TY VeggiePatch

More prep work

2012-02-07T10:40:00.000-05:00

written by Yvonne

Using last year's notes and the NC Agriculture Extension Service's Vegetable Gardener's Guide, I planned out a rough planting timeline for everything we want to grow in the 2012 TY Veggie Patch. Tom determined the last frost date of the year to be April 2 so we'll use that as a guide when determining a safe date to put plants in the beds. In 2011 we learned some valuable things that we'll apply to this year, including:

Sow direct. If one of our reference books or the packet of seeds reads "sow direct", we will do so. We will not start those items in pots no matter how anxious we are to get them started. This seems to be the case for most of the root vegetables but a few other things as well.
Use tonics. We really slacked off using Jerry Baker's tonics last year. We're going to be more diligent in applying them this year. We sprayed on a few Green Up tonics but that was it. One I came across this weekend is a Soil Starter tonic. He says to use it two weeks prior to planting to get the soil ready to receive transplants and seeds. I'm definitely applying that one this year.
Succession plant. We've read about it. It makes sense. Sounds like a great idea. Never actually done it. For me, it has finally sunk in how to do it and why. Let's say we decide that four butter crunch lettuce plants are sufficient for the season. Instead of starting all four plants at the same time, we will start two plants now and two weeks later, start the other two. This way instead of having all four plants come "online" at the same time, two will be ready and by the time we're done eating on that, the others will be up. We're doing this with EVERYTHING we plant. By doing so, hopefully the bounty will be spaced out over a longer period of time and we won't be inundated with 116 cucumbers in a three week period. The part that will take some brain powers is making sure to leave enough space in each bed for the plants yet to come.

During the Super Bowl, I cut strips of newspaper and we set to making a bag full of pots to start our seeds this coming weekend.

TYs 2012 has officially begun

2012-01-30T09:17:00.000-05:00

written by Yvonne

A new year, a new set of seed catalogs, a new start to what will be a prosperous and plentiful growing season! After taking inventory of our current seeds, we figured out what was missing and placed our order - a super exciting moment in a gardener's life. This year, we ordered seeds from two companies: Sow True Seed based in Asheville, NC and Southern Exposure Seed Exchange in VA. We would have gotten them all from Sow True but they didn't have a few herbs we needed. Next up? Get the newspaper pots ready for all these seeds.

Last year Tom included news and updates of his apiary (bees) on TYs Veggie Patch. This year, he will be blogging about bee adventures, as well as taking orders for honey on his NEW web site - T's Bees Honey. You can find it by clicking here www.tsbeeshoney.com.

If you'd like to be put on a contact list for purchasing honey, be sure to go to Contact T's Bees and fill in your information. Once honey is available for sale, he will contact interested people. It will be first come first served. As a first year beekeeper he won't really know how much honey to expect so if you want to buy some, be sure to get on his list.

BEES: Wrapping up for winter

2012-01-16T12:23:00.002-05:00

written by Tom D.

I know it's been a long time since I put a bee post here, but work has continued to prep the girls for winter. I also received my official NC Certified Beekeeper certificate from the state, and was elected VP of the Mecklenburg County Beekeepers. Lots has been going on. :)

In September, a month had passed since the split. I fed them heavily with thin syrup, and they were at close to full strength in just a month. As you can see there was lots of bees to be found. This is Hive Boris, who appeared to be doing quite well.

A nice frame of bees and brood in a beautiful compact circle. The queen was doing well and laying lots of eggs which I found on this inspection.

In October I was surprised to find one of my bees on a cabbage head. What was she doing? I looked more closely and she and other bees were drinking morning dew collected by the leaves. I realized I needed to replenish the bird baths nearby so they could get water in.

Work continued on both hives in prep for the winter. I continued feeding, but switched to heavy syrup on my plastic top feeders. The heavy syrup crystallized like crazy in my top feeders and became a pain. I suspect that stirring the sugar once it got to the melting stage in the water might have been to blame for the crystallization. I'll find that out next fall.

While the bees were bringing in tons of goldenrod and aster pollen, strange critters started showing up like this praying mantis.

She seemed to be missing one of her legs but it didn't seem to slow her down much. Those eyes are freaky!

Pollen, pollen, pollen! I left the mouse guard on both hives ever since my late summer split, and will keep them on until Spring 2012.

One of my last inspections. The top of Boris. Each deep box had at least 6.5 frames of syrup honey. Since I use 9 frames in a 10-frame box, the comb is drawn out deeper, holding much more honey in its cells. It's part of my winter strategy. I made the dubious error of picking up the top box of Natasha, forgetting that each honey frame weighs about 9.5 pounds each. My back and left forearm still haven't forgotten! Lesson learned: use a work box, goofy! All was quiet up top. It was the end of October and time to make my last inspection of 2011.

Some bur comb needed to be cleaned up. I removed the beetle traps since only one or two seemed to be in them. Hopefully that wasn't a mistake for winter.

One dead small hive beetle.

A beautiful capped honey frame, that still wasn't fully drawn out.

Things were a bit of a mess. More cleanup. After seeing how messy the interior can get in just a few weeks, I realized that initial inspections in Spring will mean lots of cleanup, removing burr comb and excess propolis.

Another honey frame with a side only a third drawn out. Each box on both hives had about 6.5 honey frames each, or about 13 per hive. That means each hive will have about 120 pounds of food for the winter. So far it's been a mild one, so they should survive easily and not starve to death. We only need about 50-70 pounds per hive here in the mild climes of Carolina, I've been told. The hives were packed with pollen. It fell out of the cells as I turned the frames over to inspect them. Fortunately the pollen fell back inside the colonies.

Here they're working on evaporating that syrup down and starting to cap it. The freshly drawn comb is so beautifully white.

Okay, I'm beginning to overstay my welcome. Hive Natasha had a ton of burr comb built between the boxes, and they didn't take too kindly to me interrupting their work. Fall bees became nasty, aggressive bees. They get quite defensive, I found out on more than one occasion! I also brought bales of wheat straw in for winter wind breaks.

A larvae fell out of one of the burr comb cells, and she was swiftly snatched down into the hive by some nurse bees.

My bees seem to be VERY attached to their beekeeper. This solo girl on our back screen porch was saying "Goodbye 2011!" or "Let me in, it's getting a little cool out here!!"

Here you can see my final winter bee yard. I put up the straw wind breaks on the outside of both hives and one each at the back and front. I left on my summer screened inner cover at the top and screened bottom board to allow for lots of ventillation. This will keep the hives from being killed off by the freezing condensation that can drip down onto them if air flow is constricted. I believe we have to make strong colonies so they can keep themselves warm, not keep a warm hive, which can lead to the bees eating too much food and eventually starving during the winter months.

Here you can see the girls in late December on an unusually mild day of mid-50s coming in from foraging for pollen (they actually were coming in with some bright gold and a little bit of white pollen ... where were they getting that?). LOTS of orientation flights were taking place it seemed, too. You can also see my straw bales setup. I've since moved the side bales to about 5 feet away, since they're there for a wind break only. I couldn't believe how many flight were going on in late December. They seem to be taking off at 53 degrees. I've seen pollen coming in at the mid-50s degree range this winter.

That should do it until early Spring, which is right around the corner in just another month and a half. Hopefully I'll find I was successful in over-wintering my first two hives, thus making me a beekeeper and not a bee-haver. One of my mentors, Hernan, thinks I'm crazy for putting up the bales, calling them unnecessary. We'll see if I'm crazy ... like a fox (or not)!

VEG: Last post for 2011

2012-01-12T10:26:00.000-05:00

written by Yvonne

Although it may seem like there's not much going with TYs Veggie Patch these days, you'd only be partially correct. We've been enjoying the collards, lettuce and arugula that have been growing these last several months under the hoop houses. And we started some turnips, onions and parsley in the green house which we planted earlier last month (pictured here). They've been slow to take off but we haven't given up on them - yet.

This past week we took off the row covers to take advantage of the rain and sun. What a mild winter it's been so far! We pulled out the remnants of the last lettuce plants and harvested some collards, which we'll be enjoying with grits for dinner tonight.

The seed catalogs have been arriving which is super exciting. I've updated the current seed inventory so when we map out the spring garden this weekend, I'll know what seeds need to be ordered. Soon I'll be making newspaper pots and Tom will be getting worm compost ready for us to start the seeds. We're really going to maximize use of our small green house and get a jump on spring. No wimpy spring/summer garden for us this year!

VEG: Hoop Houses

2011-11-23T08:09:00.000-05:00

written by Yvonne

This project came about in stages and it's taken me a bit to load up the photos and write to them. As you can see by the dates on the photos, it was actually complete several weeks ago.

Last year we were able to grow spinach all winter long with very little effort. When it got cold, we threw row covers over the beds to protect the plants from frost and that was it. Impressed with our results, Tom wanted to ratchet things up a notch this year and build hoop house over the beds. A little research on the internet, and he was back from Lowe's with supplies and building them before I knew it.

He screwed conduit clamps on the inside of the boxes; one on each side, across from one another. (And naturally he had a helper.) He had no idea what conduit clamps were until he went to the hardware store.

Then he used 1/2" PVC pipe, that were 10' long each. He inserted one end into the clamp on one side...

bent the PVC over the bed....

and inserted it into the clamp on the other side.

Then he cut a piece of PVC 8' long for the top....

and secured it with plastic zip ties. This gives the hoop house more stability.

Next he bought 1"x2" pieces of wood in 8' lengths and tied them with jute twine onto each side of the PVC hoops.

This gives additional structure to the hoops and because it's tied on, it slides up and down the PVC easily to move out of the way when we need to harvest. Olive was quite proud of Pack Leader 1.

He built them in two sections for beds #4 and #3 (looking from left to right). Bed #2 only gets half a house because we have garlic in the other half and it doesn't need to be covered through winter. Bed #1 doesn't get any covering this year because that's where the rye grass is. At the end of next summer, bed #1 and the second half of #2 will get their hoop houses so we can rotate crops.

The row covers we already had covered the hoops with room to spare, however it was too short. The covers needed to be long enough to clamp the ends together so the beds will be completely covered. Therefore, my contribution was to figure out how to make this happen. I determined that I could take one row cover, cut it into thirds, and sew one third onto the end of a full cover. So, I cut one cover into thirds...

and pinned one of the thirds onto the end of a full row cover. (Our helper wanted to make sure she helped with ALL aspects of this project. "Mmm... comfy bed. Thanks Pack Leader 2!")

Then with my team of helpers, I sewed the pieces together.

Tom finished the project by stapling each row cover to a 2"x2", 8' long piece of pressure-treated wood. This is to make it easy to roll up the cover. It also acts as a weight to hold the cover in place.

Here is what they look like, finished and uncovered.

(Olive has never shown any interest in stepping onto the vegetable beds in the least... until we put these hoop houses up. Now I think she sees them as her outdoor kennel or den or something. She wants in SO bad.)

He used a few spring clamps on each end, and a few along the top and sides to close up the houses...

and the winter hoop houses are complete! Now our fall/winter crops should prosper as much, if not more, than our spring/summer crops! ("Look at MY hoop houses. I did ALL the work except for the parts that required opposeable thumbs, to which I give two-paws up to my Pack Leaders for their participation!")

VEG: Moving into Fall

2011-11-09T08:35:00.000-05:00

written by Yvonne

We planted a different variety of collards this year. They are HUGE! What we previously has was smaller and thinner. Until now, I never understood why people cooked the heck out of collards. We just saute them and that's it. But now I get it.... a variety like this is very hearty and can stand to be cooked longer. Nonetheless, we dropped them in stock for about 20 minutes and they were delicious! We added a little smoke flavoring and S&P. Only thing missing was more.

Box #1 had the last hangers on of summer veg. Our plan was to plant boxes 2-4 with fall/winter crops and to throw down some rye seed in box 1 to rejuvenate the soil for next spring. We'll rotate that the next year and so on. We cleared out the remaining tomato plants and pulled up the newspaper and pine needles.

Then we spread the rye seed. It should grow and fill up the bed, then we'll till it into the dirt in the spring.

Tom got hives Borris and Natasha all nestled up for winter. The bales of pine straw act as insulators and wind barriers. We'll use the straw as mulch in the garden when the warmer seasons come 'round again.

VEG: A bit behind in our reporting

2011-11-01T15:11:00.000-04:00

written by Yvonne

We are a bit behind in our garden/bee reporting, but we should be able to keep up from here forward. Had a few busy weekends which kept us out of the garden but Tom has also been working on a big garden project over several weekends which is now complete (full coverage of that in the next post).

As you can see by the date stamp on the photos, these were taken a while ago. This was the very last batch of bell peppers.

We put them on baking sheets and roasted them in the oven. Someone asked what we do with them all. This batch we canned so we'd have them through the winter.

Cabbage that we started in newspaper pots seem to have taken hold.

And the Swiss Chard has taken hold too.

The collards are really taking off now. I see sauteed collards on the menu for this coming weekend.

Lettuce is ready to start munching on. I made three huge salads last weekend and harvested a bunch to give to a friend. After all that, it didn't look like I even made a dent in what's growing.

Arugula still small but growing.

We now get our seeds from Sow True Seeds out of Asheville. All the seeds are heirloom so maybe in a year or so we will attempt to saving seeds from what grows to replant from year to year. Here Tom has parsley, onions, turnips and squash seeds in water to help the sprouting process.

After 24 hours of soaking, Tom planted them in newspaper pots and parked them in the greenhouse. At the moment the turnips and onions have sprouted, but nothing on the squash and parsley.

VEG: TY Gets Ready for a Fall Garden

2011-10-03T08:42:00.000-04:00

written by Yvonne

I know, I know. It's been a month since we've posted any happenings at TYs VeggiePatch. The reasons for this are as follows:

One weekend we went to Asheville for a Yoga workshop and a little time away.
One weekend we did dog stuff (hike, etc).
We are each the head of a study group (Cartooning Club and Sutra Study Group) and we've had to spend time write lesson plans and studying for those meetings.
Tom had bee stuff to attend to.
I participated in an outdoor craft show.
And lastly, there really hasn't been much to report.

It's the end of September and our tomatoes are just NOW getting ripe. Let me tell ya, we've been enjoying the heck out of them regardless of what month it is. We created a meal called Garden Pasta. We take basil, tomatoes, peppers and garlic (all grown from the garden), cut them up, toss them with some fresh pasta and olive oil and that's dinner.

This will likely be the last batch of peppers for the season. There are still some on the vine but they're pretty small. We'll hang on to the plants as long as they produce fruit and until the cold gets 'em.

Now that the weather is cooling down, Tom has been working on his grill master skills. A few weekends ago he grilled a 15-lb turkey on the Weber charcoal grill (show below)! It was impressive. Tonight he's grilling two whole chickens and all the peppers.

He's gonna get them all blackend up (the peppers, not the chickens). We'll cover them with foil and wait for them to cool, then peel the blackend skin off and we'll have roasted peppers.This is the black skin we're looking for in a roasted pepper.

Last weekend we started a new batch of seeds. Here we have spinach and one variety of arugula...

and here we have another variety of arugula, cabbage and swiss chard. Some of each type of seed sprouted within four days of being planted!

We ordered three varieties of garlic to plant from The Garlic Store. We'll brake the bulbs apart, stick them in the ground, and forget about them until next July. The garlic we harvest this summer has been fantastic. It's now a staple for the garden and we'll never have to buy garlic from the store again! (Mind you, there's nothing wrong with garlic bought from the store, it's just super cool that we can grow our own.)

Here are two varieties of lettuce we started in newspaper pots and they are doing great. It will only be a week or two before I can come to the backyard to clip off some leaves for a salad. Can't wait!

We weren't sure if the collards would take hold, but they did.

Many weeks ago I'd trimmed back the basil and discovered that our turnips actually had started growing. After they were exposed to the sun, they grew like crazy. In fact they grew so fast, we didn't get a chance to thin them out.

As you can see, two have grown very close together but that's OK. They came up so quick I think we may have time to get more in the ground before the super cold weather hits - they don't do well when it's too cold.

Also growing under the shade of the basil was cilantro (left). It likely won't last through the cold months, but since we're going to use cover clothes and keep as much going as possible through winter, we'll see if it hangs on. One of my students gave me a cutting of oregano from her back yard. I planted it in the bed several weeks ago (right) and it's taken hold as well. Thanks Pam!

The broccoli is certainly taking over... but still no signs of flowers or anything that can be eaten.

We've completely ignored the sweet potatoes and they have really overtaken. Hopefully that means something good is going on underground.

The berry bushes are growing like crazy up against the side fence. We haven't had any berries except for one or two in the spring just after they'd been planted. Hmmm... this makes me wonder if someone's been enjoying the berries before we could get to them.

It's obvious we can grow cabbage. We've never grown cabbage so this was supper exciting for us.

I'd been instructed by Tom to go to the butcher and buy bratwursts as well as some good, hearty buns because we were harvesting this cabbage to make a vinegar-based cole slaw to top the brats. I did as I was instructed; bought brats and buns and made the only kind of cole slaw Tom has ever liked, using our first, very own, home grown cabbage. Tom was one happy camper. (I had my coleslaw on the side with a veggie burger.)

Guess this is why they call it a "head" of cabbage - it's as big as your head!

VEG: Summer garden comes to a close

2011-09-05T11:27:00.000-04:00

written by Yvonne

Current vegetable happenings: We have three successful cabbages. There is definitely something chowing down on the large outer leaves but we're not going to do anything about it at the moment. If it/they starting eating too much, we'll have to spray a little Jerry Baker tobacco/soap/garlic repellent.

We "found" a volunteer lima plant hidden under some weeds in one of the boxes. Since none of our lima seeds germinated, we'll leave this in and see what it produces.

These are turnips we planted several weeks ago. They were covered up by the basil. Now that the basil has been trimmed way back, these guys should get plenty of sun.

A teeny-tiny cilantro plant. Come on little guy, you can do it!

Since we've been clipping the top of this tomato plant, tons of tomatoes have come out. We're calling them our early fall tomatoes.

Broccoli plants are coming along.

It's obvious why these peppers are called "rainbow" peppers. Simply gorgeous!

It being Labor Day weekend and all, we needed to spend time laboring in the garden. Although we've been somewhat disappointed with our summer vegetable production this year, we learned a lot which will hopefully translate into a more productive fall garden. I started by pulling out the old kale and marigolds, and significantly pruned back the basil.

Tom got another truck-full of dirt Friday so we could top off the beds this weekend. The dirt in all four beds has settled so they needed more. In addition to settling, there's a dirt wad around the root of every plant so when you pull something out, you loose a little dirt that way too.

We could see it coming a mile away. As soon as Olive saw the tailgate down, she wanted to get into the back of the truck. Once we got a good deal of the dirt out, we let her get in. Needless to say, she got a bath at the end of the day.

The newspaper posts we used to plant seeds in some weeks ago held up GREAT! This is the a butternut squash in a newspaper pot.

With new dirt in place, we designated areas for the squash, lettuces, and collards.

Our day in the garden was done. Time to move the truck back to the carport as Olive gets her first ride in the back of the truck.

Saturday was canning day. We spent the better part of the day chopping, cooking, and canning - all of which was made SO MUCH EASIER now that the microwave above the cook top is gone. We were able to use all four burners and could put the canner on the back burner. Yesterday Tom labeled all of our wonderful work.

We made blackberry jam, peach jam (which turned out MUCH better than last year's batch - apologies to anyone who got that as a gift last year), and pepper onion relish with our homegrown rainbow peppers.

VEG: Still a slow summer

2011-08-29T09:18:00.000-04:00

written by Yvonne

This weekend we did some indoor projects so this will be a very brief garden update. Still lots of peppers coming in.

This is the lettuce, butternut squash, and cauliflower seeds we started a few weeks ago. They come up nicely, but the collards, limas and spinach did not. We need to do some repairs on the boxes, get some dirt, and more pine needles before we plant these guys in the ground. We'll do all that during the upcoming Labor Day weekend.

I did not want to post this picture because it looks like something out of a horror film. In actuality, it was our first yummy tomato of the year. Tom insisted I post it.

BEES: Two Queens, Two Hives and a New Approach

2011-08-22T16:23:00.000-04:00

written by Tom

So seven days had passed since Hernan and I had installed the two new Russian queens. After a nerve-wracking week of wondering whether or not they'd been released, it was time to take a look. (The squashed bee on top of the frame is one reason for general anxiety when working the hives. One false move and you can easily kill the queen.) Here you can see the queen cage in hive Boris. The candy end had been completely eaten through. A bee is seen cleaning out remnants. The queen had been released!

In Hive Natasha the queen cage had fallen from the frames. Fortunately it landed bottom-up, and the screened bottom board caught it, too. This candy end also had been eaten through, so that queen had been released. So far, so good. I worked the hives to clean them up a bit and remove the cages.

I put the cages at the entrance so that any bees inside could find their way back out. I'd read that in a book. However I quickly discovered that remnants of Her Majesty's pheromone was enough to set off a bit of robbing, as bees from Natasha quickly flew over to see what the good smells were about. The ones who did met their demise thanks to Boris' guards. For Hive Natasha I just blew any bees out of the cage. No more robbing.

This end frame had been drawn out on one side and filled with syrup honey. There were more bees than I'd remembered in Natasha. She seems to be doing well, regardless of my worries about only seeing a bee or two at a time at her entrance.

Hive Boris' numbers also seemed to have leveled off. This original hive had many more bees on it immediately after our requeening efforts a week prior. Now the two hives seemed closer in strength, more even, though Boris still has more bees.

In the following eight days I built and readied more frames. This time I used old-fashioned crimpwire with 100% beeswax. Bees love this stuff, and take to it in no time, is what they told us in Bee School. I had to make 14 of these total, to combine with my four frames of drawn comb I'd harvested and readied a few weeks prior, to make 18 frames (nine each for each hive addition).

In these past two weeks I've become convinced that one of the most important things we can do as beekeepers is, "First, do no harm." I always prepare a mental game-plan for my inspections. Now, I'm going to do only what's necessary to achieve that and nothing more. I'm also going to learn how to read a hive without even opening it. Minimizing risks and trusting the bees to do their jobs seems to be a perfect approach to me. Less is more. Hive Boris was looking good, even stronger than before and was moderately calm.

I found a good many bees and evidence that the new queen was laying, as capped brood was found. I quickly put things back in order and moved on to Hive Natasha.

A fair number of bees greeted me in the new hive, and her demeanor was calm.

One end frame totally capped with syrup honey. They are busy laying up stores for the winter. Only one side of this frame had been drawn and used, so I flipped it when I returned it to the hive to encourage them to work the other side.

And another honey frame. Both sides full and capped. Wow, these deep frames were H-E-A-V-Y! Each hive needs to store up about 60 pounds of honey for the winter.

And a third honey frame in Natasha. Where's the brood and eggs? Uh-oh. Was this hive queenless?

On the fifth frame I found what I came looking for: capped brood. I could hear the choir of angels singing. The new queen had laid these eggs. It had been 15 days since I'd requeened. In the life cycle of the honeybee, it takes 21 days for the worker bee to go from egg to larvae to pupae to emerged bee. In that time, it takes nine days to go from new uncapped egg to a capped larvae or "brood" on the comb. It had been 15 days since the split, so all brood on those frames we put in Natasha had hatched. Only new eggs would be capped brood. Both Boris and Natasha with their new queens had capped brood. Success!!!

Deeper into Natasha showed that her strength had greatly increased since she'd been started.

I took the four empty honey frames I'd spun out, and placed them in the center of Natasha's second box. This gives them a jump-start, as the queen can start laying right away in those frames. The sooner the better, so this new hive can get up to full strength before winter comes.

The still wet honey frames quickly attracted attention from below.

I also converted a beetle trap into an inside-the-hive pollen feeder. I removed every other rung on this trap with a Xacto blade. Natasha's bees immediately loved the fresh pollen gift I gave them.

I cleaned out both top feeders. I must say that the plastic two-gallon top feeder is wonderful. Hose it down to quickly clean. Any bees underneath it seem to not mind as I clean the top side. I love my plastic top feeders and so do the bees!

Fresh syrup was given to both hives and bees quickly climbed up to feed.

Boris is looking good. The numbers outside the hive have been growing.

As has little new hive Natasha. It's not a ton outside, but it's far more than the none or one bee I'd seen in the previous weeks. She's off to a great start!

I left both with gifts and a second story addition. Hopefully they'll immediately take to their new quarters, spin out the honeycomb on the pure wax foundation I'd given them and start to lay eggs and increase their numbers in time for winter. We'll see. So far, so good!

VEG: General update

2011-08-22T08:41:00.000-04:00

written by Yvonne

(Still a little behind in updates. This really should have been posted last week but I forgot I had it ready to go.)

We are very happy with this variety of okra. Not only is the red color gorgeous, the plants aren't as huge as the variety we grew last year. I pruned the leaves on top and around the sides in order to keep the plants to their current size. (We didn't find out until after we pulled up the plants last year that it is OK to prune them back to control their size.)

I used my pressure cooker to make a black-eyed pea soup with okra. (To Rebecca - another fantastic recipe from the pressure cooker cookbook!) Then I made a recipe that used Indian spices (cumin, coriander, turmeric) okra, and onions. It was out of this world, and I'm not even that fond of okra!

Haven't cooked anything more with the peppers since the fajitas. We did give some to a friend as a birthday gift. We forgot to put our name on the gift bag. Tom said, "I think she'll know it was from us." :)

This is some cabbage we planted that we didn't think was going to do anything. All of a sudden, it poked up through the pine needles.

And this is the broccoli Tom had stared in peat pots. He moved the pine needles out of the way and just planted the whole pot into the bed.

We finally got to put our newspaper pots to the test. It was time to get seeds started for spinach, winter squash, cauliflower, limas....

lettuces, and collards. So far so good. They held the dirt and even when fully wet, they kept their shape. We'll see if they last through germination and planting. If they do, we've just saved ourselves a ton of money on buying peat pots AND we get to recycle our newspapers. Hooray!

VEG: Pepperlicious

2011-08-11T08:18:00.000-04:00

written by Yvonne

I've been busier than normal lately so I'm a bit behind on veg posts. After next week, things should be back to normal.

The bell peppers are FANTASTIC! These were the first to be harvested. I grilled them with a red onion and made fajitas. Yum, yum!

The red okra is flowering and is very pretty. I didn't realize it when I took this picture but there is a wasp, well camouflaged, sitting at the base of the flower. Do you see it?

Our one fully grown tomato plant has one tomato so far, but lots of flowers.

Tom started broccoli in peat pots a while back. They are now ready to be put in the beds. Tom swears that this time, we are going to get broccoli, not just broccoli plants.

$21 worth of bell peppers right here, my friends. FAJITAS!!

BEES: Gambling on a split

2011-08-07T13:10:00.001-04:00

written by Tom

My two new marked Russian queens arrived on Friday, safe and sound. The ladies at the post office handed it to me with contorted facial expressions and at arm's length, laughing at themselves the whole time.

Knowing honey bees keep their hives at 94 degrees Fahrenheit, I quickly moved them into a basket for safe keeping on our screened in back porch, turning the overhead fan off.

It was raining cats and dogs Friday. Bees don't much care for cats or dogs. So once a break occurred in the seven-inch deluge, Yvonne and I quickly erected her10x10 tent above the hive. My friend and mentor Hernan showed up to help me requeen Hive Boris and make the split, creating hive Natasha. First order of business? Going over a checklist of actions so we'll be synchronized.

We had to put the four valuable frames of comb back in storage for safe keeping. We'll be using this once Natasha gets strong enough to start on a second box.

Then our work began. Hernan didn't want to smoke the bees until the very end, or until needed. I made sure to have some syrup in a spray bottle nearby if things got out of hand. They did, and the spray came in handy, let me tell you!

I began inspecting each frame from the top box of Boris, looking for the queen. We first have to remove her before adding in the new queen. We did this inspection while creating hive Natasha, inspecting and moving one frame at a time from Boris' top box into Natasha. Hernan re-inspected the frames as I handed them to him, in case my beek eyes missed the queen.

Cloud of bees were everywhere, wondering what we were up to.

One bee crawled up my right arm under my glove and gave me my second sting for the season. For some strange reason I found myself elated, again, at the sensation, just a couple minutes after. Unfortunately, Hernan got stung in a MUCH more unmentionable place. I don't think he finds these Russian girls as friendly as I do. "What's another stripe for the tiger?" he said in English, as we both laughed at our distress. I got him to translate it to Spanish (it sounded better). Having earned our extra stripes, Hernan spotted the queen on the next-to last frame of the top box. Her mark had completely worn off. My beek eyes didn't see her, but Hernan's trained eyes had no trouble seeing her. He quickly caught her in a queen cage, and moved her to the side.

We removed all beetle traps while inside the hive. The beetle jails had caught a few of the pests in each of the traps, so I'm definitely a believer in these little contraptions. I also kept reassuring the clouds of angry bees that we had a larger, benevolent purpose at hand. I don't think they quite believed me.

The queen catcher with the "old" queen was quickly surrounded by lots of her former ladies in waiting. Her pheromone call was unmistakable for them. The old queen was still laying well, but she'd increased the number of drone brood she was laying in recent weeks and was putting them in the center of the frames.
I decided to take action and requeen for further insurance of successful overwintering and a strong hive next spring that's less susceptible to swarming. I gave the old girl to Hernan, who has another first-year mentee with a hive that has tragically gone queenless.

Hernan shows me how to easily place the new queen in her cage at the hive's center. We simply mushed the frames together to hold the caged queen in place.

He removed the end, exposing the bee candy end. The queen and the few workers with her eat this from the inside to stay alive and healthy. The hive also will spend the next week eating through this candy end to free the queen. The whole time they will be getting used to her pheromone and accepting her as their leader. They'll even pass water through the cage's bars to her, once they've accepted her.

They wasted no time surrounded the new queen, shown at left center with the candy end pointing up.

Now it was time for the next queen to go in. One eager lady already was on the queen cage, smelling out the new ruler.

And again she was surrounded by the hive in no time, with worker bees covering her queen cage and candy end, just off center at right of the photo.

A lot of the bees from Natasha seemed to go back over to their former location at hive Boris in the hours after. Hernan said this was normal. But we put a ton of capped brood in Natasha from Boris' second box, as well as one frame from Boris' bottom that was chock full of brood. As these bees emerge in the coming days they'll know only Natasha's queen as their leader.

Now it's time to feed simple syrup to both hives, and otherwise leave them alone for a week. We'll check in on them next weekend to make sure they released the queens (and if not we'll help them along). Fingers and toes are crossed. In just two and a half months I'd gone from a small nuc of four frames of bees to two deeps of 18 frames crawling with bees. The clock is ticking, with autumn on its way. I'm confident, especially with four frames of drawn comb to give to hive Natasha when the time is right, that both hives will fill out to a second deep box each with plenty of bees and food stores for the winter. It's a gamble, but I feel good about it. We'll see. What will bee will bee, after all.

BEES: An Un-BEE-lievable July!

2011-08-04T08:56:00.001-04:00

written by Tom

Okay, it's been a week. This was the moment of truth. Had my girls touched the honey super I'd put on top in just one week? I'd been told they'll likely ignore the super. But I'm a gambling man, and I'd rather watch them ignore it than not try. If they went for it, I'll be a major step up for next spring's nectar flow and so much closer to honey. I know, I know, I'm working hive Boris like there's no tomorrow. Just don't tell the honey bee union, or I'm in trouble. Here you can see the two beetle jails I installed last week, also.

Woo-HOOO, they're going for it. This is the end frame. You can actually see they've begun drawing out the first two-thirds of the foundation from the top down. Once they finish, the comb will extend beyond the support wires I installed on each and every frame for added durability, helping the comb to be strong from within (which is great come honey extraction time).

Not just the first end frame, but frames two and three also were being drawn out. SUCCESS!

Every frame, EVERY SINGLE ONE, had been worked in the honey super in just one week. Holey moley! This was a favorite of mine, since they'd reached the bottom with fresh beeswax they'd secreted and shaped into comb. I was ecstatic to see so much success in such a short period of time. This further ensures my love of Russian bees. They do take longer to gear up than the Italian variety, but they also defy odds and are amazingly industrious when they want to be. Wow! I'm going to have honey next year, people (okay, okay, I'll calm down now)!!

After the super, I moved onto the top brood box. I'd taken three honey frames out of the top brood box over the past two weeks. Last weekend I noticed they'd not touched one of the replaced frames on the West end of the box. But in the last weekend they definitely started drawing it out. In fact, there was an odd chunk of burr comb on the face of this that I removed.

Another previously untouched frame, underway. I also noted the increased number of drone cells I saw capped, too. There are more male eggs being laid by the queen. Hive Boris now has plenty of useless, big honey-eating male bees wandering around. I believe I will requeen this hive when I make the split for hive Natasha. This should help ensure overwinter success for Boris and honey next spring. I removed another strange biscuit of comb that was attached to this frame, which two weeks ago was blank. More success!

They're prepping for autumn and winter well, with lots of simple syrup honey on the brood box frames.

Lots of bees greeted me in the top brood box, and lots of comb.

I only checked the top box, not the bottom. I'm always wondering "is she still in there?" about the queen. More capped brood in a nice pattern, lots of honey stores, and drone cells out the outlying edges on this one. She'd worked the top box nine days ago. The hive was unusually calm and not at all defensive. I took all this as a good sign, and that her highness is alive and well.

And here's a shot of the last two frames, which two weeks ago were blank after I'd removed honey frames. These girls had fully drawn out these big deep frames. They're ready for food stores and eggs. Hive Boris has been working at full speed, in direct full sun with highs close to or hitting the 100-degree mark. This hive is boiling over with bees, and ready to split.

I am convinced the full sun has kept beetles and moths at bay, especially the beetles. Just in case, last week I put in four beetle traps. I've only seen three small hive beetles this season, and three wax moths outside the hive trying to get in. This week I saw no moths at all. But this beetle jail managed to nab one of the bad guys. The bees enjoy chasing the beetles into the traps, which contain vegetable oil and kill the beetles. They'd also begun drawing out this end frame as well.

Now, if I was serious about splitting, I'd have to get my hands dirty. This wasn't necessary now. I could just let the bees rob the honey frames over several days. That just seems so unseemly to me. And I needed to get my extracting equipment in order. So why not spin out those four frames, get my hands dirty a bit and have them ready for Hive Natasha's queen to lay in? So out came the steam cleaner.

Doing this for the first time, in my own setup, on my own screened in back porch was wonderful. It took a while to clean and prepare, but once I did so, it was butterflies and excitement to remove those first cappings!

My tangential bench extractor can handle two deep frames at a time. After freezing the frames for about a week each, I'd moved them to my awesome, vintage Coleman cooler I inherited from my late dad. The cooler will hold nine deep frames of comb. It kept them safe and sound until I could extract.

It also makes for a great bench for this, well, bench extractor.

I spun and spun, but it didn't take much for the extractor to do each side (with tangentials, you have to spin out one side, rotate the frames and then spin the other). It was a lovely Sunday afternoon. And then I opened the honey gate. Wow, look at that "honey" they'd made out of the simple syrup I'd been feeding them. collected 18 pounds, or a gallon and a half of syrup honey that I'll feed back to the bees via the top feeders.

It kept coming and coming. Yes!! This was a big deal. In just two months I'd gotten this far, and gotten the bees to prepare for next spring's nectar flow, and done a dry run of what it'd be like come honey time at T's Bees. Pretty cool. Next up, splitting and creating Hive Natasha.

VEG: Hot, hot, hot

2011-07-30T10:43:00.000-04:00

written by Yvonne

It's hot outside. Very, very hot. Last weekend we started our outdoor stuff as early as we could and braved the heat to get some things done in the garden. Overall we've been somewhat disappointed with our summer garden so far. We just haven't had the success we did last year and are lacking some summer staples like tomatoes, herbs, hot peppers, and such. Aside from squash and cucumbers we have managed to grow one thing well; weeds. I worked on papering and pine needling the bit of ground on the side of the house we tilled up in spring, while Tom (and Olive) worked on the vegetable beds. This was the bed that housed the squash, green beans, and dill. We'd already pulled out the beans and squash so Tom set down a layer of newspaper...

and topped it with pine needles. The newspaper will snuff out the weeds and the pine needles will be a nice mulch around our fall plants.

He did the same with the okra and tomato bed.

After sweating at least a rain barrel's worth of sweat, we moved inside to cool off. Last Christmas I gave Tom a device to use to make our own peat pots out of newspaper. Here's how it works.

Cut strips of paper 3"x10" long. Wrap three strip of paper around the wooden press.

Keep wrapping until the strips are fully around the press.

Fold the ends of the paper against the bottom of the press.

Mash the press into the form.

The form pushes the paper together so that it holds.

Newspaper pots!

Next post? We'll see if these things actually work.

BEES: Mid-July Magic

2011-07-25T12:54:00.001-04:00

written by Tom

So it's hot as blazes out there. The bees are permanently parked out on their front porch to catch the cool night air. Their nighttime hum is mesmerizing.

I asked Yvonne to permanently attach my boot bands to my bee suit (a pair of Dickey's coveralls she's been customizing for me). Olive was helping out, too.

It is haute couture. The beekeeping and fashion worlds have now collided. My friends at Belk and the local beekeepers group can both be proud now.

Ahhh, functional and easy to use. No more fumbling with the separate bands, trying to get a tight fight on my leggings so bees don't crawl up my sensitive legs and no more wondering, "Now where did I put those boot bands?!"

This end frame was blank two weeks ago. They'd drawn all of one side and most of another out. The summer feedings are keeping them hard at work building honeycomb.

Tight brood patterns were found this visit. I felt guilty working them in the heat, but it had been two weeks and I had work to do. The queen, though not seen, is doing well. Now she's laying drone cells (male bees, which are larger), at the bottoms of the frames in the middle of both boxes. You can see the larger bullet-sized cells to the right of this photo.

And for a closer view (cause one shot just won't do it).

Lots of tight brood patterns. I also found single eggs freshly laid in both the top and bottom boxes on this visit. This queen is all over the place and is laying, laying, laying. I think I'll keep her around over winter instead of replacing her in a couple of weeks.

This frame was only partially built out, and the queen had already laid eggs, both male and female, in the center of the frame where comb had been drawn out.

After having totally disturbed them on a hot, hot, hot July morning, it was time to give both boxes another powdered sugar dusting for mite control. One bee couldn't wait and hovered around the top of my sifter the whole time. I also added four beetle traps, even though I've only seen three small hive beetles this year. I think the blazing hot direct sun, and my Russian bees have kept the pests at bay. Still it pays to be prepared. The late summer is when the SHB really starts to pack a punch. They can ruin a hive, sliming it with secretions and larvae eating everything in sight. Not on my watch! Of course I was told to be careful, and I was, to not spill the oil in the traps. And of course I tipped one beetle trap just a little, but some oil leaked out. I quickly said a prayer in the hopes I haven't killed my queen. I seem to be doing that more and more. You just have to go with the flow and hope for the best ... hope that crunch you hear of a bee going to bee heaven isn't Her Royal Highness ... or that your next goofup doesn't doom your royalty. We'll see. Fingers are crossed.

I took a fourth honey frame away. This will make my split in two or three weeks go smoothly, thereby creating two hives. The new hive, Natasha, won't have to work as hard as hive Boris has. That's why I've been feeding them in the two months I've had them. They've drawn out 22 deep frames' worth of comb. I've reserved four for the second hive. Now I've added a honey super. I want Boris to draw out comb this year for honey supers, so that next spring they won't have to spend their time drawing out comb but instead bringing in nectar and creating honey. That way I should have honey next year. We'll see if they pay the super any attention. I added a queen excluder to keep her out of the super so she won't lay eggs up there. The screen is big enough only to allow the smaller worker bees up top.

After the super was added, I cleaned out the top feeder, which then went back in place atop it all. The hive has totally grown. Wow, look at Boris now!

For comparison's sake, here are some shots of my hive that I forgot to include, from pickup day back in May. There it sat at the far right, the only bright yellow box out there in a "nuc field", chock full of other nucleus colonies. Wayne Hansen of the Mecklenburg Beekeepers was waiting on us.

Here Libby Mack, treasurer of Meck Bees, preps the nuc box for moving.

I found these shots on my phone and regretted not putting them on the blog. While Libby was prepping my box, Wayne gave another beek advice on moving day. He also gave a lot of input throughout Bee School 2011. And, it was totally cool seeing all these nucs in a single yard.

What's even more remarkable to me is that my nuc came with five drawn frames of bees, brood and queen. And in just two months they've grown from just a few thousand bees to like a gazillion bees now. While I got a late start, due to overwhelming demand on bees and queens this spring, my girls have really worked hard and grown to an amazing strength. So much so that I'll be able to have two hives this year when I was only expecting one. The magic of bees is something else ... and always surprising.

If you garden, you'd better be friendly with your neighbors...

2011-07-20T08:59:00.003-04:00

written by Yvonne

TYVeggiePatch has gone all veg advocate and high-tech! Seems as though we can add a video to our blog. Who knew? (Probably everyone but me.)

Anyway, I received this story today in my weekly Organic Gardening Connect Newsletter. Click on the videos below to see the news story. The first one is the initial story and the second is the follow up.

Oak Park Woman Faces 93-Days in Jail For Planting Vegetable Garden

Oak Park Charges Dropped, New Charges Issued

Side note: There is a elderly woman in our neighborhood whose vegetable garden is in her front yard. I was inspired and thought, "Gee, when I run out of room in the backyard, I am SO planting more vegetables in the front yard too." When we first moved here my neighbor told me that this woman was shunned from the neighborhood garden group back in the day, and that "no one" liked her front-yard vegetables. Then as new blood (like us) moved in, more people we accepting of it. Personally, I think grass is stupid and a waste of time and resources. Water, cut it, fertilize, repeat to infinity - and all with nothing actually produced. What a waste.

VEG: Additions and subtractions

2011-07-18T09:40:00.000-04:00

written by Yvonne

We've added something new to our gardening equipment - a small, portable greenhouse. We looked into indoor grow lights, but ultimately decided against it. Since winters here aren't THAT long, and we get lots of sun year round, we should be able to start seeds without having to go to the expense of indoor grow lights.

Tom started some fall seeds of broccoli and cauliflower so I popped them into the new greenhouse for a test drive. It's extremely light weight so it will be easy to move it around the yard so seeds get prime sun in different seasons.

We also purchased three more growing spirals. We like these better than tomato cages because 1. they look neat, 2. they use a stake in the center (so you can tie the middle of the plant to the stake), and 3. they store MUCH easier than tomato cages. Now, if only the tomatoes would grow...

(Sorry about the out-of-focus shot.) There is one tomato plant growing strong and five late, late starters. We are as embarrassed about not being able to grow tomatoes this year, as we were about not being able to grow cucumbers the last two years. Incidentally to date the cucumber harvest count is 110. My theory now is we can grow EITHER cucumbers OR tomatoes, but not both at the same time.

Okra is slow going, but the the flowers are starting to appear. Haven't been able to get a picture of an open flower yet.

Not as much basil as last year, but that was planned.

This oregano looks like it's doing well, but I gotta tell ya it doesn't smell or taste like oregano. It tastes more like mint. I clipped a bunch this weekend to dry and now it doesn't smell like anything. Very disappointing. I'll be sure to note the variety and avoid it next year.

The rainbow bell peppers are doing well. We counted about 21 making their way. Look at how shiny and wax they are! This is about $5 to $6 retail value right here, my friends!

Ever been around someone who didn't respect your personal space? You know, they didn't know how to stay within their boundaries? That's squash! In the blink of an eye, it went from producing (yeah!), to producing (enough already!) to overtaking the yard. I think Tom was encouraging it so he'd have slightly less yard to mow. I thought I'd pull out the yellowing plants on the left and maybe get the part growing out of the box back in. But once I got to pullin' I just kept going and ripped the whole thing out. And look what I uncovered....

Olive! The squash that ate our dog! (Just kidding.)

BEES: Extraction, Hernan-Style

2011-07-17T18:57:00.000-04:00

written by Tom

My good friend Hernan invited me to join him and any of his mentees for his last honey extraction of the year. The weather was unusually cool, but I got there bright and early-ish anyway. He had two hives with honey to extract. We started with a hive that last year looked like all would be lost this year when Hernan found a swarm cell in October. Surprisingly it was one of his biggest honey producers this year. Here is Hernan with the hive after a couple honey supers had been removed. Check out all those bees!

Then Herman's mentee from Mecklenburg's Bee School 2011, Bill, showed up. Hernan wasted no time putting Bill to work.

We forced the bees down with an all-natural spray of herbs and oils on a fume pad. We spritzed the pad and put it on top of each exposed super, then waited a few minutes for the bees to retreat down a level. Then we removed each box or "super". We loaded these into a wheel barrow and capped them with cardboard to keep any extra bees out. They can smell honey a mile away, no kidding.

Here's a closer view of the hive. The bees were "bearded" out all morning while we worked. Also shown is the fume board, to the side of the hive.

Once we got the supers off, Hernan showed us his trick for removing bees that remained out of the supers. Enter the leaf blower. Fast, humane, and effective.

Once free of bees (well, mostly) we hurried the supers into the garage and closed the door to keep the bees out. Here Hernan shows us a "wet frame", which is a frame full of honey that hasn't been capped yet.

Next was a quick lesson on how to use the hot knife to remove capping's of wax on a frame above the uncapping tank (which catches the wax and honey that drips out).

What the hot knife didn't get, a small scratching tool took care of.

Then Bill and I switched off on uncapping duties.

Next the frames were loaded into the extractor, and then were spun out. The centrifugal force slings the honey out of the frames of uncapped comb.

Slow and steady on the extractor, and soon the liquid gold was flowing.

Soon a constant stream was pouring, and eventually Hernan extracted another 70 pounds or so of honey.

After the few hours of work, we took the frames and supers back to the hives. Hernan placed them eight feet or so from the hives. In no time the bees got to work, sucking up every drop of honey available, doing our cleaning for us. Hernan sent Bill and I home with a fresh jar of honey we just extracted. It is soooooo good!
Now I know what's in store for me extraction-time next year when Boris and Natasha bring home the gold!

BEES: She's ALIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!

2011-07-15T10:51:00.000-04:00

written by Tom

Our crepe myrtles were in full bloom all of June and the first two weeks of July. Not much left of the blooms after super high temps and summer storms. I caught one of my girls at work a couple weeks ago. How do I know it's from my hive? Well ... a beekeeper knows, is all. :)

And another view. I just love our crepe myrtles. So many people commit "crepe murder" each spring, as my good friend Jane calls it, and whack their trees to pitiful states. Those who did so this year didn't have even a smattering of flowers, while ours put on a royal show. When I was not feeding the bees the last week of June and first week of July, honeybees were all over these beautiful trees. Last year they only attracted bumblebees and beetles, so that's how I know these girls are from hive Boris. :)

I restarted feeding on last inspection, July 4. In that first week hive Boris drank up six gallons of syrup in seven days. WOW, they were hungry. The first gallon and a third went down overnight, I'm not exaggerating, that quick! This week they slowed down a little, having drunk three gallons in five days. Today's big question: "Is Boris queenless?" I'd seen supercedure cells of various sizes in the bottom box last visit. I was greeted by more bees up top than I'd ever seen. They were very defensive, not a good sign. The weather was 71 degrees. They'd drawn out one of the empty frames on the end, and the frame next to it was also completed. Beautiful!

On the second frame in of the top box, from the West side, I spotted the queen, and gently returned her and the tons of bees and capped brood back into the box. Still the bees were unusually defensive. I decided to only inspect the top box, having seen her majesty in action. Lots of capped syrup honey and brood on freshly drawn comb.

Every single frame in the top box was completely drawn. I'm assuming the story was the same in the bottom box. Since I use a nine-frame configuration instead of 10, the frames seem to be drawn out in two stages: to an even and moderate depth, then additionally deep to accomodate the extra room I've given them. This frame is in stage two, with the bees going right to left (West to East), top to bottom.

I was delighted with what I was seeing this week. A complete turn-around from what I'd expected. But still they were REALLY defensive, more than I'd ever experienced. I wonder if my queen is getting worn out and they would like a new one? I was very calm, but still experienced a couple moments of streaks of panic, as my hands and veil were full of angry defensive bees. I smoked them, and was glad to have on a pair of new goatskin gloves.

Tons of bees and food storage on each and every frame. Also noted was pollen on each frame. A few drone cells at the bottom of a couple of frames, but not too many. I think the queen might be in fine shape, and Boris was unusually defensive due to the oddly cool and overcast weather.

Even the end frames, one of which was completely blank with only fresh foundation just 14 days ago, had been drawn out. The feeding worked and Boris still had its reigning monarch! This frame was the most beautiful I'd seen this visit. It was one of my new frames, that had been drawn, and chock full of food storage and capped brood, with a little pollen around it.

I quickly spotted two honey frames, which were the two end frames on the East side of the box that were not drawn out just two weeks ago. I removed those, to keep aside for the split I will make in a month to create hive Natasha. Again Boris was given two fresh frames on the East side. Even though I was only working the top box, so as not to disturb and possibly harm the queen, I'd gotten more than what I'd hoped for with two more completely drawn frames. That makes three so far reserved for Natasha. That hive will be off to a major jump-start. Again I dusted the top box, even with the queen, using a flour sifter and powdered sugar for tracheal and varroa mite control.

Into the freezer they went for at least 48 hours to kill anything that might be lurking. I replaced the feeder, gave them another gallon of syrup, and left the work box that still had a ball of bees in it near the front entrance so they could find their way back inside the hive.

So far I have learned that beekeeping is all about surprises. It is a miracle of nature, and an unpredictable one at that. Hive Boris is doing extremely well. I'm concerned at their defensiveness, and it's making me think about possibly requeening Boris when I make the split for Natasha. Still, I'm amazed at how well Her Royal Highness is doing, so I'm going to think about it, listen to my mentors and read some more books. We'll see how the hive is doing in a week!

BEES: Summer Slowdown, Lessons & Decor

2011-07-10T15:04:00.002-04:00

written by Tom

So, okay, I'm a cartoonist AND a beek. Naturally I had to decorate my hives, appropriate for Russian Bees. Here's Boris, from the "Rocky & Bullwinkle Show".

I'd never drawn him before. I warmed up with a couple of sketches, then went for it.

It was a lot of work, but I managed to somehow enjoy it.

Okay, painting on a hive box is a LOT different than drawing on paper with ink. Steady ... steady ... steady ... .

Not bad, not bad.

Since I'm splitting my hive in a month to make two, I went ahead, built out the hive deep boxes and two medium supers, painted them all yellow, and then finalized the deal with Natasha's likeness on one of the deeps. She was SO much fun to draw!

Now came the hard part. It was time for another inspection. Somehow I had to switch out the top brood box on hive Boris with my newly decorated Boris box. I was nervous! One thing I did well without realizing it is holding my hive tool in my hand while holding the frames. I didn't realize I had figured out this little beekeeping trick until I saw this photo. A great sign on the top box, another newly drawn frame with a tight brood pattern.

I'd stopped feeding them for two weeks, suspecting robbing was going on. I later realized it was not robbing, but orientation flights of new bees I was witnessing. To verify, I made several visits during one such event. There were no balls of bees fighting to the death, no alarm phermone smell (bananas), and in three visits in shorts and flip flops I got no stings. So that was good. Now, back to the inspection.

I'm smiling in this photo, but really I was disappointed to see that they'd done very little work on this frame.

I expected this frame to have been drawn out in the two weeks since I'd last inspected, but it was only drawn fully on one side and about a third of the other side had been drawn. Hmmmmm. I will have to start feeding them again.

There were several more undrawn frames I'd hoped would be drawn out and ready to harvest for Hive Natasha.So far, out of the 18 frames in the two hive boxes, they'd drawn out 13.5 frames. A GREAT sign I'll be able to split. But only one honey frame was found on this visit that I could remove.

I inspected and placed all of the top box frames into a working box. The queen was not spotted up top, though I did see a few tight brood frames, so she'd been busy up there within the last nine days. Onto the bottom box. The end frames were undrawn, but the frames next to them that used to be undrawn were mostly filled out. There were LOTS of bees. My hive has more than doubled in size, another great sign.

This freshly drawn frame had some brood and a lot of capped honey cells. But there was a knob of capped brood in the center of the frame that was troublesome. I still worry about it.

Here's a closer view. Were these emergency supercedure cells? If drone cells all were on the bottom of the frames, then it doesn't make sense these in the middle were drone cells, but rather supercedure cells. Still, they weren't all that big, AND they weren't pointing down, but rather up and at weird diagonals. Was Boris now queenless and they were trying to create a replacement queen? My alarm quickly grew, as did my panic. On my next inspection if there are more of these and I'm seeing two or three eggs had been laid per cell then I'll know for sure that Hive Boris has gone queenless. I sure hope that's not the case.

Holy crap, this had a lot of bees and brood. No queen was spotted in the bottom box, either. But I did see more brood than I ever had in both the top and bottom boxes. This frame used to be spotty, but now had a tight capped brood pattern. I also noticed that for the first time there were capped drone cells in the hive. These were mostly along the bottom of the frames in the bottom box only, except for that one weird frame where there were large capped cells at frame's center. Unfortunately, I also just spotted a queen cup on this frame, in the upper right quadrant of the frame. They're preparing to either replace their queen or they're frantically trying to create a replacement due to an unfortunate accident (such as an ignorant beek killing her without realizing it ... I swear I put her frame back in gently as soon as I saw her last time, honest!). Or, maybe they're just practicing, keeping up their chops on how to build queen cells?

See? Lots of bees, I'm not lying. I'm still holding my hive tool without realizing it.

Again no queen, but lots of brood cells and more drone cells. My alarm was raising, and the bees were getting louder.

This was what I came to get this inspection, a honey frame. I wanted to remove them from the hive and make Boris redraw out fresh foundation into comb so that when I split the hive, the new weaker colony will have a jump start with frames of drawn comb I'd set aside for them. This honey frame (not true honey, but capped simple syrup I'd been feeding the bees) weighed a lot and was quite beautiful. I put the frame in the freezer for at least 48 hours (I left it in there a week until Yvonne reminded me to get it out of her freezer, PRONTO!). I'd hoped for four such frames, but only one was ready, located as a next-to-end frame on the East side of the hive.

It was time to harvest the honey frame. I used a bee brush as quickly and gently as I could to brush the bees into the bottom box. I quickly discovered that the bees did NOT like this in the least. Oh, crap, they're flying everywhere!! And I'm not wearing gloves. And I'm sweating. And ... and ... BAM! I got stung. Finally, my first sting of the year. Silly me figured that reflexively shaking my hand around would be a good idea while handling bees. WRONG!!! Yes, it is way easier to handle the bees gloveless. But you're still going to accidentally kill some here and there (sorry, girls), and if you're not protected and are nervous, you'll get popped.

I quickly reached for my gloves. Here's a shot of what I put on my hands after resmoking them.TA-DAAAAA, holes chewed into one of the thumbs, some of the fingers and along the palm thanks to a handy mouse in my storage room off the carport. Instead of putting my beekeeping gloves away in a chest of drawers I have out there, I left them on the shelf. Apparently mice think goatskin is akin to caviar.

As soon as I got the gloves on a bee entered my thumb hole and I thought my eyes were going to bug outta my head. "I'm in trouble!" I shouted to Yvonne. Ever the yoga teacher, she made me recompose as I quickly took the gloves back off. Fortunately I didn't get stung a second time, but I deserved it. Yvonne said, "Relax." And that was all. I took some deep breaths, applied a lot of smoke to thousands of angry bees flying all around me, and went back to work.

Even though I don't use chemicals in the hive, I will use every natural method of helping the bees keep Varroa and tracheal mites in check. My friend Hernan reminded me that summertime was time for sugar dusting. I saw a suggestion in "Bee Culture" ( I love that magazine ) to dust using a flour sifter. It worked like a charm. I used a family heirloom, my Aunt Anne's flour sifter. It was super fast and effective. I did this on both boxes as my hand kept reminding me how stupid I'd acted while in the hive this visit. Oh, well, at least I found out the hard way that I was not allergic to honeybees! I must admit I felt some sense of "so THERE, you stingy bees!!!" while coating them in powdered sugar. "Take THAT!"

After dusting both boxes and putting the top feeder back in place, it was time to take a look at the freshly decorated Boris hive. He looks pretty much up to something ... a visual reminder that you have to be careful, gentle AND smart when you're working bees of any kind. On my next visit, I'll know if I need to order a second Russian queen instead of just one. Any longtime beekeepers out there reading, please let me know your thoughts. In the meantime I'll check the books and hope for the best.

VEG: A very long post

2011-07-04T18:02:00.000-04:00

written by Yvonne

This is a fairly long post because it spans two weeks. I'll try to keep it short and to the point.

June 25-26, 2011

No one informed this batch of kale that it's supposed to be a cool-weather crop. It is growing like crazy and enjoying all of this summer heat. Further down you'll see one of the things I did with the kale.

A few basil plants doing well. Not enough for the amount of pesto our household requires, but it's on its way.

The red okra is coming along - as are the weeds and grass. (Embarrassing.)

These are rainbow peppers which we are excited about. However we are not as excited about the weeds and grass. (Further embarrassment.)

Oregano and more grass.

Lots of new squash blossoms but I think the majority of squash is done. We trimmed these way back and we'll see if the flowers produce anything more.

Pretty marigolds next to the cucumbers.

Do you see all of these cucumber flowers? Do you? Well each one is turning into a lovely, refreshing cucumber. Yvonne is very happy.

This is the amount that we picked just in the last two days.

We also harvested a few more squash (no surprise there), some carrots, and burgundy beans...

and a bunch of kale.

The Borlotto beans were big and plump so we felt it was time to harvest them.

We pulled everything off the vine, not knowing if more will take their place or not. Something tells us these will not keep producing (like the burgundy beans do).

We poured some adult beverages and sat around the table and shelled the entire basket-full of beans. Tom said he did this with his family as a kid, and I've heard others talk about sitting on the porch, shelling beans in the warm summer. Now that I've done it for the first time, I can see why people have fond memories of this activity. Yes, it may be hot (although we were in the nice air conditioning), and yes it can be a tedious task, but it also makes you slow down and just talk with the person you're with. We both found it very enjoyable!

We ended up with about 6-cups of beans. Once we had them all shelled, we discovered that we probably pulled them a bit early. The ones that had a lot of red on the shell produced beans that were white with a bit of red. The shells that were more green had beans that were also green. But that's OK. It was a learning experience and we certainly ate them anyway. To cook them, I had to find a recipe that used fresh beans. Recipes with canned beans and/or dried beans are everywhere. But I've never cooked fresh beans before so I wasn't sure how. The source I found said to put just enough water to cover the fresh beans and cook for about 45 minutes. At the end of the cooking time I added basil, tomatoes, s&p, and topped with Parmesan cheese. HOLY COW were they good! You would have thought I'd thrown a ham hock in them because they were so flavorful, but there was nothing of the kind involved.

July 3-4, 2011

This weekend we did a LOT harvesting, a LOT of weeding, and some planting. After a week we decided that the Borlotto beans were not going to put out any more beans so we ripped those plants out.

We harvested the remainder of the garlic, more squash , burgundy beans, carrots, and a BUNCH of cucumbers. How many cucumbers, you ask?

A sink full! And how many is a sink full? 47! Mind you, this is what we harvested this weekend, not what has been harvest to date. I went from being the happiest cucumber lover on the planet to a gal with a problem. What are we going to do with all these? We can't even fit them into the refrigerator! One way I've been using them is by making cucumber water - like they do at spas. Just a sliced-up cucumber in the water pitcher in the fridge. It's SO refreshing - and it uses up one cucumber a day. But geez, even at that rate it will be two months before we get through all these, and they certainly won't last that long. What to do, what to do....

I know! I'll make refrigerator pickles. Have I made them before? Of course not. But going by the name 'refrigerator pickles' one could deduce that you don't actually "can" the pickles, you just stick them in jars with flavorings and park them in the fridge. And that sounded like a fairly simple thing to do. So that's what I did. I consulted several recipes and triangulated among them to come up with a recipe that looked good. I used some of our own, homegrown garlic. The garlic wasn't completely dried which might be the reason for its pinkish color. Either that or it's a fungus of some kind that we'll die from, but I'm using them regardless.

After sterilizing the jars I cut up the cukes and boiled water, salt, sugar, and vinegar. I added a combination of spices (peppercorns, allspice, celery seed, mustard seed, garlic and fresh dill) to the jars, along with the cukes and then topped the jars with the liquid.

Volia! Refrigerator pickles. I made enough for four quarts which used about 10 cukes (only 37 more to go!). In about a week, I'll pull them out and give them a try. The reviews for the main recipe I used said you couldn't tell a difference between these and Claussen. We'll see.

As far as the kale, I sprinkled them with olive oil and salt and put them in the oven at 250 for about an hour to make kale chips. Luckily we harvested enough for two batches because we've been eating them like crazy for two days. They are crunchy and salty just really darn good.

Since the tomato seeds we planted weeks ago never came up (bummer), Tom started some tomato seeds in peat pots. This allowed us to keep the seeds moist until they germinated (half were up in 5 days, the others in 8). They have been in these pots for a few weeks now and they are ready to plant in the garden.

Tom put up stakes and growing spirals...

and then planted one tomato plant in the center of each. Although our friends Erin, Jennifer and Jill have 14 tomato plants that are bursting with fruit, which they assure us they will share.... well, it's just a matter of pride that we have successful tomatoes.

It was very hot and much sweat was produced. Nevertheless we got all of the beds weeded....

and planted carrots, cabbage, lima beans, marjoram, cilantro, parsley, and chives. Hopefully there is time left in the summer growing season for the herbs to produce.

BEES: Hitting the books (and checking them thrice)

2011-07-01T11:45:00.000-04:00

written by Tom

So waiting for my girls to draw out the second hive body, I thought it was time to double-check the books and make sure they were doing things correctly. What good does reading all these books and magazines do for me, when it's the bees who really need to hear this stuff? So, I began reading one of my manuals to them.

I made sure to point out all of the great illustrations in my handbook, "The Backyard Beekeeper". I think some bees are more visual than others.

Once that chapter was completed, I left them with a bit of bedside reading they could get to, if they so desired.

All appeared to be going well. For the first time I could hear the buzzing from BOTH hive boxes when I visited my bees each night, usually after I get home from work. But one day I came home to a cloud of about 400 bees in front of the hive. The photo below doesn't do justice to what I was seeing, but believe me, it was a LOT of bees and kind of freaked me out. Was this a robbing incident? I called my mentors to find out their thoughts. I waited a little bit, then suited up, used lots of smoke and removed the feeder and syrup for the time being. That was two weeks ago. The other night the incident repeated itself at exactly the same time, 6:30. I double-checked my books three times, and visited the hive on three occasions with no protection on at all (unless flip flops and shorts count). There were no balls of bees fighting to the death. No corpses of bees on the ground from the battle that comes with defending the hive from robbing. And no smell of bananas. Most importantly, as I knelt two feet beside the entrance, even with the cloud of bees buzzing about, I received no stings. So I am convinced these were not robbing events, but orientation flights of young bees I was witnessing. My hive has definitely been growing.

A week after removing the feeder, I wondered if they'd continue to work on drawing out the frames in the second box. Here's a top view. Not bad, not bad at all.

One empty end-frame removed, and you can see a beautiful sight!

A closer view of one of the frames, fully drawn and filled with capped and uncapped sugar syrup "honey" from the feeder and whatever nectar they could find in the wild.

And another frame that had been empty just a week or two before was now complete and had a lot of capped brood in a tight pattern. The queen's been in the top box and laying well.

And another freshly drawn frame chock full of capped brood, and syrup honey around the edges.. Another similar frame had a tight pattern of larvae developing in the center (and no varroa mites visible to the naked eye).

And the other end frame, where you can see they've begun to draw out the comb. Wow, in just under two weeks, one of them without feeding, they'd drawn out six and a half of the seven fresh frames and foundation Richard and I had installed in the top box. We'd moved two other frames with brood and bees from the bottom box. Now, I need to see what's in the bottom box on my next visit, and remove some of the honey frames and replace them with empty undrawn foundation. My plan is for a split in early August, so I've got to put these girls to work so the split hive gets an easy start. I'll add in fresh deep frames and a medium super to see if I can get them to draw out comb for honey stores next year. I'll definitely replace the top feeder since nectar is low in the hazy depths of summer. Time to crack that whip!

With temps getting into the high 90s, up to 98 one day, I caught the girls doing a bit of festooning, or cooling off, one night around 9. When they're doing this they emit a beautiful low buzzing hum.

VEG: Good Eats

2011-06-20T14:10:00.000-04:00

written by Yvonne

We are at that part of summer where it's all about harvesting. So far, only three possible tomato plants have popped up (very sad about that), but peppers, basil, oregano, and okra are all on their way. I'm hoping this is my year for cucumbers. I've gotten some in the past but not nearly enough. We harvest two last night and had those as a salad with dinner.

There are a LOT more coming out on the vines so it's just a matter of getting to them before the bugs do. One reason we might actually have successful cucumbers this year? T's bees! I even caught one in action.

Squash has been plentiful as always.

Last night, along with our cucumber salad, Tom made fried squash. We added a dash of Texas Pete to them and they were YUM YUM!

We finally got around to hanging the garlic we pulled up last week. We found a perfect spot for them to dry where they are outside but not in direct sun, and no 4-legged creatures can get to them.

Each clove we planted produced a nice, big bulb. Once they have dried for several weeks, we will cut off the stems and roots and knock the dirt off. You have to be somewhat delicate with them until they are dried so less handling is better.

Weekly followers of TY VeggiePatch may recall that Tom was given a fig tree by a friend. She's got a big heart for felines, but her thumb? Not so green. Here is what it looked like when the pitiful thing came to our 'farm' on May 7.

And here is what it looks like now, about 6 or 7 weeks later! Truth be told, we haven't done a whole lot to it other than add some nutrients into the soil and water it occasionally. Once the weather cools off some, we'll find a place for it in the yard and make it a permanent addition to TY's Farm.

This 'volunteer' sunflower just popped up on the side of the house. Beautiful!