Another Play Day With the Bees

Sofia, my new Russian-Carniolan queen, is doing quite well. In this photo, her attendants are surrounding her in classic style. She is extremely vigorous compared to the older queens. I'm going to order a couple of replacement queens, and keep one of the older girls in a smaller hive for emergencies.

The queen cells that were in the Boudicca/Isolde combined hive were all open. Last week, one of the baby queens was piping from her cell, preparing to emerge and duke it out with any rivals. Today I didn't see any royalty or eggs, so am not sure if any of the new girls are still around. The bees seem contented, though. I added another frame of brood to keep them going. One of the planned new queens may go into this hive.


Because of all the dividing and combining of hives a couple of weeks ago, they have all become little Bee UNs, with Russian-Carniolans living in peace with Italians.


My Wilbur Widangy method for reinforcing some drone comb.


This is the burr comb which I found hanging from a lid a few weeks ago. It doesn't look any different from April 17, except that the brood is growing up (the bees are covering it). The bees had taken it upon themselves to make some drone comb. Today I opened some capped cells, and was pleased to find that the mite infestation has dramatically declined. Mite drop on the sliding board is also down to no more than a few dozen, compared to hundreds. I like to think it is due to my homemade essential oil mix. It's worth continuing and collecting more data.


Have you ever wondered where honey mustard dressing came from?

Workshop Still Life

Some of the miscellaneous things we've collected in the workshop.

Gardening

I've been hating this pittospora for a long time. Sure, it provided a visual and sound screen, but never looked very good, and was a bother to keep trimmed.

The pittospora (center of photo) last April.

Last week I went to Singing Tree Gardens and got two rhododendrons. At Miller Farms I got some more plants, as previously reported. Then on Monday I took out that annoying pittospora. It was an all-day project. Amazingly I didn't crush anything precious as I dropped limbs and cut down the trunks. The trunks on that sucker were heavy! I thought I'd be in a world of hurt the next day, but was surprised to find myself only a little sore.

The honeybees were a bit confused. The pitto' was blooming, and the bees really like it's sweet flowers. As I was dropping limbs, bees would hover about as if to say "WTF?". They adapted quickly though, and worked the fallen limbs, even after I dragged them in the back to the chipping pile.

Bye bye, pitto'. Note the bed in front of the house has been expanded. The hazel got moved forward, and will fill out soon enough.


Stumps

On Tuesday I planted the "Black Sport" rhody and an "Elsie Lee" azalea. They don't look like much now, but they should settle in before long.


I thought that a little more upper level vegetation might be nice, so on Wednesday I included a weeping buddleia to the left of the rhody. A couple of heaths were also tucked into the bed, and I spread some wood chips that I acquired from the side of the highway (yes, it's allowed).

I got a pile of other plants in the ground in other parts of the garden, including the "Colonel Coen" rhody. Some of these poor things have been waiting on me for a year.

Colonel Coen, blooming nicely.

Since Bloom Day last week, the "Unique Marmalade" rhody has opened up nicely.


Rhody season is getting going. Below: In the background, the Hanami cherry is nearly done, while the lilac & rhody are blooming nicely.


I also devised a support for a Pink Rain fuchsia that droops over a walkway. Bamboo kindly supplied by Holly & Harvey. Thanks!

RIP Isolde

It doesn't look like Isolde and her girls were just kidding around last week. No eggs, and a bunch of unsealed queen cells. Also, it looks like Boudicca is declining. Her brood nest is small, and there are several capped queen cells. With both hives, I am going to see what happens with the home-grown queens. I might reduce them to nuc size and combine the rest of the hives with some of the others.

On the bright side, my experiment of attaching the burr comb to an empty frame worked (below). The cells look like drones, which is what this frame was supposed to be for. Cool!

Bloom Day April 15, 2009

Singing Tree Gardens is a nursery on Dow's Prairie that specializes in rhodies and azaleas. They started another sale today, so I went up in quest of some plants for a couple of spots. I also needed ideas, but all I got was garden envy.


OK, so I did get some ideas and some more plants.


Since I was already in the neighborhood, I stopped at Miller Farms to get into more horticultural trouble. I came home with a couple of hostas, a couple of ferns, an abutilon, another hellebore, a bleeding heart, meadow rue and some more plants.

I didn't dare stop at Mad River Gardens.

April and May are the best months in my garden. Most of this is accidental because of the wood hyacinths and columbines that run riot throughout. Lilacs, camellias and rhodies fill out the aerial reaches. Better planning would extend flowery wonderfulness into the summer, but I'm just not that good yet.

Quan Yin


The magnolia is starting to leaf out.

At the next Humboldt Beekeepers Association, I am supposed to give a little talk on food plants for bees that bloom in winter and early spring. Just what I need: another project. I've been watching in the garden, but am certainly no expert. Fortunately, last year I helped put together a flower brochure for the beek club's booth at the county fair. And I've been interviewing the bees.

My April Bloom Day photo site

Brought to You by the Color Yellow

This is the first honest-to-God banana slug I have seen in my garden. Usually I see the big, brown Asian slugs, while the banana slugs stay in the redwood forest. This is just a wee tyke.

Following on the theme, the sparaxis have been blooming for a couple of weeks.

Bee Melodramas

Ah, me. With spring invigorating my bees, I saw that Isolde, the home-grown queen, wasn't such a dud after all. I thought that perhaps I should cancel my order of a replacement queen. But I figured that an extra queen could be handy, especially if I had to make a divide.

At the end of March, I went away for a week (the Chiricahua Mountains blog may or may not be posted when you read this), thinking that all my girls were doing pretty well. Upon my return, however, I found that two had suffered large losses from the mites. In particular, in Boudicca's hive I found virtually no brood - no eggs, no larvae and just a smattering of pupae that looked dead. I couldn't find the queen, either. I was pushed for time, so couldn't stage a queen-hunt. Oh well, there's a new queen coming, I thought.

Then I went back last Wednesday to bring her hive home and prepare it for a new queen. Who do you think I saw but Queen B herself. The hive still looks devastated, but I did see a few larvae that were eggs before - they had been hiding. So her poor performance could have been due to a lack of nurse bees. I combined her with a box of brood and bees from the strong *knock wood* Ekaterina, and hope to find a happier hive soon.

Yesterday the new queen arrived - another Russian-Carniolan. The weather was awful, so Sofia and her ladies-in-waiting stayed in the house overnight. Today was lovely, thank the gods, so I set her up in a hive with more bees and brood from Ekaterina. Cross fingers, toes and eyes.

And then back to Isolde...

I found a bit of wild comb hanging from the lid when I opened it (sorry, no piccie of that). There were eggs, so I thought I'd try a salvage method I had read about. This would be handy if I ever collect a wild hive. Anyway, this hive is booming - brood nest extends through 3 1/2 medium boxes, six frames at its widest. Happy, happy, my spirits were lifting.

Then I got to the bottom box, and took out a frame.

There on the bottom screen was a ball of bees. The big beeks have told kids like me that there is usually a queen in the middle of a ball, being protected by workers if she should find herself out in the wide world. I thought it was rather strange that they were balled up inside the hive, and I wondered if they were attacking an intruder. I eased the ball out and onto another screen and gently nudged bees away. I saw a queenly abdomen. I also saw what looked like bees trying to sting her. Then I saw that she was dead, and they were trying to sting her even deader. A bee coup? WTF???

You'd think her name was Julia Caesar. But just in case the workers were only roughhousing, and she was only pretending to be dead, I left her inside the hive and finished my work. Next week I'll see what I can see - Eggs? An emergency queen cell?

It seems that Sofia came in the nick of time.

Hanami Chado 2009

While away in the Chiricahuas, I worried that the neighbor's cherry tree would be past its prime by the time we returned. I needn't have fretted. It was in its full glory the weekend following. The day was sunny and warm - very warm for Eureka.

This year, we had Tea before the drunken revelries began. Pia and I performed tandem Ryokobodate (Tea on a tray) to facilitate serving so many guests. This was an abbreviated Tea ceremony, with no haiken. Pardon our hats, but the sun was very bright.

Hanami Sushi and Sake Picnic 2009

Shortly after Tea was over, Tony and Brian conveniently arrived, both vying for the role of Toshiro Mifune. Neither are "Tea", but they are amusing at a party. Dan brought his "Scattered Sushi" dish, which is a great favorite. As usual, Kristin had only a cameo role. Fie, you pooper of parties!

Karin, Kalen, Dan and D'har spent most of their time in the kitchen preparing many a sumptuous plate of food. In addition to regular rolls, they made a simplified version of Samurai restaurant's Hana Roll, pickled daikon, seaweed salad (OK, it was from the store, but delicious), gyoza and I-don't-know-what-else. For dessert, we devoured Holly's special California-style Sakura Mochi. There were a couple of bottles of sake to slake our thirst.

After the feeding frenzy, we played a game of koob - a traditional Viking game that goes well with sake. Then it was back to the picnic grounds for more sake. Koob is thirsty work!