Just in time

The weather has been unsettled, and yet the bees work on. Any kind of uptick in the temperature makes them a little more busy, a little more. . . springlike. And spring sometimes makes them think about swarming. No room in the hive, and all that. Giving bees plenty of room in the hive sometimes changes their minds. My job is to make certain that swarming remains a distant twinkle in their compound eyes.

And to do that, I have to get in there and say hi, how are you, every once in a while. Unfortunately, I had mislaid my smoker. Don't ask me how one does so; I live in the sort of family and household wherein such things happen. I kept putting off beekeeping because it's a titch less pleasant without smoke.

Fortunately, I spent yesterday in a nearby college town, being so amazingly proud of my eldest's Ultimate Frisbee team that I could have burst any buttons I might have been wearing. This pride did not prevent me from a quick spin into Sacramento, where I procured a replacement smoker at a beekeeping supply store. Getting back before that game was over was icing on the cake. All thoughts of smoking and beekeeping were driven from my head because nine high school players trounced, in order, four college teams, the last of which was twice their size, sending in a fresh crew at every point. The kids played with hearts as big as their smiles, and the air was thick with the Spirit of the Game.

But today, it was Bee Time. The kids played on, but my driving wasn't needed, and I have important things to do. Eric helped me weed, Denise and Kevin helped out in the afternoon. But in between all of this work and help, I had a new smoker, and some things the friend with the swarm said the other day kept going through my head -- she said she'd put off going through her hive and it was a mess when she finally did, queen cells all over. She was the one, not surprisingly, whose hive threw off the last swarm I picked up.

Some day, I'm going to master smoking -- using just the amount of cool smoke necessary, and of course keeping my smoker lit. Today was more like one of my usual days -- difficult to keep lit, hot when I needed it cool, and running through loads of fuel in what seems like a flash. Good times!

The top two honey boxes on the only hive I managed to get through seemed full. Full enough to extract, at least. I set them aside and walked back inside to get a bee escape and a board -- with this little device, in 24 hours, the top boxes will be bee-free after I return them to the hive this inspection, and I can get them drained and returned to the hives for more filling. Honey is faster than wax, remember, so reusing the comb is the way to go. I slapped a new box into position under those, with a queen excluder to go between it and the brood nest. They will need to go somewhere if they can't get into the top boxes!

But I wasn't there to assess the harvest. I wanted to see the bees. Down into the brood nest I needed to go. A bit more smoke, and I started pulling frames. The first two from the side were almost all honey, which is reasonable. Fortunately, I remembered to bring a pencil out, so I could mark notes on top of the frames:

This one notes the position of the frame, the fourth in from the side, and that it is filled with "perfect brood." To me, that means a full frame of capped worker brood, with stores along the sides and top. Not spotty, not full of drones, etc.

Unfortunately when I saw the queen I neither had my marking paint nor my camera ready, so she remains unmarked. Might as well look up what color I should mark her, hmmm? The other thing I noticed as I saw her was how little attention the other bees were paying her. Either there's something wrong or she was just in a hurry, but I wasn't thrilled with the scene on the comb.

Frame after frame, lots of brood, some less okay than others. . . a "trap frame" of drone brood, which I cut out and gave to the chickens, hopefully dooming any Varroa mites there and helping limit their population in the hive. . . all the way across the box. One thing that troubled me, though, was that while I saw a lot of capped worker brood, I saw no eggs (although I'm old enough to blame my eyes) and no larvae in different stages of development.

What I did see, to my dismay, all over the bottoms of the frames in the first box, was variations on this theme:

How many queen cups (in different sizes and stages) can you count? Only one of these has a developing queen in it, but there are more waiting for use. The drone comb means that any hatching queens would have at least a few drones to choose from. I actually debated leaving one in the hive, but decided that they should go. If the hive really needs a new queen, I'll see it the next time I go in, because the brood pattern will have changed dramatically. For the nonce, they're going to have to deal with the queen they have. If the capped brood is any indication, they're going to have a hugely increased workforce.


Maybe in the bottom box? And there, indeed, I saw some of what I had been hoping for. Small larvae, and space -- open space in drawn comb. Too late, if the spare empty comb from downstairs had been available, I might have been able to pull a couple of frames out of the top box.

Instead, the position of the two boxes was reversed and I moved the empty outside frames into the brood nest, opening it up so the queen would have more space to lay eggs and hopefully preventing the hive from swarming off.

That new empty honey box, in between the queen excluder and the bee escape under the full boxes, is going to come in handy! Of course, this also means I have to get going on extracting and returning the other boxes to the hive, or sheer crowding (two honey boxes down to one, plus hatching workers) will push them into swarming no matter what I do. I should probably split them, therefore getting the four hive load I'd hoped for. Maybe just pulling some frames and adding them to the new small swarm would make sense. Boosting one hive while easing another? I'll have to think on that.

Thank goodness for lots of help. Eric pulled many weeds before the bees today, and after, we all moved the persimmon tree to her/its new home in the back yard. We had lots of help from Taz.

She thinks digging is a Great Idea. Such a good idea that one of the things Kevin did was plan for a real fence around the garden. Just enough to convince Busy Puppy that she needs to be elsewhere. It was pleasant hanging out with her when I was pulling weeds between beds and she was chasing and eating beetles and spiders, but I could always let her in for those special times if needed.

All in all, it was a busy and productive day. Ten or so more of those, and we'll be all ready for the Bay Friendly Garden tour.

We got weather

This is one day's fall this week.


I'm not keeping accurate records because emptying the gauge when I race outside between squalls hasn't been high on my list. I did set up another 50 gallon barrel to fill, though. Might as well retain this free water. My sandy soil means that we have no puddles anywhere, unless you count the 1/4" one that formed in the middle of the compacted path for an hour or two.

It's not just gray skies and rain, though. No, we got a Real Storm, complete with lightning and thunder and -- hail! (And weeds.)


Just in case I'm not being enough of a geek Californian, a close-up!


One actual downside of the wind + water equation is that I'll need to shore up the shelling peas when the storm cycle passes. I hope no permanent damage is done. Not, for instance, like my oldest child picking all of the immature peas because she thought they were snow peas, no, nothing like that.

And the ants have finally Had Enough and marched into the house. Time for vigorous vacuuming and wiping with vinegar and strewing bay leaves, I suppose. Or I could just wait for the weather to turn.

First of the year Harvest Monday

Kale, kale, the gang's all here. Seriously, it's the most reliable producer in the garden, although other things are coming into their season also.

Red ursa kale. It's tasty, but the tooth-edged leaves are slightly hard to chop. It's fun when they stain goat cheese in a leftover dish, though. Purple cheese and kale. . .


Yesterday I did a Big Weeding outside. I'm trying to discourage the oxalis by pulling most of the root, even though I'm not usually getting the bulbs from which they spring. A few seasons of this, though, and I bet they will be exhausted. It's a nice excuse to soak up some weak sunshine and closely inspect the plants, at least in the beds under scrutiny.

From yesterday, then, another few ounces of red kale for the lentil soup, along with a few carrots. Some are from the "Galactic Mix" from Territorial, including Atomic Red, Lunar White, and something else. I think I got two red, a white, and an unknown ball-shaped orange one. Then one Nantes half long. The white was mild, the red were different -- one was sort of spicy, and one was bland. I didn't get to eat the ball-shaped one, so who knows what it tasted like? Two lemons found from a nephew's toss-fest over the holidays, and the last few peppers. I pulled the plants and got two Anchos and a jalapeno. The little white stems were processed honey mushrooms from my back yard, but Denise commanded me not to eat them because she and Kevin hadn't completely identified them. Alas, they went into the compost. Not much there, but they might have made the soup taste better. A handful of "Alaska" peas, that when shelled, went into the soup. Caterina and I tried them raw. I'm looking forward to having enough for a pea risotto.


I also sowed three more rows of a lettuce mix -- the "Italian Saladini blend" from Territorial, and spent some thought on how to fill in the blank spots left by onions! I'm starting to think about sowing some seeds indoors for the spring too -- amazing how fast things turn.

I hope you all are enjoying your gardens either out in them or in the anticipation of the spring.

While I was hiding from the rain

The weeds had a party, especially under the Reemay. As the cover whooshed off, clouds of little gnats flew up, and revealed:


I think this must be some kind of braising blend -- at least I'm going to treat that like mizuna and cook it. I won't be cooking the oxalis or the grasses. The chickweed might find its way into a salad or three.

The spinach is doing well, with only a bit of leaf miner damage. I'm contemplating a salad.


Weeds were having a pretty good time among the Bedazzled sweet peas, too.


Someone needs to get the memo about "winter" to the Anna apple. I wonder if there will be a crop this year, or if it's just all cattywhompus.


Green snow peas appear to be recovering nicely from their November Nibbling.


The Golden Snow peas have missed out on all predation -- I have high hopes.


Some of the peppers are still hanging in. I began harvesting the piquin ones and will try to finish harvesting tomorrow. I hear the rain is going to slack off for a few days. I should probably get to weeding, too.


In just a day or two, I think our first shelling pea harvest will commence! Nothing like a three-pea beginning. These are "Alaska."


Winter gardening here, except for the dratted weeds, is pretty much pure pleasure. Low pests, easy weed pulling, and tasty salads and stir fries.

Everything but the kitchen sink update

We were out of town this weekend, and while I was away, I was wondering what the garden was doing in my absence. It took me about an hour after I got home to get outside, just for a "hello" walk around. However, it took two days to finish the laundry.

After it was all done today, I grabbed a camera and my youngest and we headed out, so I'm going to do a "wander through the yards with the camera" kind of picture-heavy update. Thanks in advance for your patience!


The helper herownself, with the inadvertently-pole beans she planted a few weeks ago. Oh well. She's the only one so far who keeps wanting to plant things and keep up with them. Her little bed is getting very full.


Mostly-tomatillos, with some sunflower accents, this bed is doing very well. The two on the left were transplanted the day before we left. I jury-rigged a support by bending a long piece of 6x6 mesh in half. So far, so good.


The purple tomatillo is way ahead of everything else.


These are Sungolds.


And a Principe Borghese peeking out.


The Haricot Vert beans came up in four days.


Scarlet Runners are way ahead of all the other beans, and so very pretty.


They are, however, over their supports. While I had contemplated lashing an extension on the poles, the top of the string is the top of my reach, so either my neighbor is going to get to pick these or they'll hang back down. I really thought I had them at six feet -- apparently it's ten or so.


Three sisters doing pretty well. I haven't grown corn here before, so we'll see. I may have to do some raccoon-proofing. And the squash (Lakota, I think) is leaping around so much that the beans may get shoved aside.


First little peppers. I think these might be chili piquin.


This indigo is about ready for its first cutting (right above the jointed nodes). When the yarn for dyeing shows up, I'm going to set up a little dye studio and see what I can get.


Yellow Finns are really and truly (okay, eleven of twelve of them are) up. I hope by next week to have to put more soil around them. This is the most fun experiment I've done in a while.


And I have to remember to cut some examples of the apple trees and take them to the nursery. I don't think this is fire blight, but something is killing my apples, twig down. Since these are espaliered, there isn't much there to lose without losing the entire tree. Eeep.


Out front, the first pumpkin. Last year the front yard pumpkins were show-stoppers. I hope to repeat that this year, with different varieties. This might be a blue one. I have GOT to find my copper plant tags, since both my brain and my garden journal appear to be missing.



Too late for Garden Death Day, but the Charentais melon kicked the bucket in my absence. It was only one leaf, but still . . .


All is not serious around the Sicilian Sisters. We take good time for garden silliness.


Yellow crookneck and parseley, out front. The leaves are a bit spiky compared to the almost-downy feeling butternuts near them.


This is the reason I want to live to be a hearty old woman. It will take me that long to pull every last bit of Bermuda grass out of my yards. Bad weed! Bad weed! I muse longingly about Roundup in a squirt bottle when I'm out front.


Another thing I have got to get together is a low-pressure gravity watering system. Even with my helper, it took about an hour today to hose water everything from the rain bins. And I worry that it's not going as deeply as of course a drip system would. Hopefully before next summer!


These are the 275 gallon totes I was using today. The one on the other side of the house is 2/3 empty after a long soaking of each tree and vine out back.


The Purple Royalty rasperries, put in this spring, are going to have at least a tiny harvest. Yum! I can't wait until the whole wall o'berries fills in. With the butternut squashes near them and around the persimmon tree, it's going to be quite a sight.


Caterina was wielding the camera today, and these rasperries out back (terribly infested with weeds -- I'll clear them out after pruning) in front of the beehives are one of her favorite garden destinations. They're very carefully checked every day.


Her rocking horse is another. You can see the former lawn future garden bed space well in this picture.


The bee fountain is just past the pepper behind the volunteer bachelor's buttons. I'm keeping it topped off, and they visit a lot.

Laura, over at the Modern Victory Garden, made a point that it's time to start thinking about putting seeds in for winter's crops. That's true, and it also gives gardeners like me something to do instead of obsessively wandering around our happily growing summer gardens. So maybe I'll get to at least thinking about that while I'm watering these days.