March 7, 2012

Refurbished the soil in the holes around one of the beds with dirt mixed with compost and cow manure. I then planted more spinach, red romaine and swiss chard. Now to see how long it takes to mature and whether we get to eat any before it gets too hot. Crossed fingers.

Evolutionary bees

This pair of videos amaze me.  Well, the second one does.  This first one is just sad.  I wish I could find a video of the entire BBC show they have been taken from.

This one shows European honey bees attacked and killed by Japanese hornets:



This one shows Japanese honeybees DEALING with Japanese hornets:



The bee inspector at bee school last night kept stressing that varroa mites, which have become an epidemic in the US, are a parasite that Indian bees have adapted to.  The mites don't bother Indian bees, but they have been devastation the US populations of European bees.  (Honey bees are not native to the New World.  They were all introduced along with the crops they pollinate.)  And because of the mingling of bees that has become commonplace in commercial beekeeping, bees are introduced to pests and diseases that they aren't prepared to combat with greater frequency now than could happen 300 years ago.

He was slamming "natural beekeeping" as they all seem to.  Since living in boxes is not natural to bees, apparently anything else you do to them is acceptable, including putting pesticides in the hives.

I prefer to treat mites with powdered sugar and risk losing a colony of weak bees, promoting the evolutionary development of varroa resistant honeybees, than to use those poisons.  The mites have begun to become resistant to them so, in my not so humble opinion, using miticides is counterproductive.

There are queens that are called "Hygienic" because they produce bees that have anti-mite behaviors.  Why does anyone think it is stupid (and they do act like we are stupid) to want to keep bees that are mite resistant rather than breeding mites that are pesticide resistant on bees that can't survive with out human interventions?

freeze

Covered the peach tree, which was fully blooming out, and one of the plum trees, which was just starting to bud. Plum looks fine this morning, the peach a little rough. Probably will cover again tonight to be safe.

Peach tree lollipop.

Bees in Brooklyn

Made by Hand / No 3 The Beekeeper from Made by Hand on Vimeo.

Hive placement

The hives aren't in their permanent spot, yet. We will be using pavers I hated in the front yard as a base for them and we're putting them just inside the treeline where we don't mow anyway.


And the general rule of thumb is that you move hives 2 inches or 2 miles. Bees go back to the place they last left. If you move a hive across the yard, they will keep trying to go to the old location. Move it 2 miles away and they learn everything new.


When beekeepers want to move a hive a little bit, they get permission to move the hive somewhere for 6-8 weeks, then bring it back to the place they want to keep it.

It's good to be the Queen

She travels in her own carriage and has attendants who wait on her antennae and foot.

When they arrive in a wire mesh box about the size of a shoe box, she will be in her own little box about the size of a deck of cards. There will be a plug in her box made of candy that is something like a hard marshmallow.

Since the bees in the package aren't related to her, they will have the 3 days it takes for her and them to eat the plug to let her out to get used to each other and for the colony to become accustomed to her pheromones.

Queen pheromones are what keep everyone happy and wanting to come home when they forage.  Bees are the prime example of "When Mama's happy, everybody's happy."

When you look for the queen in the hive, she has a longer abdomen to hold all those egg laying organs, which are present but dormant in the workers.

She spends all her time laying @1,500 eggs a day and workers bring her food and make sure she is comfortable. Comfortable being 93-95ºF all year long.

Water is used to cool the hive in the summer. In the winter, they all crowd together in a ball, dislocate their wings and move their wing muscles as though they were flying to create heat by friction. The queen is in the center of the cluster. The workers circulate in to the center and out to the edge, similar to penguins.

More seeds

In addition to some Cardinal Climber vine (Ipomoea x multifida), cleome and French lavender seeds for the flower beds, we have added more Sow True vegetables:

Beet (Detroit Dark Red)
Beet (Early Wonder)
Parsnip (All American)
Pepper, Chile (Ancho/Poblano)

Hive choice

The white box hives you usually see are Langstroth hives, devised by Rev. L. L. Langstroth in the 1850s. He figured out the exact size of bees space (1/4-3/8 inch) which is the distance needed between combs for bees to be comfortable. Basically, it's the space need for 2 bees to pass each other conveniently. So, Rev. L created a box with removable frames for the combs that allowed for bee space, virtually inventing commercial beekeeping on the spot.

This is VERY convenient for humans. Beekeepers start with a brood box for the queen to begin her family and as the colony expands, beekeepers ad supers above the brood chamber for honey stores. Big supers are called "deeps" because they are. There are also medium and small supers. And some beekeepers use queen excluders to keep her from laying eggs in the comb where the honey is collecting.

Langstroth hives also use a foundation that the bees draw their comb out from. I have read that this tends to make larger cells than bees do on their own, which is great for honey production.

I know of 3 other types of hives that have removable frames.

Warré are stacked but with the empty boxes added to the bottom and they use frames without foundation. There are also Kenyan Top Bar Hives and Tanzanian Long Hives, which don't add to the top and use top bars that the bees draw the comb down from on their own, with the only support that which they create as the build out to the side of the hive.

Skeps, the straw hives that make you think of Winnie-the-Pooh, don't have removable frames so when a beekeeper takes honey, s/he does a lot more damage to the hive than the other ones I just mentioned.

We are using KTBH because we think that it looks the most bee- friendly. There is one person in our area, that we know of, who is using a long hive. I look forward to an opportunity to see hers at some point.

They have flaps on the side with plastic windows, so we can look in without disturbing the girls as much as removing the top would.

And they really are cute. The fact that they have flowers on the ends just cracks me up. We're hoping that the fact that they don't look like Langstroth hives makes them kinda stealth so it won't freak out the neighbors so much.

Here's a thing I learned that amazed me. Blueberries are pollinated by bees, but the openings of the flowers are too small so bumbles make holes in them and honeybees use those holes to get to the nectar and pollen, too.

AND it takes many visits by bees to pollinate cucumbers. Like around a dozen. And no bees, no cukes.

The hive is a big empty box with the bars across the top. The angle of that pointy  bit is cut to be right for the bee space.

Langstroth hives use 4 sided frames that usually have a foundation put on by the beekeeper. They are more supportive of the comb allowing th beekeepers greater ease when checking the hive and they make it easier to harvest the honey.

Seed packets for 2012

We picked up Sow True seed packets, today from Weaver Street Market.  I'm writing them here so I can keep up with the varieties.

Brussels Sprouts (Long Island Improved)
Eggplant (Long Purple)
Okra (Clemson Spineless)
Pea, Snap (Mammoth Melting Sugar)
Pepper, Sweet (Marconi Red)
Squash, Summer (Cocozelle Zucchini)
Squash, Winter (Spaghetti)

We already had some from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange:

Bean, Fava (Broad Windsor)
Broccoli (De Cicco)
Broccoli (Umpqua)
Cauliflower, Fall (Snowball, Self - Blanching)
Greens (Arugula)
Greens (Even' Star Winter Arugula)
Kale (Lacinato/Dinosaur)
Lettuce, Romaine (Rouge d'Hiver / Winter Red)
Spinach (Bloomsdale)
Tomato (Cherokee Purple)
Tomato (German Johnson)

And  Burpee Organic:
Basil (Sweet)
Broccoli (DiCiccio)
Cantaloupe (Honey Rock)
Cilantro
Pea (Little Marvel)
Swiss Chard (Ruby Red)

And we have some Roma tomato seeds Chuck saved and fermented to give a try this year.

I expect the Sweet 100 grape tomatoes to volunteer in the side bed again, too.

March 2nd

Pretty much this is about what is growing in the beds right now...slow as usual.

Yes, Virginia, those are brussel sprouts. We have about four to five plants that finally started to sprout, thanks to Kitty encouraging my patience.

If the bees were here, they might be digging on the arugala flowers. Looks like our bee packages will be here before the end of this month.

Broccoli is doing fine, a little spindly but sweet and tasty.

Spinach is coming along slow but sure.

And of course the three types of kale have been very productive.