Quartz

We joke about farming quartz on this property because we have only dug 2 holes that didn't have some obnoxious rocks in all the digging we've done here.

Today, Chuck pulled out the mother of all of them.  (We hope there won't be another one that size.)

I set it by the bench in the labyrinth to hold a cup or glass in case someone needs a place to rest such a thing when they have reached the center.

Bee tea (for, not of)

Natalie, who is in the Natural Beekeepers group, shared her instructions for making a strengthening tea for the bees.  The idea is to use this tea for making the 1:1 sugar syrup that you use for bee food when they need some assistance.

Her instructions were a little circuitous because she gave references for where she got the bits of information she used to create her recipe.  She cited Gunther Hauk,  Michael Weiler  and Maria Thun.  I am going to try to write a short form here.  

These are the herbs she listed.  I have put the ones I have in my yard in blue.  I will be looking for the others as plants or seeds:

Yarrow, chamomile, dandelion and valerian,

Stinging nettle, horsetail and oak bark,

peppermint, thyme, sage and hyssop,

pinch of sea salt can be added.

Chamomile, yarrow and stinging nettle steeped for 10 minutes is a "basic best" combination. I have spearmint, not peppermint, so will be using that, instead.

Do not make the tea any stronger than you would drink yourself.

Just say "No"

I went to a mushroom workshop yesterday.  And the most important thing I learned is that I have enough on my plate.

With mushrooms, it's kind of all or nothing.  You can get a $20 kit from the co-op and have a little thing going on in your kitchen.  Or you can invest some serious time into growing fungi on logs and in wood chips or straw and have some serious mycology happening.

I really didn't see any place for some.

So, I have a log with spawn plugged in it and the knowledge that bees, fruit trees, vegetable beds, flowers, herbs and potential chickens is probably enough.

 I expect I'll get mushrooms a couple of times  a year for a couple of years and then I'll be done.

Hopefully, there will be good mushrooms showing up at local farmers markets fairly soon.  The guys that did the workshop have a spot at Carrboro on Wednesdays, so that is a good start.

Herbs on the deck and stuff

Last year, when we started the raised beds, I planted strawberries, flowers and herbs in the holes around the edges.  This sounds like a great idea, but in actual practice, not so much.  The basil and marigolds got huge and loomed over the vegetables.  The strawberries never produced much, but tried to move into the rest of the bed anyway.  And the thyme, cilantro, chives and parsley were too far away to be convenient for cooking.

So, Chuck is moving the herbs to the porch and I'm keeping the flowers around the house.

The thing is Chuck used all the pots for herbs and I needed one for camellias.  Randy gave me a little pot that has 2 little camellia seedlings in it that he started from seeds he collected from his bushes.  We have no clue what color they will be and they may not even match each other.  It is quite the floral experiment.

But they are teeny and I don't want them to be so abused by weather that they don't make it.  I have already had 3 camellias give up on me in exasperation.  So, I want these little guys to get a shot by putting them in a pot and bringing them in for the winter.  When they have some real size, I"ll put them in the ground at the corner of the house.

This means I had to get a pot and I was allowed to go to Lowe's unchaperoned.  This isn't always a good idea, but today I only came back with seed packets.  And the bee watering thing and the pot.  The seeds were the only things not on the list.  And they are all good bee flowers.  Really.

Anyway, my choice was to spend $20 on the size of pot I wanted or get a lily in the correct sized pot on sale for $9.  I win!

There are seeds in the herb pots.  The camellias are in their new pot.

The lily is in the flowerbed.

And the elderberry has been planted.

Randy gave me that, too, and I spent the afternoon getting the worst rocks I have ever had to deal with in this yard out of the new bed space.    And I had to go back to Southern States, where I only got one bag of mulch for the new bush.

Watering the bees

When we started planning the bees, I was very fretful about their water supply.  The neighbors to our Left (when you look at the house from the road) have a swimming pool.  We really don't want the girls to get in the habit of bringing that chlorinated yuck into the hives, so it is important for them to know where to find fresh water and be in the habit of going there before the pool cover comes off for the season.

I found this at Lowe's sometime last...late Fall/early Winter.  It holds about a gallon of water and the bees seem to like it.  We've been told that they need sticks or straw to stand on so that they don't fall in and drown, so we have sticks.  However, I've been watching and they don't use the sticks.  They hold on to the lip and lean in from the edge without ever touching the wood.

 Today, I went to Lowe's and got a second one, not because that one wasn't working, but I just wanted to be sure there is always plenty available.  I hung the new one on the other side of the clothesline pole and haven't bothered with sticks.

And, I finally spotted a bee checking out the little fountain we have on the deck for Sophie and the cats to use as a water dish.  It's always full and flowing, too.  I have dropped in a couple of bamboo pieces from a wind chime that had fallen apart because that bee was having a little difficulty dealing with the moving water.

Of course, when Chuck's watching, they use the sticks.

4 weeks in - Top Bar update

This is a picture of Rosamund, taken  Monday, April 16, slightly less than 4 weeks after we installed our package.  I could see a couple of capped brood cells (looked like drone cells to me) and some open pollen cells.

This evening, I counted bars, peeking in the windows, and both hives have 10 bars occupied.  Lucretia isn't quite as full as Rosamund, but she is catching up in a hurry.  This looks like they are drawing down about 2.5 combs per week.

I think that's pretty impressive.  They have no foundation, just a rub of beeswax on the bar to get them started.

We had been leaving the bottom board on to help them combat the cold nights, but this morning there were little groups outside both hives trying to cool off.  I took the bottom boards off and everyone went back in the house.  I'm always surprised at how much pollen gets dropped.  (Most is yellow but there is a decent sprinkling of orange going on.  There were bright orange saddle bags going in as I watched, too.)

Looking up at the bars as I counted, the spacer bar looked very much like a small bar.  That looks like an invitation to trouble to me.  I'm afraid they will try to draw comb down from it.  I'm thinking what I might do  is take out the 24th bar and use the spacer to move the last 10 bars apart, but not leave it in.  The bars have been packed so tight that they haven't gotten into the top of the hives, yet.  And this has kept them from doing anything crazy inside the roof.

I have a couple of friends with power tools.  Maybe I can get some help creating spacers that are more like I think they should be.  You know.  NOT extra projections to attach comb to.

Three weeks growth

 Lucretia is catching up

to Rosamund

The ratio of bees to comb is finally small enough that you can see what they've been doing.  

Since the tulip poplars started blooming last week, they have nearly quit taking the sugar syrup and the wax has been flying as they build like mad.

I moved the backboards to the ends of the hives and took out the syrup jars they've been ignoring this morning.  Both have baby combs on bar 9.

Kale...not bees..okay, some bees

Sometimes you just have to let go. I knew the day was coming that I would need to move on from kale and make room for the summer stuff. The greens have been very successful and I was prideful. They went to flower, so I left them a bit longer to see if the bees...yes, there they are again...would like to work them a bit. Today was harvest day and none to soon. The Red Russian was strating to get a bit limp. Reminds me of Randy & Meg's bumper sticker, "Eat More Kale". Well we are.

This is what the bed looked like after the harvest. I have planted some summer squash and okra that I started in flats. Another lesson learned. Use better starting mixture in the flats. Got as many weeds as edible stuff. Going to start more seeds in the beds to make up for it.

Fava beans and peas are doing fine.

Was hoping to catch some of Kitty's girls on the cherry tree, but...

they were too busy at the old watering hole.

My first cut out.

They didn't get grumpy until we were taking the second comb out. They were surprisingly patient as we got started. And by the end, we were too busy to pay attention to their temper tantrums. We even let the smoker go out and forgot all about it. Never saw a queen, but Randy has at least 3 queen cells in the frames.


I only got stung 2.5 times. The half was through my jeans and I didn't feel it as much as the 2 through my gloves.

 This is what it looked like before we started on it

 And there were a LOT of bees using that opening.

 This is the "undamaged" wall.

 Chris trying to see where the bottom is while Randy watches.

 Randy starting up the smoker

 And taking a Before picture

 Starting to get in it.

 We think this is all of it

 Randy starting to cut

 out the first board.

 And take it off

 Removing the first comb

 He has ingenious frames that hold the feral comb.

 The bees cleaned all the honey he got on his camera off for him before we left.

And there was a LOT of honey.  Besides this for Randy, some went to the woman who wanted the colony removed, some went to the helper (ME!!!) and some went to the neighbor who showed up with a pot to carry it in.

 This is the hole after we took out as much comb and bees as we could.

Randy took 2 boxes of comb with brood, pollen, honey and at least 3 queen cells back to his bee yard.  Plus a couple of packages of bees in the vacuum box.

Feral comb honey for my mother.

Plus our high tech honey extraction system.

And here is Randy's take on the whole thing  :-)  There is a link to his blog in our sidebar. Randy and Meg's Garden Paradise. 

Watering the bees

One of the things I fretted about as we prepared for the arrival of our bees was water.  We really don't want them hanging out in our neighbors' chlorinated swimming pool.

I found a hanging bird watering gadget and we have put it out in the flight paths.

 They seem to think it is fine.

Thoughts on chickens

If we are interested in helping to rescue breeds that are considered Critical by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, these appear to be the best choices for our situation, imvho:


Hollands have earned a good reputation as being ideally suited to farm conditions. They are good foragers with calm temperaments. The breed is fairly cold tolerant, though during periods of extreme cold the males may suffer some frostbite to their single combs. The hens can become broody and will sometimes raise their own offspring. Hollands also tend to have a slow to moderate growth rate. But this fact must be weighed against their ability to rustle a significant portion of their own food.


Sumatra hens lay an abundant number of white, or lightly tinted, eggs and are considered excellent winter layers. They are also among the best of mothers and broodies. Both adults and chicks are very hardy and easy to raise. Sumatra chickens are active and alert and are especially good at launching themselves vertically to escape dangers.


Threatened chickens of interest to us are Andalusian, Cubalayas, Favorolles, and Lakenvelder.  They are more for egg laying than meat.


Getting what is easiest to acquire from Ol' Mill Hardware is our most likely choice, though.

Bee cam

I love watching the bees.

Tea plants!

I have been pining for tea bushes (Camellia sinensis) for about 3 years, ever since I learned they will grow in our region.  Camellia Forest Nursery in Chapel Hill sells tea bushes, among other gorgeous things, and has instructions for how to make the leaves ready to use on their website.

They aren't, however, open at all times for retail sales.  So, I was delighted yesterday to have remembered that they were open when I was going to have some available money in the bank.

I bought one pink flowering and 3 small leaf tea bushes.  Then, I spent a large part of the afternoon digging up sod.  I finished getting the sod up this morning.

We intend to mulch where most of the shade is in the front of the yard very heavily this year and are buying a trailer to haul it with.  The tea bushes need a semi-shady spot and that means either back in the woods or in the front.  Since the back is REALLY shady, the front seemed to be the best choice.  But, it is full of grass.  And mowing around the tea would be a pain in the buttocks.  And they need soil amendment because our clay isn't their favorite place to live.

So, first, sod removal.

Then, soil amendment with vermiculite, cow manure and "organic garden soil" worked into the native clay, followed by planting the bushes.

Then, mulch.

It has rained here a little bit the last couple of days so the ground was pretty moist, but we are sprinkling them a little anyway to settle their dirt and be sure they have a good start.

I'm just tickled to pieces.