Bees and Carrots

This is a pretty random post, but since I've been random in what I do lately (like today waking at 4 a.m. and deciding that since I can't sleep, I might as well make a gigantic batch of granola), why the heck not talk about two topics that really aren't related?

Today after the epic granola project, I had to do some gardening chores. There is a 600 gallon water tank which acts as a thermal mass for the dome. The water evaporates, so I lugged in the hose to top off the tank. While it was filling, I did some planting.

But to make room, I had to pull the last of our Nantes carrots. This is the first time I've grown carrots in the dome and they did well. Now an Early Girl resides where the carrots were. I added some worm castings and growing mix to welcome the new tomato to the block.

Do you like that dishtowel? Thanks, Pattie!

Just outside the growing dome are the beehives. For a while there I was worried: robber bees were trying to get into the beehives with epic battles just outside each hive. I finally reduced the entrances to about bee width so the guard bees would more easily stop the invaders and it seems to have worked. All is orderly again.

Here is a closeup of the entrance to our top bar hive, now open because the robbers are gone. Most of the beekeepers around here use this type rather than the more common box-type hives called Langstroth.

Those little specks you can see against the cinderblock are flying bees.

Each of the bars, which you can see under the metal roof (which needs a good hit with the hammer), is 1 and 3/8 inches and the bees make their combs along the bars' length. There are no frames, so the bees make the combs just the way they want them. When we harvest honey, I hope this year, we lift out the bars, cut the combs off the bars and crush the combs to extract the honey.

This past fall we left all the honey for the bees because they were a new colony and I wanted them to have enough food for the winter. As of last week they still had some honey left, but friend Sue gave me two bars of honey yesterday. So I switched out some lightweight combs (they had eaten most of the honey) with the heavy, full ones. That should hold them for the couple of weeks we have until the flowers bloom. We have a late spring, yes, we do.

Surrounding the bee yard is an electric fence to keep out bears because the last thing the ladies need after a long, cold winter is for their homes to be invaded again, this time by gigantic furry destroyers. Both Ms. P and I have involuntarily tested the fence and it works just fine. The rocks on top of the hives and the orange straps on the ground keep the wind from blowing off the roofs.

I hope by midsummer to expand to four hives, but that depends on the bees and their queens and if there are enough flowers for them, and who knows what else. 

We will hope that all goes well with plenty of honey for everyone this year!

Green

When we lived in Inland Southern California, our green season was early spring, after the winter rains. California poppies on the hillsides stopped traffic on the I-15 freeway and folks flocked to the desert to check out the wild flowers. 

But those green hillsides and fields of poppies were fleeting, almost cruel in the shortness of their flowery lives. They were here and then, look again, they weren't. And everything turned sere: withered and brown.

Northern New Mexico has a green season, too, as long as it snows enough and rains enough to get everything growing. During late spring through late summer, with help from monsoonal rains (when they come) everything looks fresh, clean and verdant. The green lasts here at bit longer, but come autumn, when the leaves drop, the rains go away, and the snow begins to fall, we have our own brown (and white) time, too, with dead grass crunching underfoot like shredded wheat under that brilliant blue New Mexico sky.

The monsoons aren't due for a couple weeks or so, but there have been a couple good rains to get things started. Here's what it's like right now.

 This is a view from the creek looking toward the house. Lots of good green stuff for the steers to eat.

Number 27 and his bros have been munching away on all the delicacies available to them, which this year doesn't include the cukes in the Growing Dome. Look at Sir Loin lying down in the background. He's ready for a siesta.

Rockier places with poor soil seem to attract wildflowers. The yellow plants are yarrow and the red ones are Indian paintbrush. Here's a closer look:

The big trees are leafing out, too. We're calling this one in the photo below The Bear Tree. Last week Tom was moving some big branches when out of the corner of his eye he saw a large brown object streak by, not 6 feet from where he was standing. Then he saw two bears climb down from this tree and zoom up the rimrock. Tom zoomed in the opposite direction and Ms. Pearl, who was sniffing around in the vicinity, missed the whole thing.

So now this is The Bear Tree. We haven't seen the bears since.

 And Ms. Pearl gets the award for Most Unaware Doggie in the neighborhood.

But I don't think she cares all that much!

Bear With Me

I couldn't resist the title since we are talking about bears here in Northern New Mexico. This year has been a tough year for bears, with berries and acorns less plentiful due to the drought. Bear cubs are in even more danger because they normally have a 50% chance of surviving their first year and the added stressors of not enough water or food is causing local scientists to predict a "lost generation" of bears. Because many of the bears have become "nuisance" bears, which means they are not afraid of humans, more are being shot or euthanized than ever before.

Because there is no natural food, they are looking elsewhere, where people have food, water,  farm animals, bees, and other goodies, like picnic baskets. (I made up the last part.)

Here's a headline in the local paper. It was the big news item for the week: bears have been spotted all over the place, even strolling the river walk in Las Vegas, NM, causing it to be shut down to humans.

Not only have bears been spotted strolling in romantic places, a lady near us shot and killed a bear she caught attacking her goats. Another bear was spotted in a Santa Fe neighborhood and relocated.  I like this photo. The animal control officer and the bear seem to be enjoying a communal moment before the bear has to go.

Beekeepers have also been hit. It's not just in cartoons that bears love honey, a perfect food for all of us. A neighbor's bees were raided so often she had to move them miles away, kind of like a witness relocation program for bees.

Last night I was dumb and left a rotting pear on the porch. The pear was gone and the container holding birdseed was tipped over. Ms. Pearl barked up a ruckus, so that's all that happened. We don't know if it was a bear or a raccoon.

A couple nights ago something snagged an almost empty bag of cat food and pulled it outside through the cat door. The next night I was waiting and found a big old fat raccoon on the porch. He squeezed himself back outside through the little cat door and I allowed Ms. Pearl to make a barking, back-fur raising circuit of the yard. We call it "mohawking" because of the ridge of fur she raises when she's in predator mode.  Mr. Raccoon hasn't been back.

Are there bears here? Yep, but so far all Tom has seen is fresh bear poop. Tom carries a rifle or pistol when he goes wood gathering or hiking and I have a big stick. I guess we'll just have to see what happens.