called liquid gold and home grown honey - the new trend in some Australian cities. From rooves above restaurants to inner city balconies, there's a buzz around amateur bee keeping. And while it's sweet, it's also playing a role in Australia's bio-security. . .

BeekeepingDaily: Dec. 17, 2012

A nice profile of Florida beekeeper Robert Bell is included in today's links:

• Bell, who operates Bell Apiaries, said the reasons for the decline [of bees] are numerous and include pesticides, weather, an illness called Colony Collapse Disorder, and parasites that attach themselves to the bees and kill them. 

The latest from our friends at the Google alter system:

News 1 new result for beekeeping

Beekeeper Buzzing to Battle Decline in Hives | NewsChief.com News Chief The likes of Fleetwood Mac, Don McLean and Jimmy Buffett subtly pipe through the stereo as he drives along roads outside phosphate mining areas, describing just what it is he does as a beekeeper and how important it is to the survival of agriculture. See all stories on this topic »

Web 1 new result for beekeeping

Beginning Beekeeping Course | Keokuk County Beginning Beekeeping 8 week course to be offered at the Keokuk County Extension Office on Thursday evenings from 6pm to 8pm starting on January 17, 2013 ... www.extension.iastate.edu/.../beginning-beekeeping-course

Settling in for winter, waiting to see what happens

The garden is plowed, the cold weather has begun, and the bees are -- mostly -- in the hives.

Cold weather in East Tennessee, of course, doesn't mean what it does in Nebraska or Vermont. We're waking up this December to some heavy frosts, with temps in the upper 20s at best, and then looking forward to early afternoon highs around 55 or 60.

So, to lots of folks, this ain't cold.

Still, it's the best we can do down here close to the Smokies, and we'll take whatever comes along.

We're down to six Langstroth hives and two topbars. The Langstroths appear to have plenty of bees, but I'm not so sure about the topbars. The Langstroths have plenty of feed on them at the moment, and we put some protein patties on the topbars, so we will see what happens.

That's what beekeepers do most of the time: wait to see what happens.

Would that it were otherwise, but one thing beekeeping teaches you is to take the long view. There have been years (too many) where there were no bees in the hives at all. The spring couldn't come soon enough in those sad seasons.

Now, however, I can take some comfort in the fact that I need a rest from the bees, and they undoubtedly need a rest from me.

We'll leave it at that right now, and continue to do what beekeepers do.


Here's how things look in the freshly plowed garden:

Varroa should be a constant in the beekeeper's plans

Varroa remains the most persistent and widespread threats to bees and bee colonies. No beekeeper in the world – except maybe in Australia where varroa has not yet invaded – can ignore this threat.

But knowing what to do about varroa is not easy. There are no standard procedures or treatments to rid a hive of varroa. Most beekeepers are coming to the conclusion that varroa must be managed rather than eradicated. They must also consider varroa with everything they do with their hives.

So, what can you do?

Experts say finding the most varroa-resistant types of bees is the first step to keeping a healthy hive. Re-queening with a Russian queen or some other variety that shows some tolerance of varroa is a procedure that is recommended.

Another procedure is monitoring to see if varroa mites are becoming a problem for the hive. There are several ways of doing this, and they are described in detail in many beekeeping manuals. One of the easiest is the use of a sticky board and counting the varroa mites you catch. This should be done consistently so you can compare what you find to previous inspections.

The treatment methods for varroa confront beekeepers with a dizzying array of choices. Beekeepers should decide what treatments they are comfortable with and which ones they can perform on a regular basis.

Treatments include:

• drone brood removal

• dusting with powdered sugar

• screened bottom boards

• thymol-based products before or after the honey flow

• regular replacement of old comb

• soft chemical treatments

• working with other beekeepers in your area to keep varroa infestation down

• continual monitoring for varroa

Many beekepers use a combination of these procedures and treatments to ward off varroa. A few years ago, we depended soley on chemical treatments but have found that varroa mites can grow resistant to most chemicals that are used year after year.

The persistence of varroa is a discouraging problem for beekeepers. Despite their best efforts sometimes, varroa can weaken or destroy a colony that only a few weeks before seemed strong.

Still, beekeepers must continue in their anti-varroa efforts. We have little choice but to try to find ways to keep this pest in check.

They should also remember that the efforts of many scientists and apiculturists are devoted to helping them in this regard. These folks are working to develop organic treatments and varroa tolerant strains and are making significant progress. Beekeepers would do well to stay informed about these efforts.

A week of weather and planting

Weather is always important, but this week it has been overwhelming.

The storms on Monday and Wednesday with their rain, wind and hail did much damage around East Tennessee. Fortunately, the farm was spared most of this. We had hail on Wednesday and then lost power for 24 hours. But things in the garden were big enough to be too affect by any of these things.

Our situation, of course, pales in comparison to that of our former hometown of Tusclaoosa, where the pictures and video have been surreal. Tornadoes are nature's most powerful concentrated form, and the one that swept through Tuscaloosa and central Alabama was nature at its worst.

Our many friends in Tuscaloosa are, for the most part, in good shape, suffering only the inconvenience of power outages and the like. Still, everyone in that city is facing massive disruption and clean-up efforts that will take a very long time. Our hearts go out to them.

Planting

The garden is finally in.

While there are spots here and there that need to be filled in, all of the rows have been planted. We put in white corn, peppers, tomatoes and sunflowers yesterday to complete the set. Here's how things line up:

Row 6 (east to west): Yukon Gold; mixture
Row 7: Red Gold; Russian banana (fingerlings)
Row 8: Russian bananas
Row 9: French fingerlings
Row 10: Peanut fingerlings
Row 11: Onions
Row 12: Okra
Row 13: Peppers; sunflowers; pumpkins
Row 14: Tomatoes (Early Girl, German Queen, Sweet 100s); cucumbers
Row 15: White corn
Row 16: White corn
Row 17: Snow Peas
Row 18: Beans | Peas
Row 19: Beans | Peas
Row 20: Yellow corn
Row 21: Yellow corn
Row 22: Yellow corn
Row 23: Yellow corn
Row 24: Peanuts

The corn is coming up nicely, and the potatoes are beginning stand up after the battering by the hail. Weeding is the next order of business.

Weeding is always the next order of business.

Bees

We acquired one more beehive yesterday. It was a nuc hive I purchased from a friend in the beekeepers association. Peter wants to give Vera a third hive for her birthday, and I said I would try to put one together for her. So this is it.

I think John and I will be up for a beehive inspection today.

A weekend of planting, rain and bees

Three days on the farm this weekend netted us more crops in the ground, more rain and more bees.

We put in a row of snow peas just below the other beans peas we had planted last week. Then I skipped a few rows and planted some okra next to the onions, which, along with the potatoes, are beginning to poke their leaves through the ground. The rows of potatoes are becoming distinct -- and so are the weeds. The yellow corn we planted a bit more than a week ago is also coming up. We need to do some tilling/weeding soon.

Here's the garden at present:

Row 6 (east to west): Yukon Gold; mixture
Row 7: Red Gold; Russian banana (fingerlings)
Row 8: Russian bananas
Row 9: French fingerlings
Row 10: Peanut fingerlings
Row 11: Onions
Row 12: Okra
Row 13:
Row 14:
Row 15:
Row 16:
Row 17: Snow Peas
Row 18: Beans | Peas
Row 19: Beans | Peas
Row 20: Yellow corn
Row 21: Yellow corn
Row 22: Yellow corn
Row 23: Yellow corn
Row 24: Peanuts

Rain

It started raining late Friday night and came on hard all night long. By morning, it had quit but had left 2.5 inches in and on the ground. The timing was pretty perfect. Saturday was bright and clear -- too muddy to get into the garden but nice enough to allow other work to be done.

Bees

John and I acquired two complete hives on Saturday night. A member of the association wanted to sell them, and we jumped at the chance to get them. They were in great shape. The guy who had them had been exceptionally meticulous in caring for them and estimated there were 60,000 in each hive.

We placed them up in the barnyard, just beyond the toolshed.

We now have a dozen hives on the place. Lots of bees.

Capturing a swarm

My friend Doug Hardwick made this rather amazing video while capturing a swarm of bees last week. Doug is holding the camera himself, while doing everything else -- climbing the ladder, holding the bucket, shaking the bees, etc.

The amazing part of the video comes in the middle where the bees are on the ground and marching, in military-like formation, into the hive.

Take a look:

Jim Brown talks about plants that are good for bees

Herbalist and Blount County Beekeepers Association member Jim Brown talked about a variety of plants that are good for bees at the last meeting of the BCBA on May 9, 2010.

Brown had an extensive list of plants, and I have included short audio clips of five of the plants that he discussed:

Bee balm

"It's a bit of a spreader, and sometimes the leaves will turn a bit of a gray on you. . . . It makes a lot of nice, pretty flowers. It's a mid-summer bloomer."

(1 minute 22 seconds)

Catnip

Bees love it as well as cats, and it repels mosquitos.

(1:25)

Rosemary

Rosemary is one of the more common plants that people grow. Bees like the pretty blue flowers, but it blooms at a variety of times -- sometimes early, sometime late. Rosemary, the legend says, is only suppose to grow in the garden of a righteous person. Rosemary does not grown well inside, so don't bring them in your house.

(2:52)

Thyme

"I've seen a hundred honeybees on a thyme plant over at UT gardens." There are lots of varieties, and thyme is a herb that goes well in just about any recipe. The blooms are tiny, but the bees love them.

(1:30)

Vitex-Chasetree

Vitex is a great bee plant. It blooms late in the summer and into the fall, and the bees are all over it. It has a beautiful blue bloom that looks a little like a lilac. Vitex grows very fast. It is actually a tree, but gardeners can do a lot with it according to how they want it to look in their garden.

(3:12)

Jim and his wife Delores operate the Honey Rock Herb Farm in Louisville.

The beginning of the season

Well, we are considerably past the beginning of the season, and I am considerably behind in the posts that I wanted to put here, but I will try to catch up.

Here's a bullet-point list of items that I will be posting more about:

• A potato garden now exists with some 1,800 row feet of potatoes.
• New bees have arrived and new hives have been started.
• Topbar hives are beginning to appear around the place. How did that happen? (Much more later.)
• House additions and renovations are complete, including a garage that changes the look of the place entirely.
• Everything (except the bees) seemed to survive the winter, including the 17 semi-dwarf apple trees that we set out in November.
• I am becoming anti-apiary. I'll explain later.
• I read most of Gene Logsdon's The Contrary Farmer over the winter and feel well on my way to becoming a contrary farmer.
• Tractor-shopping is in my near future.
• Corn, beans, cucumbers, potatoes -- all up.
• Cardinals are off to an excellent start. Summer should be fun.
• Lots of unread books in the stack.

Pictures of a couple of weeks ago are below:



As I said, more later.

Another round in the British beekeepers dustup

An ongoing dispute among beekeepers in the UK has boiled over again.

Phil Chandler, an advocate of topbar hives and what he calls a more natural form of beekeeping, has been at odds with the British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) for a number of reasons, most recently because of what he terms a "secret" deal between the BBKA and medications companies Bayer and Syngenta.

Now the association has struck back with an editorial by the former BBKA president which has taken Chandler to task for what he calls a churlish email that "condemned Syngenta... for announcing a major investment in research into the declining population of honeybees. It is better that Syngenta does not further research the possible role of its own pesticides. Others are independently."

The president condemns Chandler and his organization, Friends of the Bees, as wanting "to deprive bees of the treatments and medicines they need to help them overcome the pests and pathogens that modern trade and transport have spread around."

And further, "The exposed hatred in the email for the entire agrochemical industry shows that the core concerns of the writer are more political to the point of religion than apicultural."

Chandler doesn't taken the editorial silently:

Well, Glyn, it's hard for me to show any respect for an industry that has done so much damage to the planet, its people and its animals. And religion is not something I suffer from.

I take it as a sign that we are having an impact on people's thinking about bees in the context of our toxic agricultural system when someone with such a big axe to grind starts attacking us in public - and simultaneously exposes his own prejudices and ignorance.

Being savaged by a dead sheep comes to mind.

Early morning feeding of the bees

With Venus looking down from the east and fog shrouding the trees, I tramped through the dark and the frost this morning to give the bees some food.

It all felt great.

I had done a quick inspection of my three hives late yesterday -- the first for several weeks -- and found all three with plenty of bees. We have had way too much rain this fall, and I hadn't been able to open the hives for a while. I was wondering if the bees had survived.

They had, fortunately.

So now, for the next three or four weeks, let's hope for semi-warm, dry weather. I plan on feeding them at least through the middle of November, maybe even up through Thanksgiving, just to try to keep their numbers up as they head into the winter. Then I will plan to put food in a top feeder with maybe a grease patty or two and close the hives up for the winter.

One worrisome note was that I found small hive beetles in one of the hives. There's not much to be done about them at this point, but that could cause a problem if the hive continues to weaken.

A weather note: Out of 19 days in October, we have had only seven without rain. We have had nearly three inches this month, all of which has not done the bees much good. Any of the fall blooms run the danger of having the nectar washed out of them. If the next few days stay dry, as they are supposed to, we'll see how the bees feed and if they can make any stores for themselves. We have a patch of buckwheat behind the hives that is in full bloom, and I want to see if the bees go for it.

How bees make honey - and how we get it from the bees

How do bees make honey?

I got asked that question on Monday. Here's the answer:

Honey is a combination of nectar and water. The bee does it all.

Worker bees gather nectar, which contains complex sugars, from flowers and store it in a special stomach they have for that purpose. When they bring it back to the hive, the nectar is sucked out of the forager's stomach by a house bee and inside the house bee, the complex sugars of the nectar are broken down into what will eventually be honey.

Once that process is complete, the nectar is placed in the cells of the honeycomb. The moisture content is too high at this point for it to be real honey, so the bees have to work to dehumidify it,
often by simply flapping their wings. One the moisture content of the honey is down to about 19 percent, the bees cap the cell with a wax coating so no additional moisture can intrude.

The beekeeper looks for an entire frame of this "capped honey" when the time come to harvest the honey. The picture at the right shows a frame full of bees. The white stuff on the upper part of the frame is capped honey. When this frame is covered with capped honey, it is pulled from the hive, and a hot knife is used to shear off the caps. Then the frame is put into an extractor, which rotates the frame at a high enough speed so that the honey is thrown out of the cells. The honey collects at the bottom of the extractor and is drained into another container.

The honey is then filtered through something like sheer curtain material. And that's it. No cooking or processing. Local honey, or "raw honey," is this stuff, bought from a local beekeeper.

Commercial honey is "flash heated." That is, it is heated quickly and then cooled. This flash heating will keep it from crystallizing on the store shelf. The flash heating doesn't change the honey; it just eradicates the crystals that might make it crystalize.

Honey should not be refrigerated. Properly contained, it will last for a very long time.
Some of this information comes from the the Michigan State University web site.

Inspecting the bees in the middle of the honey season

.

Probably the most fun a beekeeper can have is extracting honey from the hives. But since you do that only once, maybe twice, a year, you have to get your pleasures elsewhere.

You can stand there and watch the hive on a day when the bees are active. That can be fascinating.

But pretty soon, you begin to wonder: "What's going on INSIDE the hive?"

And that's the second "most-fun" part of beekeeping: inspecting the hives.

My friend John and I have six hives on the little farm that Sally and I have in East Tennessee. John is just starting and has two hives. I have four. Since it's the middle of the honey season, John and I both stay eaten up with curiosity about what's going on inside the hives, and yesterday we decided to take a look.

(We try to keep the curiosity in check during this time of year because the bees need to concentrate on making honey rather than dealing with a couple of bumbling humans disrupting their ancient routines. Still, inspecting the hives is a necessary part of beekeeping. You're looking for problems -- overcrowding, critter invasions, etc. -- so that you can help the bees along.)

My first hive is a prize-winner. Rather, the queen is some kind of champ. She has been laying from the moment she was released from the cage back in April, and the hive is full of bees, and those bees are storing up a load of honey. In fact, she is making so many bees that I decided that maybe that hive could share with one of the weaker hives. So, one of my goals yesterday was to find a frame or two of brood cell to put in one of the other hives.

I did just that, and the situation in one of the weaker hives, I found, is more dire than I had suspected. Something must have happened to the queen in the weaker hive because there is some brood cell but not very many bees. I put a frame of brood into that hive, but I'm going to have to watch it closely. I may have to get a new queen before long.

My other two hives are doing well. One has lots of brood, which means the queen has been laying and the population will increase substantially before long. I'm still hopeful of getting some honey from those gals. The other hive is coming along but slowly.

John found both of his hives in good shape with lots of bees and lots of brood. Good queens are doing their work for him. He may not get any honey this year because it's his first year, but he should be in good shape going into the fall.

The wet weather has been both good and bad for the bees this spring. The good part is that it has produced plenty of sources of nectar and pollen for the bees to work. The garden is beginning to come in, and they should enjoy the cucumbers, beans, cantaloupes and sunflowers -- among many other things available to them.

But the bees hate wet weather. The rain cuts down on their ability to forage, and it raises the humidity levels inside the hive. That's right. The bees are far more weather sensitive than we realize. When the inside of the hive gets damp, they have to work to dry it out -- the old fashion way, by flapping their wings.

That's because the honey they're making -- in order to be real honey -- has to be less than 19 percent water. It starts out as more than that, and one of the bees' jobs right now is to get it down to that level so it can be capped. Good dry days in June help that process.

So, now that we've had plenty of rain this spring, pray for dry.

And enjoy the video. (You can also find the video on Vimeo.)

Late-night delivery of nuc hives; the garden is taking shape

• A "bee-running" expedition on Saturday nets us four new hives.

John said it felt like we were running moonshine.

Saturday night, somewhere in the darkness of Blount County, we picked up four nuc hives of bees from Coley Odell, who had put them together for us. The hives were strapped down in the back of the truck and made it to the farm. We pulled them off the truck and set them up on their hive stands, stuck an extra box on top of each, put some feed on the front, and then waited for them to wake up on their new homes on Sunday morning.

It all went well, and now there are six hives in the fold, four for me and two for John.

We took a look inside the hives on Sunday afternoon. Coley had done his work well, and the nuc hives that John had bought and saw plenty of brood cell and no problems.

We also looked inside the hives of package bees that I installed three weeks ago, and we found much that was comforting -- lots of brood cell and even some nicely capped honey. (See the picture to the right.) I decided to put a queen excluder on top of the third box and a box of drawn comb on top of that. Now that the feeders are off, that hive is ready to make honey.

The situation was essentially the same with the second hive of packaged bees, although for some reason there seem to be fewer bees at work. Still, there were plenty with brood cell, larva, pollen and honey. I slipped a deep box of mostly drawn comb on top of the bottom box to see if the bees would go down and start working it. I also put a queen excluder on top of the third box and made the top box the hive's first honey super.

Both hives give every indication of being productive with no apparent tendencies to swarm, so I will check them this weekend and see what kind of progress they are making.

Meanwhile, the garden is coming under control.

I spent a good bit of time Sunday taking up the string markers where where the rows of plants have become visible and tilling out the weeds where it was safe to do that. To me, that says the garden is beginning to grow much as I had planned it, and the soil, the plants, the water and God's miracles of biology have to take over. I become more of a secondary player in this drama.

John and I are planning a second raised bed -- this one to be filled with herbs -- and we took advantage of my master carpentry skills (ha!) to put together with some old wood from the smokehouse and the barn. As long as you're not finicky about the way the wood looks, the fact that there might be a few 40-year-old rusty nails here and there in it, and the sizes to which the boards need to be cut, that kind of wood is perfect for our project.

This evening after supper, Sally and I trekked back to the garden where we put some okra and cucumber see in the group, dug the holes for the feet of the new raised bed box and put that into the ground.

So, here's how the garden is shaping up (I have renumbered the row, beginning at the top -- north -- end):

Row 1: yellow corn
Row 2: yellow corn
Row 3: yellow corn
Row 4: beans
Row 5: beans
Row 6: horticulture beans (planted Saturday, April 25)
Row 7: white corn (to be planted next week)
Row 8: white corn (to be planted next week)
Row 9: white corn (to be planted next week)
Row 10: tomatoes
Row 11: beans (striped half runners)
Row 12: okra, cucumbers
Row 13: onions, potatoes (planted March 22)
Row 14: potatoes (Red russets, French fingerlings, Yukon gold from Colorado)
Row 15: potatoes (legacy)
Row 16: peas, potatoes (I may put something else in between these two)

And, finally, as usual: pictures, taken Sunday, April 26.

Easter planting - finally

Big time doings in the garden today (Easter).

Finally, after a week of frustration, we had a couple of dry days, which allowed some serious garden work. So here's what happened:

• The strawberries that John Neal had given me finally got planted in the raised bed box that I made last weekend.
  
  
• Sally planted here lettuce, rhubarb and shallots in the bed at the top of the garden.
  
  
• Sally planted peas in Row 1, which finished most of it out.
  
  
• Jane, Sally and I put yellow corn in Rows 14, 13, and 12. (See picture above.)
  
  
• Sally and I put peanut beans in Rows 10 and 11. Row 9 has been tilled and ready for some horticulture beans.
  
  
• John and I took a thorough look inside the bee hives, and all seems to be well so far. They are busy, making honey and doing what bees should do at this stage.

Friday was rainy, Saturday was cloudy and cool, but today was glorious. Maybe we can get a couple of more days like this in the next week or so to finish the planting.

The pictures below will give you an idea of how the day looked.

Pouring the bees - 40,000 insects get a new home

Finally, I'm back in the bee business.

I acquired two boxes of bees yesterday, and - along with my friend John - introduced them to their new homes in my apiary. This was an exciting event for all concerned, particularly John, who wants to start beekeeping this year and had never had this experience.

It must have been pretty exciting for the bees, too.

When you acquire bees in this way, they come in boxes somewhat larger than shoebox size made of wood on four sides and screen mesh on two. The screen allows them to have air, of course, but the great thing is that you can look inside and see them hanging together, usually fairly patiently, until they are put into the hive.

In the picture to the right, you can see that a few of the bees had escaped the box, but they didn't leave the colony. Bees are social creatures. They cannot exist alone; they must live in colonies. So, even though these bees found themselves on the outside of the box, they didn't go anywhere.

Seeing the bees like this can be scary for the uninitiated. They look as though they are ready to fly out and attack the nearest creature, but in truth they are docile and most unlikely to sting. They're not protecting anything right now. They are just waiting to see what will hapen with the colony.

My bees came from some place in Georgia and were delivered by long time local beekeeper Howard Kerr. Howard told me he had more orders than he could fill this year because bee die-offs had been somewhat heavy. Since I had lost all of my bees over the winter, I could certain testify to that.

I had prepared two hives for these bees this week. They consisted of three medium boxes, two of which were filled with drawn comb, which will help the bees get started quick on their honey-making procedures. The third box, the top one, is empty for reasons explained below. (See the top picture.)

When John arrived in the early afternoon, we donned our bee suits and veils and got to work.

We opened up the hives, and I took the first box and pried open the top piece of wood, which revealed a can of sugar water (we call it bee juice in our house) hanging within the top of the box. This gives the bees something to eat while they are being transported, and the can in this case was still pretty full.

The next step is to pull the can out of the box and also to pull the queen cage out. The queen comes in her own special cage -- a very small wooden and wire box that protects her from the hive while she is being accepted as the queen. This one insect -- the queen -- is the most important single entity of the hive. She is the one who will keep the hive going because her job is to constantly lay eggs and replenish the hive. Bees instinctively know this, but it still takes a few days for her to establish her position, and she has to be protected in the process.

Once the food and the queen are out of the box, the fun begins -- pouring the bees.

The bees are literally poured, and then shaken, into their new home. You simply turn the box of bees upside down over the empty hive box and let them fall into the hive.

Most of the bees will go in at that point. The sudden move will stir them up to some extent, but they are more surprised than angry and are simply likely to fly up into the air. Eventually they will come down into the hive.

The bees that remain in their original box need to be shaken loose from their moorings -- either other bees or the side of the box -- so they can be dropped into the hive. Stir and shake as you will, you won't get all of them loose, so eventually you have to set the box down next to the hive and trust that sometime during the afternoon they will make their way into the hive.

After that, two more things need to be done. A cork must be extracted from the queen cage that will allow the bees to east on a sugar stopper. Once that sugar stopper is eaten through, the queen will be release, and she can go about her business. Second, the can of food should be place inside the hive, so the bees can continue to eat. In this instance, I place a couple of jars of bee juice on the front of the hive so the bees can have the extra nourishment. In the next few days, the bees will need all of the food they can get.

Once these tasks are done, the top cover goes back onto the hive, and that's it. The front of the hive is open, so the bees that are outside the hive at this moment will find their way inside. It may take a couple of hours, but by dark it will happen because the social instincts will kick in. Bees always want to be with the colony.

Our operations did not go perfectly smoothly yesterday because of a rookie mistake I made. I pulled out the wrong cork from one of the queen cages, which released her immediately into the hive. I did that same thing the first time I poured bees a couple of years ago. It turned out to be okay then because the queen had spent enough time with the other bees already that they accepted her without a problem. I am hopeful that will happen again.

If not, we'll have another problem -- but not an insolvable one -- to deal with.

. . .

Installing the bees was just one thing that happened in the garden yesterday. It was a beautiful day, and even though it was still to wet to plow, I was able to till a bit and do some other things. Here's how it looked:

Bees Without Borders: NYT article

An interesting article in the New York Times today describes a couple of Connecticut beekeepers (father and son) who have traveled around the world, teaching people how to become beekeepers. Andrew Cote and his father Norm are passionate about bees and beekeeping and rightly say that introducing beekeeping in certain areas of the world can help the local populations stave off starvation.

Andrew, who has about 200 hives and harvests honey by the ton, even went to Iraq in 2005 and help start colonies in several areas. What he said about beekeeping in Iraq is particularly interesting.

Before the 1991 Gulf War, there were an estimated half a million hives in Iraq. After all those oil field fires and smoke, and this current war, there are about 20,000. Mobility is extremely limited, and beekeepers can’t get colonies to the citrus groves where they’re needed, or to the lush areas in Kurdistan.

Read the entire article:

Gerri Hirshey, Sharing a Taste of Honey, on an International Scale, New York Times, Nov. 28, 2008.