One Sunny Acre

Interesting Facts and Tidbits about the Honey Bee

2011-08-10T09:43:00.000-07:00

Today my husband and I are doing a lesson on honey bees for our kids at church. We have a basic lesson and lots of pictures to show them and then we're going to show them our beekeeping equipment, serve them some peanut butter (and honey) popcorn for a snack, have them color a huge honey bee mural and teach them lots of things they probably never knew about this amazing little creature in hopes that they will have a newfound respect for the humble little honey bee.

I had planned to do a honey tasting, but haven't been able to take any honey off of my bees this year because of slow build-up after losing my queen early. The merger I did with the small swarm is doing great though and I'm going to start feeding them soon for winter and just hope to have a better year in 2012.

I've put together a collection of fun facts about honey bees from various sources that I think you all might enjoy as well. (I still have internet for a couple more days and I'm glad I get to post this one for you!)

Honey Bee Fun Facts

Honeybees are not native to the USA. They are European in origin, and were brought to North America by the early settlers. Solitary, native, wild bees did all the pollinating prior to that.

Honeybees are responsible for pollinating approximately 80% of all fruit, vegetable and seed crops in the U.S., especially big commercial crops.

Einstein postulated “"If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live.”

Bees collect 66 lbs of pollen per year, per hive. Pollen is the male germ cells produced by all flowering plants for fertilization and plant embryo formation. The Honeybee uses pollen as a food. Pollen is one of the richest and purest natural foods, consisting of up to 35% protein, 10% sugars, as well as carbohydrates, enzymes, vitamins and minerals.

Pollen comes in different colors and a beekeeper can guess which flowers the bees have been visiting based on the colors of pollen packed in the cells.

A colony of bees consists of 20,000-80,000 honeybees and one queen. Worker honey bees are female, live for about 6 weeks and do all the work.

Worker bees will live for 4 to 9 months during the winter when they have no foraging to do. They literally work themselves to death in the summer.

Honeybees never sleep!

The average worker bee produces about 1/12th teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.

A honey bee visits 50 to 100 flowers during a collection trip.

To make one pound of honey, the bees in the colony must visit 2 million flowers, fly over 55,000 miles and will be the lifetime work of approximately 300 worker bees.

Male bees, called drones, are mostly useless and are kicked out of the hive in the fall and left to die so that the colony won’t have to feed them through the winter.

Honeybees will usually travel approximately 3 miles from their hive, but can go as far as 6 miles.

The bee's brain is oval in shape and only about the size of a sesame seed, yet it has remarkable capacity to learn and remember things and is able to make complex calculations on distance travelled and foraging efficiency.

In its flight, a honey bee uses the sun's compass position, gravitational field direction, and the UV polarization pattern to determine its direction. Along the way, a honey bee also memorizes any geographical landmarks.

Worker bees will scout for good nectar sources and when they’ve found some, they come back to the hive and communicate its location to the others using one of two complex dances, the waggle dance or the round dance, depending on how close by it is. They also give the others a taste of the nectar so they will know which flower they are looking for.

Honey bees will usually work only one type of flower at a time until it runs out, then they move on to another. Because of this, beekeepers can take honey off of the hive after that particular “honey flow” has ended and can isolate very different tasting varieties of honey.

The color and taste of honey will depend on the flower it was collected from. It can be very light and floral or very dark and strong flavored or anything in between.

Honeybees are the only insect that produces food for humans.

Out of 20,000 species of bees, only 4 make honey.

Honey is the ONLY food that includes all the substances necessary to sustain life, including water.

Honey never spoils. It has been found in Egyptian tombs and dated to be around 2000-3000 years old and it was STILL edible.

Honey is used by the bees for food all year round. The bees make honey from the nectar they collect from flowering trees and plants. Honey is an easily digestible, pure food. Honey is hygroscopic (attracts moisture, like salt does) and has antibacterial qualities. Honey is a good salve to apply to burns. Eating raw, local honey can fend off allergies.

A typical beehive can make up to 400 pounds of honey per year. Beekeepers only take off the excess and must leave each hive with at least 60 to 70 pounds of honey to make it through winter.

Honey bees survive winter by clustering into a tight group for warmth and eat off of the honey they have stored from all their work in spring and summer.

Each honey bee colony has a unique scent for members’ identification. That’s why you can place many hives in a row next to each other. The worker bees know which hive is theirs based on the scent and also their ability to memorize location.

Honey bees are true patriots. Worker bees on guard duty will defend their hive to the death.

The honey bee is the only bee that dies after using its stinger. The tip of the stinger is barbed like a fishing hook and is torn from the bee’s body as it tries to fly away.

Contrary to popular misconception, honeybees are not aggressive by nature, and will not sting unless protecting their hive from an intruder or if they are unduly provoked (or stepped on!)

Unless you are one of a small percentage of people who are highly allergic to bees, it is estimated that about 1100 honey bee stings are required to be fatal.

Bee venom therapy—the practice of deliberately applying a sting to a person’s skin -- is widely practiced overseas and by some people in the US to address health problems such as arthritis, neuralgia, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and even MS.

There have been occasions in history where honey bees were used as a weapon of warfare. Some have thrown hives at their enemies like missiles or left them as traps. Others have set out poison honey as bait, utilizing an invading army’s tendency to loot and pillage. The advancing troops would eat the honey and become very sick and delirious and therefore easy to defeat!

*****

Oh, there is so much more I could add to this list and many more amazing things I'm sure mankind will continue to learn about the honey bee. I didn't include here much about the intricate order of business within the hive. My husband had already done a basic lesson and my job was to hunt up "fun facts" and I think I got a little carried away. Ha.

Is it not in the heart of every beekeeper to want to encourage everyone to have an appreciation and admiration for our wonderful bees? I think the honey bee is an awesome testimony to the creative hand of God!

This post is linked to the Homestead Barn Hop #23.

Taking a Sabbatical

2011-08-07T19:18:00.000-07:00

After some discussion with my husband, we've decided to do something akin to Dave Ramsey's debt diet and therefore we will be getting rid of our $50/month cable Internet connection this week along with a few other things we think we can live without. Let me say though, it's going to be hard to live without the Internet and email! (What will I do without Google?)

It's hard enough starting out as a young family, but this economy has really been the pits. We have a little bit of consumer debt that we want to go ahead knock out while we're in a good position to do so, hopefully leaving us with less worries hanging over our head if things should go south. We also have some costly repairs we need to get done on the house that we'd like to save up for and pay in cash. It just seems like the most pragmatic thing to do and we both faintly remember what life was like before the computer took such precedence and we're pretty sure we'll survive. ;)

Also, considering how much I will really be able to get done around here without any time distractions, all in all, it's shaping up to look like a really good idea and I think it's something that God could bless in our lives.

So this will be my last post for awhile... I may try to do an occasional update from the library if I get a chance and I will still check my email there from time to time.

It's going to feel pretty weird, living "unplugged" after all this time. I might even go through a little withdrawal. We're keeping the electricity on, so don't worry--I'm not going completely Amish. Ha.

I'm really going to miss all of my blogging friends. A special thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read my ramblings and leave such nice comments. I've really enjoyed the feeling of community and chatting about our shared interests. Take care, everybody!

Prep Work For Canning

2011-08-02T13:19:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been able to confirm that some of my paste tomatoes have contracted Early Blight and I'm going to have to yank them out of there. I'll be making a trip over to Ohio to purchase some additional canning tomatoes since I can get them for $5.00 a bushel there. Really, I'm not sure why I take up so much garden space on tomatoes since it's easier to buy them all at once. I do have certain varieties that I prefer, but that's just me being stubborn I guess.

Since I don't have enough paste tomatoes to can a full load right now, I've been washing, coring and quartering them as they ripen, then sticking them in the freezer until I'm ready. This will speed things up considerably when I go to can. All I will have to do is dump the frozen paste tomatoes into a big pot and cook them down (no need to remove the skins on paste tomatoes because you'll run it through a sieve later.) This method also works well for your diced tomatoes too, because freezing the tomato whole will cause the skins to slip off nicely and in my opinion this is a little easier than blanching them in small batches.

I almost have enough banana peppers to make my Hot Pepper Mustard. Oh, it's so good! We are addicted to it and go through it quickly, using it to glaze a ham, on sandwiches or as a dipping mustard with our homemade venison summer sausage. I like to make up a lot of half-pints to give as Christmas gifts too.

This prep-work also makes it so quick and easy to whip up a batch of mustard. I pre-measure my four quarts of chopped peppers in to one-gallon Ziploc bags.

While I'm on the subject of hot peppers, let me give you a few words of wisdom on chopping them up, if you've never done it before. These are things I learned the hard way!

1) Always wear gloves. Be very careful of what you touch with the gloves (i.e. the handles on the sink) and wash those things off thoroughly before you go back later and touch them with bare hands. There is nothing worse than rubbing your eyes with so much as a hint of hot pepper oil on your fingers. It hurt so badly I thought my contact lens was going to melt into my eyeball!

2) This was a weird one I found out the hard way too. All those hot pepper seeds and veins you toss into the sink will give off caustic vapors when you go to spray the sink down with water. Dispose of them all before you go to rinse out the sink. The vapors off of them will burn your eyes and lungs. It's horrible!

Other than that, I love hot peppers. :)

Now guess what I have planned for these glossy green beauties...

I am going to make homemade jalapeno poppers! These are Mucho Nacho Jalapeno peppers. This was the sole reason I grew them. I also have another recipe for stuffing them and wrapping them with bacon then cooking them on the grill. The poppers can be made up ahead of time and stored in the freezer to enjoy later. I will be preserving most of them this way. I'll share those recipes too as I make them and have pictures. :)

We purchased a 20 pound propane tank this week for my canning so I wouldn't run out. I'm still trying to find the correct adapter/hose for my Coleman camp stove, but I think I can buy extra parts to make the one I have work. I bought the small canisters of propane for it last year and that is not very economical.

This post is linked to Barn Hop #22

Starting the 3in30 Challenge

2011-08-01T17:40:00.000-07:00

I've decided that I NEED to do the 3in30 Challenge. It may be my only hope. ;)

I first heard about it over at Sparing Change. Basically, it is a monthly challenge designed to motivate you to accomplish your goals. I think the added accountability will do me good!

Those of you who know me personally or have followed my blog for some time have probably come to notice that I tend to lack follow-through sometimes. I too frequently daydream about things I want to do, start projects, buy the materials for them, then lose them by the wayside. I have a detailed, very itemized to-do list on my fridge that has been there for a few months now and I've only managed to cross off nine out of about fifty items. Sad! And frustrating. I pass by and look at things everyday and it drives me nuts that I can't seem to get around to accomplishing them.

Remember the antique armoire my mother-in-law gave me that I was going to convert into extra kitchen storage? I bought six cans of spray paint to do it, but it's still collecting dust out in the garage. In my defense, I did finish painting the free desk I got from the plant and it is in use as my computer desk now.

The roll-out nest of my dreams, designed to make egg-collecting and egg-washing easier... There is a stack of plywood out in the garage designated for that project. At this time though, I decided that what I really need is a whole new chicken coop and to kick the chickens out of my little barn so that it can house some goats in the winter. Add it to the list!

Here's one that makes me hang my head in shame. My mother-in-law commissioned me to make seven sets of photo coasters with pictures of my late father-in-law's famous roses so she could give them to friends and family as a memorial. I was half way done with this one then for some reason put it all into a basket and later found it buried when I went to clean out my craft room.

Speaking of my craft room, I did finally get it all cleaned out, shampooed the carpet, put in lots of storage cabinets and a table for workspace. I still have to sort through the boxes of my craft junk, throw out or give away some of it and sort it into the drawers. Will this ever come to pass so that I can start using and enjoying my own special space set aside just for me?

If my family were depending on me for soap, they would all be very dirty and stinky right now. For months I have been collecting the supplies. The only thing I yet lack is a sturdy plastic pitcher for mixing lye. What is stopping me from running to Walmart and buying a $3.00 plastic pitcher? I don't know, but I'm sure it's purely psychological. I will make soap sometime before I die...

My husband and I started building my new super-duty hive stand for my bees about one month ago and although it has been very hot and also I was quite sick and useless for two whole weeks, I think that one might actually get done here soon. I also must confess that I still have frames left over from this winter that still need to be assembled. Good thing my bees didn't swarm, huh. :P

So you see what I am up against?

Hello. I am the President of the Procrastinator's Anonymous Club. Eventually I will get around to chartering the club so that you can join too if you want or have time to.

Well, I had a really hard time deciding on my three goals for the month of August. Naturally, I want to start out simple and not completely overwhelm myself so that they can be attainable. I'd sure hate to totally tank and scare myself off track on the first round.

By the end of August, I am going to:

1) Sort and back up to Kodak online at least one month's worth of digital pictures. Since I got my new camera for Christmas, a Pentax k-x DSLR, I take a lot more pictures than I used to. I'd hate to lose them if my computer ever blew up!

2) Finish sorting my craft room, as mentioned above.

3) Take my poor child to the playground at least once a week.

In future monthly challenges, I plan to try to work on an assortment of to-do's, farm projects, fun things I've meant to learn to do and also an occasional aspect of self-improvement.

I do tend to do at least those things that I really want to do. My garden is probably the one area of my life that I faithfully keep up with. Well, that and my blog.

Wish me luck! And if you're feeling the need for a little encouragement to tackle some goals you've tentatively set for your life, be sure to go check out the 3in30 Challenge today.

Weekly Harvest Weigh-In #7

2011-08-01T12:32:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to get a little bit of everything from the garden now, except for the beans and okra which I am still waiting on, and of course the pumpkins/melons.

I've been up to my eyeballs in summer squash and have to pick it everyday. It seems to be a little easier to give it away when you get to them while they're still small and tender! I've frozen several batches of summer squash/zucchini for soups and Summer Squash Casserole to enjoy this winter. The casserole is one of my all-time favorite recipes and I'll be sure to post that for you all the next time I make it. It's really good!

Here's my numbers for this week:

Yellow Squash - 7.24 lb.
Zucchini - 1.42 lb.
Asst. Paste Tomatoes - 4.59 lb.
Asst. Slicing Tomatoes - 4.72 lb.
Asst. Cherry/Plum Tomatoes - 2.36 lb.
Eggplant - 0.66 lb.
Asst. Peppers - 4.65 lb.
Fennel Bulbs - 0.86 lb.
Blackberries - 1.98 lb.
Cucumbers - 0.84 lb.

Total - 29.32 pounds of produce

Year-to-Date - 87.82 pounds

Some of this week's colorful harvest, minus all the summer squash which I gave away!

I predict next week's numbers will be pretty substantial. The garden is really starting to hit its full stride now. I'm gearing up for canning as we speak and waiting for my 20# propane tank adapter to come in the mail so I can hook up my Coleman camp stove and get down to business. I'll keep updates on that in the weeks to come as well and share some of my favorite recipes as I go.

Please take some time to leave me a comment and/or link and show us how your garden is doing! :)

Definitely One of Us

2011-07-28T20:21:00.000-07:00

This cat was definitely the right one for us. She was meant to be. My daughter only wanted a solid white kitten. We went to the shelter and low and behold--they had this one white kitten.

She's very mellow. She loves to be loved on. She wants to purr and make dough on you all day long, if you'd let her.

She is quirky and odd. Just like the rest of us!

Were having a little trouble getting her litter box trained. I think she needs dewormed. Maybe that will help.

The dog and the cat are getting along famously. In less than two weeks, they were already acclimated to each other. They aren't quite to the point that they'll share a sunbeam together yet, but they can pass within a yard of each other without incident.

I have always been very much a dog person.

But I love this cat! :)

Weekly Harvest Weigh-In #6

2011-07-26T15:22:00.000-07:00

Wow, the dog days of summer are here--with a vengeance! This heat along with some frequent showers we've been getting has suddenly turned my garden into an impenetrable jungle. Well, the squash patch, mostly.

I'm still trying to get over this bronchitis and I'm so far behind on things right now. At least I am finally getting some sleep though! I've managed to go outside in the cool of the evening and pull a few weeds here and there, but it's really going to take some work to get things back under control.

I missed yesterday's weigh-in, so I'm going to go ahead and post mine today.

Here's a basketful of summer goodness I brought in the other day...

I've got a little bit of mostly everything ripening now and suddenly I am up to my ears in summer squash and zucchini (although I thought I was being conservative, only planting four mounds).

My suspicions have been confirmed--some of my tomatoes are diseased, although I still have to figure out with what. It is mostly the Costoluto Genovese. I noticed they had problems with their fruit last year too, but I blamed it on how badly I had crowded them. Some of them have been exhibiting small, rotting spots on the fruit that later turn to a fuzzy, pink fungus/mold sometime after being picked. As an heirloom O/P variety, they seem to be particularly unsuited to our humid West Virginia summers, so I won't be growing them again. I will still grow the San Marzano. They are doing great. Some of my other tomato plants have had some leaf curl on the bottom leaves that has now begun yellowing and dying off. I'll have to take some pics and seek the advice of my knowledgeable friends over on TEG.

I did get to enjoy my first mouthwatering tomato sandwich of the season today. Although it's hard for me to claim a favorite tomato, those Black Krims are certainly in my top 3. Such a good looking and flavorful tomato!

Here's my numbers for the week:

Blackberries - 0.70 lb.
Strawberries – 2.06 lb.
Yellow squash – 3.22 lb.
Zucchini – 3.37 lb.
Garlic – 0.20 lb.
Pole Beans – 0.07 lb.
Asst. Tomatoes – 8.72 lb.

Total: 18.34 pounds of produce

I've decided to quit using the link-up tool since this thing never really took off. It was a bit time consuming anyway. But you are still welcome to leave a link to your weekly harvest in the comments section. I'll be glad to drop by and see how things went! :)

Linking this post to:

Go check 'em out! :)

Mockingbird Rituals

2011-07-20T18:09:00.000-07:00

For the past couple of weeks, this mockingbird has been faithfully showing up around 7pm each evening, perching himself on top of the electric pole in our backyard. He has been singing his little heart out for us with every song he knows and we've really enjoyed him. I don't know why, but he will occasionally hop up into the air a few feet. He seems to be trying to get somebody's attention!

Weekly Harvest Weigh-In #5

2011-07-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

A few recent soaking rains and some comfortably warm sunshine have really brought on a surge of growth in my garden this week. I'm always amazed at how quickly a squash vine can cover ground. It's nice to see things greening up and thriving finally after such a rough start to the season.

My harvest is just beginning to steadily trickle in now and before long I will be consumed with canning. I had my pressure canner inspected last Monday and we are all set to go.

I am really pleased with myself for getting the garden thoroughly mulched this year. The weeds are not winning the war this time around. I've been a bit under the weather since last Tuesday with a ragweed allergy that has made its way into my chest, causing me much coughing and loss of sleep, but fortunately I've not had to worry about the weeds getting ahead of me.

Hopefully I will be over this miserable cough soon and back to normal. I had planned to finish my new hive stand this past weekend, but I really didn't have the energy to mess with it. It's half done now, with the posts leveled and set. It's going to be really sturdy and will keep the ants out of my bee boxes. I can't wait to show it to you. (And I can't wait to bring my girls back home!)

Here's a quick peek at how the garden is growing this week:

My kitchen herb/flower garden is filling out. I've managed to keep most of it weeded. The large clump of grass in the middle is lemongrass. It smells so yummy, like Fruit Loops!

The heirloom "greasy" pole beans are starting to make their way up the tee-pees. The one on the right has started blooming very early compared to all the others -- possibly a new strain worth saving seed from.

Overview of most of the garden, looking to the north.

I'll have some crookneck squash to harvest and enjoy this week!

Overview of the garden, looking toward the south. I have a lot more squash and melons than what you can see on the right. They didn't all fit in the picture.

My Costoluto Genovese tomatoes and most of the other varieties I planted are loaded and will be ripening soon.

The Giant Marconi peppers are filling out. Now I'm just waiting on them to turn red.

This year's attempt at no-dig potatoes. You can watch a video on the method I used here.

Here's all of my onions after curing and prepping them for storage.

My weigh-in numbers for this week are as follows:

Red onions - 10.44 lbs.
Yellow onions - 22.84 lbs.
Ozark Beauty everbearing strawberries - 1.75 lbs. (about a pint)
Thornless blackberries - 1.41 lb.
Santa Fe hot peppers - 1.23 lb.
2 Genovese Costoluto tomatoes - 1.33 lbs.
(Plus a handful of Supersweet 100 cherry tomatoes that didn't make it inside to be weighed. ;)

This week's total harvest weigh-in - 39 lbs.

I've decided to record all of my measurements in pounds just to keep it uniform and so I can keep a running total.

Ok, your turn!
(Special thanks to Meg at Sparing Change for telling me about InLinkz free linky tool!)

This Weigh-In will be open until midnight EST on Sunday, July 24th. All that is required is that your post be current and relevant to edible gardening that you have invested your own time and sweat equity in. Be sure to link to your specific gardening post and NOT your blog's main page. Please provide a link within your post to the current Weigh-In so that others can join in. You are welcome to grab the Harvest Weigh-In banner above and use it to link back here. This is a family friendly site and I reserve the right to remove any links that are inappropriate, irrelevant or otherwise deemed spam.

***Weighing in is optional; you are still welcome to link up a post about your garden!

If you don't have anything to weigh-in for this week, that's OK!***

Check back with us every Monday for the next week's Harvest Weigh-In! Take some time to visit other gardeners' blog posts below that may be of interest to you. Happy gardening!

Rumpelstiltskin, the Tomato

2011-07-14T13:07:00.000-07:00

Not exactly mouthwatering...

Not counting a handful of Sweet 100 Cherry tomatoes I've gotten so far, this would be my first tomato of the season. I have to admit, I am feeling a little bit disappointed!

Costoluto Genovese are supposed to be fluted, but this one is cat-faced on top of that and is unusually big for a Costoluto Genovese. It weighed 0.77 lb.

That is one UGLY tomato, if I do say so myself!

Two New Additions

2011-07-12T20:51:00.000-07:00

We've had two new arrivals to our homestead this week and I thought you might like to meet them. They have brought along a lot of excitement with them, because other than a multitude of chickens, it's rare that we get any new animals.

Meet Cloud.

She is a 3-year-old Nubian doe we took in, rather out of impulse. She needed a new home and although it may only be a temporary arrangement, we're becoming quickly attached to her. She has such a sweet personality and loves to be around people. She is sterile, unable to be bred, so she really has no serviceable value other than to be someones pet or brush-eater.

Ava sharing her blackberries with Cloud.

I've been reading up on goats for some time now and we were already planning to get either a pair of Nigerian Dwarfs or Mini-Nubians next spring. Right now we don't have proper goat accommodations. Our fencing is inadequate (as she has already proven), so we've had to tether her for the meantime. I am also going to have to build her a summer shelter.

More please!

And a little consolatory pat on the nose when they're all gone.

I realize that goats need to have another goat to keep them company, but it was under unusual circumstances that she came to live with us. I am hoping that the chickens and the sight of the neighbor's cows and horses in the adjoining pasture will be enough to keep her company for now.

And this is Snow White Angel, my daughter's new kitten.

Ava came up with the name herself months ago when she began to dream of having her own kitten and of course it had to be pure white. Every time we'd ask her what she would like for her birthday, this was her answer. A few days before her birthday, I finally caved in and agreed to get her a kitten.

The hunt for the perfect kitten went on for a couple of weeks. I tried to talk her into taking one of a few that were mostly white, partly calico. But nothing else would suit her. She had to be white!

Fortunately, our first visit to the animal shelter turned up a sweet little girl kitten, pure white with blue eyes. She has a nice, playful and cuddly personality. Not evil like some other cats I know. Ha.

Cuddling buddies.

We had to wait a week before we could bring her home. Our animal shelter takes your adoption fee and makes an appointment with the vet for your new pet to be spayed or neutered first before they'll release them to you. I think this is great policy. You have to feel so bad for all the little animals in the shelters that no one wants. It's hard to pick just one. I used to have a bumper sticker from Pit Bull Rescue Central that said "Don't litter, spay or neuter!" Shelter animals make great pets and you'd be surprised how many pure breeds end up there.

I've not really been much of a cat person before, but this kitty is really growing on me. I love to let her curl up in the hollow of my neck and listen to her peaceful purring. She purrs all the time!

We are slowly introducing her to our dog, Boogie. She used to live with several cats years ago and did just fine, but in recent years she has really taken an increased interest in them. I'm sure when the excitement wears off, they'll get along great. For now, Snow White Angel (gotta think of a nickname for this kitty) has full run of the playroom. We take turns letting the dog out and letting her run around the house for awhile.

Well, with the new goat especially, it is really starting to feel like a farm around here!

This post is linked up with the Homestead Barn Hop, over at Homestead Revival.

A great site--go check 'em out! :)

Weekly Harvest Weigh-In #4

2011-07-11T20:59:00.000-07:00

I apologize for getting this week's weigh-in out so late in the evening. We just barely made it! I've had a really busy day. I'll tell you more about our new additions tomorrow... ;)

Things are finally starting to pick up in the garden. I haven't weighed my onions yet because they are still in the process of drying, but I know I've got plenty for the whole year through. I am going to use the smaller ones in my canning, store the nice big ones, and dehydrate any others that might not store well.

Here's the haul:

Onions everywhere! I was beginning to run out of places to put them.

I like to lay mine out in a single layer on top of wire for good circulation. I don't cut off the tops or roots until they are completely dry because this seems to help prevent rotting by not injuring the bulb until it is completely sealed off. I save up citrus bags to store them in, hanging them up in a dry, room temperature place that gets good air circulation, like under the stairwell in the basement.

I got my first tomatoes of the season today! Nothing to brag about really, just two juicy Sweet 100 Cherry tomatoes. I had grabbed the salt shaker and ate them before I thought to weigh them. It wouldn't have amounted to much anyway.

We've had a lot of rain and heat lately and the vines of my squash and other melons have really taken off. I spotted some baby Eight-Ball Zucchini and baby Yellow Crookneck Squash today. I can't wait to grill up some of those babies!

We had another big storm this afternoon, with pounding rain and high winds. This one came in from the north and blew everything over to the opposite direction from what it did last week. It even blew over the tops of my beets!

I hope my peppers won't take it too hard. I've got some huge Giant Red Marconi peppers that are very close to harvest and they are really top-heavy. I think I'm going to have to cage them.

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OK, your turn!

This Weigh-In will be open until midnight EST on Sunday, July 17th. All that is required is that your post be current and relevant to edible gardening that you have invested your own time and sweat equity in. Be sure to link to your specific gardening post and NOT your blog's main page. Please provide a link within your post to the current Weigh-In so that others can join in. You are welcome to grab the Harvest Weigh-In banner above and use it to link back here. This is a family friendly site and I reserve the right to remove any links that are inappropriate, irrelevant or otherwise deemed spam.

***Weighing in is optional; you are still welcome to link up a post about your garden! If you don't have anything to weigh-in for this week, that's OK!***

Depending on how this week's weigh-in goes, I'll have to decide whether or not to keep this going once my free trial of Linky Tools is up. I hope you will want to participate! It's really easy to join in.

Take some time to visit other gardeners' blog posts below that may be of interest to you. Happy gardening!

Heavy Downpour

2011-07-08T15:14:00.000-07:00

I've been out of the house a lot this week and it feels odd to not have posted anything before now.

We finally got some rain today. Quite a lot of it, in fact. The forecast said scattered thunderstorms, and usually it's hit or miss around here, so I went ahead and watered some of my garden last night. That turned out to be very unnecessary.

The sound of the rain pounding the roof in waves and the frequency of the lightening had me wondering if maybe we weren't in line for a tornado. I can't remember the last time I saw it rain so hard.

Paranoid or not, it was a good thing I went down to the basement. At least I was there to mitigate the flooding!

Rain water coming in like a river!

We've had trouble with drainage at the back of our house before, but it has never come in like this. I pulled off the cap on the drain outside the back door. Usually that is enough to keep it out of the basement. It gets plugged with debris sometimes.

But it didn't help much with the way the rain was coming down today. I think the gutter must be plugged again. My husband already cleaned them out once this spring. We don't even have any trees near the house. Oh the joys of homeownership!

The rain was also coming in around the ventilation pipe for the furnace and also through the PVC conduit that runs the electric lines into the breaker box. I've not seen it do that before!

The basement is actually very well built and was one of the things that sold us on this house. My neighbor who used to own this old farmhouse jacked the whole house up on I-beams and built it himself. The concrete is carefully sloped to direct all water to this center drain.

Drain hole in center of basement.

It wasn't going down fast enough, so I had to pull the cap from this one as well.

I think what we'll have to do is rent a ditch-witch and put in some french drains to run the water down and over the hill. We are on top of a hill, but the backyard where they dug out the basement has just a tiny slope back toward the house. The installed drains aren't working well enough. We could also use some new gutters, but we've been trying to get by with the current ones until we're ready to put on a new metal roof.

Add it to the list! It's a long list...

Linking up with "F is for Friday" over at I am woman, hear me nurture.

Weekly Harvest Weigh-In #3

2011-07-05T15:23:00.000-07:00

This week I actually have something to weigh-in! I harvested all of my onions this week and they are currently hanging in the shed to cure. I won't be able to weigh them all until the tops have been removed, but the few I've already used this week amounted to 0.29 lbs. of red onion, 0.40 lbs. of yellow onion and also 0.47 lbs. of fennel which I used to make a crockpot full of yummy rabbit stew. I'll post that recipe later this week when I get time. :)

My peppers are coming along nicely and I'll have a few of those to harvest later in the week. The tomatoes are starting to turn that pale color just before they turn red...so anytime now! I have some renegade chickens that I'll have to deal with before they terrorize my garden. I haven't been able to get anyone to buy them, so it looks like they may be headed for freezer camp.

So how has your garden done this week?

This Weigh-In will be open until midnight EST on Sunday, July 10th. All that is required is that your post be current and relevant to edible gardening that you have invested your own time and sweat equity in. Be sure to link to your specific gardening post and NOT your blog's main page. Please provide a link within your post to the current Weigh-In so that others can join in. You are welcome to grab the Harvest Weigh-In banner above and use it to link back here. This is a family friendly site and I reserve the right to remove any links that are inappropriate, irrelevant or otherwise deemed spam.

***Weighing in is optional; you are still welcome to link up a post about your garden! If you don't have anything to weigh-in for this week, that's OK!***

Check back with us every Monday for the next week's Harvest Weigh-In! Take some time to visit other gardeners' blog posts below that may be of interest to you. Happy gardening!

Independence Day

2011-07-03T12:26:00.000-07:00

I hope you all have a wonderful Fourth of July celebration tomorrow with your families. This is my favorite holiday and it is such a big day in my hometown with many special events to look forward to.

I am so thankful for the freedoms that we enjoy in this country. So many places in the world today are oppressed, but we are so blessed! I want to say that I am especially thankful to each and every service member who has given so much for this great nation and appreciate all that you folks do to keep this nation free. God bless our troops and God bless the USA!

This week's Harvest Weigh-In will be delayed until Tuesday since I will be out spending time with my family all day tomorrow. I actually have something to weigh this time!

Funny

2011-07-01T14:58:00.000-07:00

Late last night, in the cool of the evening, my husband and I were unloading another round of manure from the livestock market. I had commented on how wonderfully crumbly and nearly composted this last load had been. Then he said the funniest thing to me...

"I used to think this was just a phase you were going through."

LOL -- sorry my love, but you have a lifetime of hauling manure for me to look forward to!

Hopefully my other more endearing, redeeming qualities as a wife are enough to compensate for this.

(Vintage image courtesy of http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ )

Weekly Harvest Weigh-In #2

2011-06-27T11:52:00.000-07:00

So is it just me or has this been the weirdest year for gardening, weather-wise? The past two days have barely gotten up to 65 degrees and I was forced to break out my thermal pajamas. It's nearly July! Mid-eighties are our norm this time of year.

It seems that we're going to be shooting back up to the 90's again this week with lots of severe thunderstorms in the forecast. Lots of rain. Perfect conditions for various plant diseases to pop up. I'll be keeping a close eye on my cucurbits. And I'm really glad that I forced myself to not crowd the tomatoes this year. Good air circulation should keep a lot of those tomato problems at bay.

I should be getting my first ripe tomatoes here pretty soon. Our friend digitS' from TEG showed us this week an interesting photo story of how long it takes a Big Beef tomato to grow from a bud to a ripe tomato. It's not just my imagination (compounded by the mouthwatering anticipation) -- it really does take forever!

So far all I have been able to harvest from my garden is about five gallons of strawberries, a few green onions for supper here and there and maybe a handful of blackberries. (These thornless ones I have come on very gradually. It's a real effort to beat the birds and the kiddo to them!)

So onto this week's weigh-in...

This Weigh-In will be open until midnight on Sunday, July 3rd. All that is required is that your post be current and relevant to edible gardening that you have invested your own time and sweat equity in. Be sure to link to your specific gardening post and NOT your blog's main page. Please provide a link within your post to the current Weigh-In so that others can join in (this page.) You are welcome to grab the Harvest Weigh-In banner above and use it to link back here. This is a family friendly site and I reserve the right to remove any links that are inappropriate, irrelevant or otherwise deemed spam.

***Weighing in is optional; you are still welcome to link up a post about your garden!
If you don't have anything to weigh-in for this week, that's OK!***

Check back with us every Monday for the next week's Harvest Weigh-In! Take some time to visit other gardeners' blog posts below that may be of interest to you. Happy gardening!

Three Things I Learned This Week

2011-06-24T12:31:00.000-07:00

Three things I learned this week, in the garden...

1) Hummingbirds love this pink honeysuckle vine. (I don't remember seeing any on it last year?)

2) Scalding weeds is easier than pulling them. I kept refilling the tea kettle and as it came to a boil, just dumped it on them!

3) It's easy to grow butterflies in a bucket! These are Black Swallowtail caterpillars that I found on my black anise and dill. We give them fresh greens everyday. They just eat and grow!

Then they crawl up the side of the little bucket and make their chrysalis. If they attach to a green stem (or a green dot on a bucket...ha) the chrysalis will be green.

If they attach to something dark, like this brown plastic honey bee queen excluder that I used for a lid, their chrysalis will then be brown. Cool camouflage, huh? :)

Linking up with the Barn Hop #18 over at Homestead Revival. Go check 'em out!

A New Favorite

2011-06-21T19:21:00.000-07:00

My new favorite -- Tetra Ruffled tall cutting snapdragons.
They last over a week in the vase!
I can't believe these grew from such a teeny tiny little seed.

And my old standbys -- old fashioned hollyhocks.
I've lost track of how many colors I have now.
It's just not summer until the hollyhocks bloom. :)

Weekly Harvest Weigh-In #1

2011-06-20T20:04:00.000-07:00

I often joke with my husband that while he may be the breadwinner in our household, I'm the veggie winner. And eggs and poultry too, but really that is more of a joint effort...

After talking with some of my gardening friends on The Easy Garden, I've decided that this summer I am going to start faithfully weighing and logging what I grow. My garden produces abundantly and goes a long way toward feeding my family throughout the whole year. I already track all of my egg and meat bird production and I am very curious to see just how much my effort in the garden is really paying off.

If you love to grow your own fruit and veggies, I'm going to encourage you to do the same! I will be hosting a weekly Harvest Weigh-In here at One Sunny Acre where you can share with us your garden's progress and how much you have harvested throughout the week. Whether you choose to keep a spreadsheet on the computer or simply jot it down in a small notebook, I invite you to come by every Monday and link up here to a blog post you have written for that week's harvest.

If you don't have a blog already, it's easy to get one started. I use Blogger. Or if you prefer, you may also choose to weigh-in by simply posting a comment below.

Any recent blog post about your own edible gardening efforts will qualify for the Harvest Weigh-In. Show us your garden's progress. Show us pictures of your fresh produce. Show us those colorful canning jars all in a row. Show us your herb garden. If you grow it to feed your family, be it fruit or veggie, you can link it up here.

I have a food scale that I already use frequently for cooking, so I will be tracking my harvest in pounds. I plan to also compare my harvest's value with the current going rate for similar product at the grocery store (although we all know a garden-fresh tomato is far superior to a sorry ol' store bought slicer.) ;) My intention is to determine how much money I save by growing my own.

You can't get any fresher or more local than what you grow in your own backyard! Homegrown produce is richer nutritionally as well, since it is picked and eaten at the peak of ripeness. You can't beat the glorious flavor of a sun-ripened heirloom tomato. I love my garden. I live in my garden. When it's cold and snowing, I dream about my garden...

Here's a few highlights from this week's garden. It took awhile to get it all in this year, once the rain finally stopped, but things are starting to catch up!

I planted about 300 or so onions this spring. Although they went in a month behind schedule, they are bulbing up nicely.

My kitchen herb garden is beginning to fill in. I tried to plant every herb I could think of! My lovage and cumin failed to germinate. I'll have to try starting those again in flats.

For the first time EVER, I have mulched all of my transplants BEFORE the weeds showed up!

These Costoluto Genovese tomatoes are almost full size. They are a beautiful, fluted, heirloom paste tomato.

These are Santa Fe hot peppers, the first of my pepper plants to set fruit.

I can't wait to start munchin' on these lil' babies straight from the garden. These are Super Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes.

Some women collect Fiesta Ware... I collect manure. How much is enough?
My husband says you can just call him "Dung Beetle Boy". Ha.

OK, your turn! This Weigh-In will be open until midnight on Sunday, June 26th. All that is required is that your post be current and relevant to edible gardening that you have invested your own time and sweat equity in. Be sure to link to your specific gardening post and NOT your blog's main page. Please provide a link within your post to the current Weigh-In so that others can join in. You are welcome to grab the Harvest Weigh-In banner above and use it to link back here. This is a family friendly site and I reserve the right to remove any links that are inappropriate, irrelevant or otherwise deemed spam.

***Weighing in is optional; you are still welcome to link up a post about your garden! If you don't have anything to weigh-in for this week, that's OK!***

Check back with us every Monday for the next week's Harvest Weigh-In! Take some time to visit other gardeners' blog posts below that may be of interest to you. Happy gardening!

Merging Two Hives

2011-06-18T23:01:00.000-07:00

I made the big move Saturday evening, merging my queenless hive with my new small swarm. Instead of two weak hives, I now have one big, strong hive. And hopefully that means we will get to harvest some honey here in a couple of months!

I am so thankful that the rain held off today. I was getting very antsy to go take a peek at what they had been up to over the past week since I hived the new swarm. The weather was not too bad when I worked them this evening around 6pm, but in that full bee suit, I still get very hot and sweaty. This was one of the most relaxing and intriguing excursions I've had working the bees. I am really starting to feel confident and competent around them!

It's a common misconception that honey bees are aggressive. They truly are not. Their policy is: don't bother us and we won't bother you! Different hives may display different degrees of temperament though. With a docile hive as mine have been, even when you do irritate them a bit, they still have a rather mild response. I can walk ten feet away and they have already forgotten about me.

The new swarm was very calm and quiet, as if they didn't even know I was there. It was a lot of fun to work them. The old hive however, being queenless and bugged by some ants that were trying to move in, did take note of my pestering them and they were quite a bit testy. But like I said, they give up very quickly.

Here's what they sound like when they're mad...

Here's a few highlights from this inspection:

This has been the new swarm's temporary arrangements. I ran out of cinder blocks and I've
been a little nervous with them sitting on this milk crate. It's not quite as sturdy as I'd like.

This is a really small colony. They've not accomplished a whole lot in the past 11 days since I installed them.

I had to carefully remove the wild combs they had built so that the two remaining frames could go in.
(You leave the gap initially because you need a hole to dump them into.)

This is the frame of honey I gave them from my other hive to get them started. Most
of the bees are on this frame. They've been busy! The capped cells are full of honey.

I had no trouble finding the queen this time, since I only had one and a half frames to check out.

She's doing a great job and laying a tight pattern. I found lots
of capped brood, all stages of white larvae and many tiny eggs.

I wasn't sure what to do with these odd combs at first. Fortunately I took a closer look and
was able to spot a bunch of minuscule eggs in most of the cells on just one side of both of them.

So I had to do a little quick improv! I used my hive tool to cut out a space in this new foundation.

And being careful to orient them the same way I found them originally, I patched them into this frame.

They had only begun working one side on one of the adjacent new frames in
their box. This frame is beginning to fill up with honey and stored pollen.

Frames 5, 6 and 7 are the only frames that have any activity at this point.

I laid down two sheets of newspaper and a queen excluder on top of that to prep them for the
merger. During the time that it takes them to chew through it this week, the scent of the two
hives will blend and they will begin to identify themselves as one hive.

Moving on to the queenless hive...

The ants go marching two by two... These ants have been pestering
them this week, trying to move in on their hard-earned honey stores.

The white stuff is a grease patty I gave them last time. It's supposed to help them resist tracheal mites. They don't
seem to care for it all that much though. It annoys me too, because it's a hassle to move it. It falls apart so easily.

I was a little clumsy putting back a frame of honey as I was inspecting them. This is the point where I annoyed them pretty good and I had to work quickly through the rest of the frames. I was able to confirm that there are no laying workers and still no queen (I'm pretty sure I would have recognized her.) Still no eggs or capped brood.

Laying workers are supposed to present with eggs, larvae and capped brood, but they will all hatch out to be drones (which are pretty much useless to the hive.) I'm a little perplexed as to what happened here and how they failed to raise a replacement queen. I would have thought there should have at least been laying workers; but as I understand it, only nurse bees will become laying workers. This hive has been queenless for over a month now. Bad beekeeping on my part and definitely a live-and-learn situation. Despite bad weather and precious few good opportunities this early spring--I have to check in with them more often.

Here they are sealed up for transport. Can you believe I lifted this by myself? I'd give it about 50-60
pounds. All those feed sacks I've had to haul down to the chicken barn have built up my strength...ha.

Here they are set up under a small peach tree down in the field at my mother-in-law's place.
You have to move them over a mile away or they'll be confused and return to their old hive spot.
They'll hang out here for two weeks, while we work on building a better and permanent hive stand.

The new swarm is on the bottom and the old hive is on the top. They have a separate entrance in the back to
use for now. The bees on the bottom will use the regular entrance which I narrowed with an entrance reducer.

That's all for today's honey bee adventures! I'll stop by after church tomorrow and check them out to make sure they're coming and going from the hive OK. Next Monday I will inspect them again and see how the merger went.

This post is part of the Homestead Barn Hop #17 over on The Prairie Homestead.

Link up and share your homesteading adventures over there!

Stalking the Whistle-Pig, Sniper Style!

2011-06-10T20:06:00.000-07:00

The groundhogs are no more! The world is safe for tomatoes once again. My Bright-and-Shining-Farmer got the last one this evening.

All that time playing Call-of-Duty: Black-Ops on X-box seems to have come in handy after all. He would come straight home from work the past couple of days and set up his vantage point on the back deck and oh-so-patiently wait for Mr. Groundhog to show himself.

Afterward, as he was clearing the chamber on his .22 mag, he looked at me and said, "you know, Babe, I could do this all day!"

Apparently, sniping whistle-pigs is the way to go. Sneaky little buggers!

Now to patch all the holes they dug under my chicken barn...

This post is part of Homestead Barn Hop #16.
Go take a look and see what other homesteading folks are up to this week.

Tiny Garden Helper

2011-06-09T19:37:00.000-07:00

This is the cutest and tiniest toad I've ever found. At least I think he is a toad, being that he is somewhat bumpy after all. I tried to identify him online. I think he is an immature Fowler's Toad. You can see how small he is next to my pinkie!

I just happened to spot him hopping away as I was hoeing a patch of weeds.

I didn't dare try to pick him up. He just hopped into my daughter's bug box all by himself. We returned him back to the garden at sundown.

I love toads. They eat lots of slugs and other bad buggies!

A Box O' Bees

2011-06-07T19:37:00.000-07:00

Image taken by the man who captured the swarm. Sorta like a baby picture, huh? :)

We got a call at 6:50 AM this morning from one of my husband's co-workers asking if we would like to have a small swarm of bees that he had collected at the plant yesterday.

"Most certainly!" I replied.

I woke Ava up early and we hurried to go get them before the day grew to be too hot. The temps were in the mid-eighties by the time we got home.

Here they are all boxed up to travel. Being a power plant, hazard tape is always kept on hand.
The other side of the tag identified the hazard as "honey bees".

The heat and humidity and the stuffiness of the cardboard box made them quite a bit irritable. There was a little crack on the side that he left for them to get some air through. They were trying to poke their heads out and I could hear them chewing at the box, so I taped an onion sack (left in the car from morel hunting season) over the hole for more security before I left with them. It would have been a LONG drive home otherwise! ;) I poked a bunch of holes to give them a little more ventilation. I tried to drive a little bit slower so they wouldn't be tossed around too much.

Ava went over to visit our neighbor, Mavis, for a little bit. I suited up and promptly moved them into an empty deep that I had ready and waiting.

I took a frame of honey off of my other hive (the one that is struggling) and gave it to this new swarm as a "housewarming present" to encourage them not to buzz off.

There was a severe thunderstorm brewing which hit about two hours later. Both hives were very irritable this morning and I figure that had a lot to do with it. It was a weird storm that blew in quickly from the opposite direction that our storms normally come from.

The swarm is a rather small one, but I was delighted to get them. My plan is to combine both hives next week, after the new hive has had a little time to settle in and after I can confirm whether I do or do not have a queen in the other hive (or laying workers, which must be dealt with).

It was really a huge blessing to get these free bees and now I am back in business!

I think it's special too that they arrived on our 8th wedding anniversary, which as it had worked out, last year's anniversary was also our first honey harvest. I feel like we are living on an acre of "milk and honey". (Just gotta get the goats acquired. Ha.)

Another fortuitous thing that occurred today was that another neighbor stopped by to watch me install the swarm in to their new home. He said that he hadn't realized before that I kept bees and told me that he knows of five or six hives that have been abandoned, left behind when a relative of his had passed away a couple months ago. He is going to talk to the man's son to see if he would like me to take the bees off of their hands (assuming they are still alive).

Free bees! Yay!

I have to say it was a very good day. I'm super happy with my anniversary "present". :)

This post is part of Homestead Barn Hop #15 over on The Prairie Homestead.
Go take a look and see what other homesteading folks are up to this week.

Beauties

2011-06-03T13:56:00.000-07:00

That's what Ava calls them and I think the description fits.

For the next couple of weeks, I'll be furiously picking strawberries, trying to preserve as much of their summer sweetness as possible.

Last year, I picked and put up eleven gallons of Junebearers before my fingers fell off and I had to turn the patch over to the neighborhood kids.

This year, it's a jungle out there! This is just one corner of my strawberry jungle.

It goes all the way to the top of the hill (on the side of the cistern). I really let them go, thinking that I would just dig up enough runners to start a new patch on FLAT GROUND and start all over again with a more wisely placed plot of berries. It's hard to pick on a hillside! And I can't till here to maintain the rows.

How's that for organic?

I can't say enough good things about these Sparkle - Junebearers. They are unstoppable. This patch has a lot of quackgrass in it and has had no attention at all for nearly two years. They just have a will to live and produce strawberries. Lots of them! Sparkle is very disease resistant too.

Ava's a big girl now, almost four. But she still begs me to pick the berries for her while she parks and eats them.

"Please Mom, don't send me into the Strawberry Jungle.
I don't know if I can find my way back out again!"

I've been tossing the bad ones at the rooster to distract him. Somewhere I read that the best way to tame a rooster is to bribe him with treats. They say he won't consider you a challenger then. So far so good!

Scram, chickens! None for you!

Picking strawberries is the best part of starting off the summer. We really enjoy them while they last.

Good times! :)

These two gallons I decided to core, toss with a little sugar syrup and initially froze them on a cookie sheet so that I could bag them up. We'll enjoy them on oatmeal or in smoothies later on. I think it was my grandma who told me that a little sugar syrup would prevent them from getting freezer burn.

Speaking of beauties, check out these wonderful blue Love-in-a-Mist that volunteered in my garden this year. I don't remember seeing them last year. I think they came in a packet of mixed seed I planted previously. I will be saving the seed! I've picked off the lighter/whiter blooms to hopefully encourage them to carry on this true blue.

It's funny, my mom gave me some white Love-in-a-Mist a couple of years ago and it has aggressively popped up everywhere in my flower garden since. I finally learned this year that I just have to pull them up before they go to seed. The pods are really interesting too, so it took me awhile to figure this out.

On a side note to any of my blogging buddies who are also on Blogger -- They seem to have been having some technical difficulties for over a week now. I've tried to leave comments for many of you, but unless you have the Name/URL or Anonymous option, it won't let me. The Google Account and OpenID options won't work for me at all. I don't know about the others.