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!

For Trudy: The Enchanted Forest

Since mom-in-law Trudy can't come visit, I try to give her a sense of what it's like, so she can see, even if we are 951 miles apart.

The weather was in the 70's the other day with a slight breeze, some clouds, but also sunshine. Winter was a faint memory even though just last week it looked like this:

It was gone by the afternoon, though.

So I took a walk to The Enchanted Forest, beyond the grassy expanse you see past the garden wall, across the wooden bridge over the creek, and into the trees.

The day was breezy yet sunny and after checking out the beaver dam I looked at a tree and said, "I think I will sit right down here and have a little nature time."

So I spread out my sweatshirt, sat on the pine needles, closed my eyes and just listened. There is an absence of sounds: no planes, cars, voices, chain saws,  anything mechanical, still no birds. It's too early for them to be singing. No cows mooing, no yaks grunting. Just wind in the pines.

So Trude, here's what I saw to the left:

 

And here is how it looked to my right:

Looking straight ahead:

I thought, "We need to clean up this tree. There are dead branches on the ground and up its trunk." 

And wouldn't a bed be cool out here? But I thought of rodents and discarded that idea. 

A close relative came to visit a couple years ago and he said, "What are you trying to do, make this a park?" 

Well, yeah. Why not? 

A park with random hammocks. Yeah, that would work.