Author Archives: Sarah

About Sarah

Endeavoring to grow tasty and nutritious vegetables in ever increasing quantity, and to eat them as often as I can.

After much too long

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Here’s my lame excuse:  We’ve been so busy! I know that’s true for just about everyone these days, but will nonetheless take the next several paragraphs to demonstrate just how busy this summer has been. It has literally been three months since a blog post went up, and I am certain I have missed the best part of growing season because of ‘being busy’.

Way back when, in June, the garden was looking pretty excellent.  I had this detailed plan of what crop would be planted in each row,  and by when it must be harvested in order to replant the next crop. Sometime around the beginning of July, I realized that I hadn’t looked in at my lovely plan in over a month. Another crucial happening between June and July: it was hotter than Hades and we were dipping into drought territory!  While there were things to harvest and take to market, the unbearable heat and dry weather made germinating the next crop impossible. Even if we could have watered enough to get a few seeds to sprout, the 100+ days would have cooked the little sprouts where they lay, sort of like a stir-fry.

The bees managed to hang in there, slurping up little drags of moisture from the garden and anywhere else we watered intermittently.  Somehow, they have maintained productive hives this season, and we have harvested twice this summer.  I discovered that bees don’t like the repeated sweltering days anymore than I do. Hot and bothered doesn’t begin to describe how they felt about me intruding one hot, hot week in June.  My mom and I both got stung that go round, and learned best to wait until the temperatures are in the 80′s to go peeking in on the bees.  The first harvest had a distinctly minty flavor to it, and the second a more neutral, light ‘honey’ flavor.  We have done some hive inspections in the past week and dismantled the one hive that had become infested with wax moths.  It was to be sure, a lesson in ‘problems that don’t age well’.  We had discovered the wax moths several months earlier, but didn’t quite know what to do about it so closed the hive back up with the intent to go back shortly and address the problem. You should be glad I don’t have pictures of this one- wax moth worms are very squirmy and very gross.

Outside of Fox Plot vegetables and Harmon Honey, we have spent considerable time house-hunting, having a wedding, getting ready for ‘Elmer’ to be delivered by a stork, and well, working our day jobs. The wedding was fantastic, with only a handful of things gone wrong, of which hardly a soul noticed.  (Erm, only two astute observers pointed out to me that I put the ring on the wrong hand). My favorite part was having so many dear, dear people gathered together, and my least favorite part was that the day flew by in fast forward and I kept hoping to find the pause button to just enjoy a few more minutes.  Fly boy looked so dashing in his new suit, and we did not recess down the aisle in conventional fashion after the ceremony, but took off pedaling on the tandem. No one’s fancy clothes got stuck in moving bike parts and I didn’t fall off!  There was much eating, drinking, and dancing until our toes couldn’t take it any more.  It was all in all, one of my favorite days ever.

Nonetheless, the garden still manages to produce, though I’ve had to take a temporary hiatus from the farmers’ market until next season.  In celebration of the nuptials, the Fox Plot received a hand crafted Whiz Bang garden cart.  Complete with the Conestoga option and deployable back legs, I predict this cart will change gardening (and beekeeping!) as we know it.  

We did plant a few fall things- mostly lettuces and cabbages.  There are still starts to transplant, but at this point, it might be too late.  The late planted tomatoes are in full productions- all 80 plants of 28 varieties!  I have been picking every three to four days, and have been putting them up in every possible way I can think of.  I’ve sliced, dried, roasted, blanched, peeled, stewed, simmered, and strained tomatoes this weekend.  
Unfortunately, I am not yet close to done as there are still two bins of tomatoes in my kitchen and I need to pick again today!

Garlic scapes in May

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It’s just the end of May, and it amazes me that the garlic has thrown scapes, the fireflies have made their debut, the tomato plants are beginning to blossom, and the bees have already gathered a harvestable amount of honey. Forgive me if I am redundant in saying this but nearly everything continues to be four to six weeks earlier than normal!  It makes me wonder if this is becoming a new normal or if it’s further sign of unpredictable climate changes?

I am excited that it is finally time to sell vegetables again!  We delivered the first of this seasons vegetables to Moveable Feast last week, with more to come this week. Also, this week marks the first market of the season for the Fox Plot.  We’ll be hawking our vegetables this coming Friday (and every Friday thereafter) in St. Charles from 7am to 1pm.  I always worry that there won’t be enough produce to take to market, but I think we’ll be okay.  The recent heat has caused the radishes to bolt, and the tat soi as well. I want the garden to slow down just a bit, just make it to Friday for harvest!  We will have: hakueri turnips, kale (three varieties!), lettuce heads aplenty, tat soi, boc choi, and yukina savoy, and possibly some napa and savoy cabbages (though it’s hard to say what’s left untouched by the slugs). I’m planning also to bring a few trays of starts- kale, cauliflower, broccoli, basil.  I have some honey left from last year’s harvest as well.

The bees have clearly not noticed my somewhat absent beekeeping methods.  They seem to be doing better than ever!  We checked them today and I was pleased with what we found.  The two oldest hives are seriously into honey production now, having filled up at least a super each, and more on the second one.  We add a second super to one and a third to the other, making them look like small white skyscrapers in the landscape of LaFox. The two hives just installed this spring also seem to be well.  We spotted one queen and saw consistent brood patterns.  The swarm hive had in the past two weeks filled out an entire brood box!  The queen of this hive is one we bought last year to requeen a queenless hive, and unlike the package bees, this is an Illinois queen.  As swarming goes, the old queen (our Illinois queen) leaves with a good majority of her workers bees and sets up camp somewhere new.  Meanwhile, the bees raised a new queen (a daughter of the Illinois queen) and she stays with the remaining bees behind at the hive.  As an aside, I got my annual sting this time around.  I average about one a year, not too bad considering those hives can contain up to 80,000 in one hive!  As usual, I was more or less asking for it.  I did not put my gloves back on as we shuffled some brood boxes around, and one little defender of the hive did not like this and stung my right hand.  And no, it’s really not that bad.

The garden continues to take it’s shape, as nearly all the rows have filled.  The potatoes have been up for nearly two weeks, and we had enough to plant more than we’d planned.  I spent about two hours yesterday watering each of the rows, taking stock of how each of the different vegetables are doing, and pulling the biggest of the weeds.  The earliest planted vegetables grew fast and large enough to out pace the weed growth, but the onions are swimming in volunteer tomato plants and lambs quarters.  I had one of those moments where I am struck by how much food there is out there and how much work it is.  When I finally gave up to the dying sunlight and called it a day, it was 830pm and I was muddy from head toe, full of thistle scratches, ravenously hungry, and entirely pleased with myself.

Update:  My apologies for the delay in posting.  The wee little bee sting that doesn’t hurt much to start managed to inflate my hand past the point usefulness over the course of the week.  Five days later, it’s almost back to normal and I’ve learned my lesson about taking off my gloves and remembering to put them back on next time.

The Fox Plot grows a very small farmer

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A little planning can go a long way for a garden.  And a lot of planning can go right out the window when the unexpected crops up.  We didn’t expect 80 degrees in March, rodents of unusual talent, or a swarm of bees in May. We’ve adjusted our plan here and there, letting go of some things (oh broccoli, how I’ll miss you!) and making up for it in others (like 5 rows of potatoes!)  Perhaps the most unexpected event this spring has been the anticipated arrival of one very small farmer, just in time for the end of the growing season in October. Looks like we’ll have to get a bicycle trailer!

 

Swarm!

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Last post, I mentioned that once bees decide they will swarm, there is no turning back.  Last Sunday, several hundred bees found their way into the garage, where the extra beekeeping equipment is kept.  Smelling like honey and cozy like home, the bees are attracted to the empty frames in supers and brood boxes.  At first, it seemed as if they had swarmed into the garage, above the equipment.  After an hour or so of studying the situation and taking apart the garage, we deduced that they hadn’t moved in, but rather just liked the extra food.  By twilight, they returned home just to return early the next morning. This time, we had wised up and left the garaged closed, so they just banged around the door and the corner for some time before giving up and going back to the hive.    Fast forward to Friday; I arrived home from work and Carmen, (the Swarm Spotter), casually mentioned to me that perhaps the bees had swarmed.  She’d seen lots of bee activity, and pointed out where she had seen them gather. To my amazement, they had swarmed but only about 30 feet from their hive.  The mass was about the size of two footballs end to end and roughly the same thickness. They had settled around a lower branch on the crab apple tree, with several smaller branches intersecting the swarm.  I did what any girl would do.  I jumped around, exclaimed an oath or two, and then called in for reinforcements.  Shortly, the Bee Brigade arrived and we crafted a plan.

Generally, swarms are largely docile, having gorged themselves on honey from the hive just prior to the big move (think post-Thanksgiving dinner stupor).  They surround the queen to protect her, and communicate their plans through scent.  John, the builder of bee hive body parts, already had a swarm hive ready on his backyard, hoping to attract a swarming hive.  His preparedness saved the day quite nicely, as we were able to clip the tree branch and shake the bees in to a hive body that was ready and waiting.  Here’s a short video that our Swarm Spotter put together, better than any description.  She pulled double duty as Fly Boy was out doing his real job, and could not be called upon to act as photographer.

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Small woodland creatures, how I loathe you

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**I wrote this over a week ago, then didn’t have internet for a bit, so didn’t get it posted.  Better late than never!

When I was a small girl, I was a bit enamored by the bunny rabbit.  He seemed so sweet and fuzzy, even a bit shy. He even brought jellybeans and chocolates at Easter. Gone are my previous notions of an innocent creature, replaced with schemes a to entrap and do away with said bunny.  Let me back up a little.  This past week was a great gardening week. We restarted all the eggplants, peppers, and tomatoes.  After feeling behind schedule during the previous weeks, we were productive!  Rows were amended with compost, tilled and transplanted.  I put in 180 fennel plants, a row of cauliflower and one of broccoli, swiss chard, lettuces, and beets. My darling plants looked so cute and new, ready to grow up and lead the lives of tasty vegetables. Until..

He hopped down the row and stumbled upon what may be considered by some as a gourmet salad bar.  Oh a nibble here, and one there.  The sun came up and the farmer came outside and frowned, and away the bunny hopped. The next morning, the bunny came back with friends and ate even more tasty greens.  The farmer woke up, came out to the garden and wept small tears of disappointment and shook a bitter fist into the sky.

Needless to say, between the mouse in the greenhouse and these rabbits, I’m feeling a bit discouraged about the garden.  I know most would look at the garden and note how much is actually growing (and already, it’s only May!) but I know what could have been.  I am concerned that when market starts in June, I won’t have much to speak of, considering half the kale, half the fennel, all of the broccoli, and all of the cauliflower are gone.

This isn’t even counting how half the broccoli, half the cauliflower; half the kale and chard were taken out before they ever sprouted. While we have not yet seen sign of the 13-striped ground squirrel, they did their share of damage last season and I expect no less from them this time.

Enough with the boo-hoo garden news, I’ll try to be more positive now.

  1. I am officially and completely done buying greens from the grocery store!  I have been on a green smoothie kick lately, and happily stopped using store bought kale and spinach in favor of komatsuna, mizuna, red Russian kale, Beira kale, and pac choi from the garden. The difference in flavor and color is remarkable and is a very good reminder to me of why I grow what I grow. While I am grateful that I can get organic greens year round from the store, I feel that what we are growing in the backyard almost deserves a ‘better than organic’ label.  Organic requirements help keep pesticides and the like off of organic produce, but nothing says organic needs to have healthy fertile soil.  After traveling to agriculture areas of Florida and California and seeing conventional and organic fields alike, I am struck by how dusty and light  the soil is in comparison to our dark, rich Midwest soil.  All the more reason we need more produce or ‘specialty crop’ as the USDA calls it, grown instead of commodity row crops in the Midwest (and I’ll step off my soapbox now.)
  2. We really have gotten a lot planted lately.  Our good friend Bones (who keeps a low profile of general anonymity) lent a hand in shoveling and transplanting this week. 
  3. The beets and lettuces planted that day have NOT gotten eaten, and the four varieties of potatoes are about half in the ground; the rain chased us away before we could finish.  All the leeks and onions are in the ground as well, and the garlic even got weeded!  And in the area of rabbit protection, we have uncovered the rows of plants that are well established and covered up (what remains) of the younger rows.  The fabric we use is light weight, so light and water still penetrate but provide a barrier against grazing animals and even insect pressure.
  4. Our honeybees are busy as ever, and the two new hives seem to have taken well to their new homes.  They released the their queens from the queen cages and have eaten all the sugar water we fed them to help get them started.  I fed them additional sugar water to help them get a start on the comb they are drawing out.  My older hives seem to be thriving as well, as I checked and found signs of the queens laying and in those as well. I am a bit concerned with the size of one of the hives, and worried it may swarm.  From what I understand, once a hive sets into motion the swarm message, there’s no going back.  They filled up one super pretty well, though the queen layed some eggs in the honey super, which, I’d rather she not.  They are ready for another super, but we’ve had such rainy weather I haven’t been able to get out to the bees since checking them last week.
  5. The rain!  The garden is quite obviously enjoying the rain, which tastes better than hose water by far.
  6. Birthdays!  We have celebrated birthdays of Nate’s mom and sister this week. In honor of said holidays, I made some Angry Birds, out of watermelon and pineapple.  And made everyone giggle for a good long while.

Thus begins beekeeping season

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Until yesterday, there were just two hives of honeybees that living in our backyard, tucked between the compost pile and the back rows of the garden.  While the bees live there year round, even through the coldest winter nights, there still is a seasonality to beekeeping.

It’s finally time again where we meddlesome keepers can stick our paws in there and try to assert some control over the organic nature of bees.  Most often, April has been a month of waiting for the new bees to arrive but not this year. Last weekend, the beekeeping three got to suit up and visit the surviving two of the original five hives.This weekend, we grew our collective apiary by six hives, bringing the current total to eight.

The three of us are rather a nice team, consisting of my mom Sally, our good friend John, and myself.  Each of our respective spouses/fiances have varying degrees of disinterest in cozying up to thousands of stinging insects but we do not hold it against them.  The flyboy likes to take photos of the bees with longest zoom lens he has. My father (let’s call him Mr. Claus) mows a wide berth around the hives in his backyard and frequently enjoys honey in his tea.  John’s wife is very comfortable remaining on the other side of town while we stir up the bees and is quite tolerant of his new found love (perhaps verging on obsession) of beekeeping and building hive components by hand all winter long.

Between the three of us, we bring a balance of knowledge, hands on experience, and resources.  While I’ve got a few extra seasons of beekeeping under my belt, John has read so much more and is quite competent when it comes to building hives.  We’ve come up with a barter for this season, trading plant sitting and summer vegetables for winter built hive parts. It’s a perfect trade, because I am positive I’m getting the better end of the deal and I think he might say the same as well.  Sally (whom we will NOT call her Mrs. Claus, because if we do, she may administer a smack to the head or kick to the shins) has been the willing host for tens of thousands of bees for the past four years, enabling me keep bees even while living in an apartment in town.  She’s also our un-official logistical coordinator and allows us to make a sticky mess in her kitchen twice a year when we extract the honey. And we, my mother and I, look nothing alike, as demonstrated below.

Back to suiting up for a hive check: Each of us wears a bee suit or various parts of one. I have full coveralls with a veil that zips over the top of my head.  I typically wear gloves, but went gloveless for the first time on bee install day (with much success!).  Most often when I tell someone I am a beekeeper, the first question they ask is if I get stung.  The truth of the matter is I’ve only ever gotten stung three or four times over five seasons. Given that there are between 30,000 and 80,000 bees per hive, I think that’s a pretty reasonable rate.  I do try to avoid it, as it doesn’t feel too great and the bee does not survive.

While checking on the two hives, we found solid brood patterns in both (telling us the queens have been laying well) and some small stores of honey.  The one that was strongest going into winter is still healthy, but only filled out one of the two brood boxes. The weaker hive (that was actually two queenless hives combined with my weak hive with a queen last fall) seems to be super charged, as the bees are visibly more active and take up both brood boxes with bees, brood, honey, and pollen.  We added a super to them already, and I have high hopes for early honey, with fingers crossed for no swarming.

Yesterday, Sally and Mr. Claus drove down to Long Lane Honey Bee Farm and carefully stowed six new packages of bees into the trunk of the their car.  Each packages is about 10,000 bees and one queen.

The queen is kept in a separate cage, as the workers she is with are new to her.  The cage allows them several days to get used to her scent and accept her as queen.  In the above photo, the bees are gathered around her, and are festooning (explained here by bee-blogger Rusty) a bit as we removed the queen cage from the package.

 There is a small cap on the end, with a candy plug below. To give them a head start, we poke a hole with a nail through the plug. Over the course of several days, the workers will release the queen by eating the candy plug. Each package is also equipped with a tin can of a rock candy like substance for food during travel.

The fun part comes after the can and the queen are removed.  Next, the box is knocked firmly against the ground to gather all the bees, then inverted and shaken.  The honey bees tumble out into the hive body, without much fanfare.  A few final shakes and the lid goes on.  All six hives were installed without a hitch.  I’ll report back in five days or so, when we’ll meddle some more to make sure the queen found her way out of the cage and into the hive.

Just to be clear, the garden isn’t entirely neglected, only a wee bit.  We had another, sigh, mouse-related setback.  This was more frustrating than the first because I didn’t see it coming! I spent the better part of an afternoon seeding out all the tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and tomatillos only to have it turn into a seed bar buffet.  Since then, my greenhouse co-conspirator Kim did find the mouse house, nestled in a forgotten jacket. Without hesitation, she booted them from their cozy dwellings.  I did not ask if there were any survivors.  The trays of starts that are well on their way were unaffected and are flourishing.  The lettuces and the onions are looking the best by far, and have been begging me to get them out of the greenhouse and into the ground.  I have high hopes for transplanting early this week, though the recent thunderstorms have left things rather mucky.

Excuses and more excuses

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It’s been a while, shamefully, since I updated the handful of faithful on the status of Fox Plot.  I have excuses, the lame kind that are generic and generally sound like “I’ve been so busy!”.  As reigning queen of the part-time jobs, I can’t so much pick and choose when I have too much to do and when I don’t have enough.  My self-appointed job of backyard farmer has not been entirely neglected, even if I haven’t gotten around to writing about it. Below you’ll see me modeling* me new overalls, which may detract from my credibility. Nothing says greenhorn like brand new work clothes.  In my defense, my old overalls are in sad shape and my efforts to find Carhartt pants have failed. After trying on pairs in men’s, women’s, and youth sizes, I gave up on pants and bought overalls.  

It’s finally spring in the garden, and by that I mean it’s been appropriately chilly, moderate thunderstorms, and even a smattering of hail. The garden is really beginning to take shape, and I feel a certain growing excitement as more than just the garlic is now growing.  Nate shoveled and dumped load after load of compost into about 10 of the rows, then followed by tilling.  I discovered that I miscounted sometime last fall- there is one more row in the back of the garden than I thought previously, which means I can plant 1/34th more than I planned! Our garden consists of 34 raised beds or rows that are each 4 feet wide and 25 feet long, give or take. We rake the rows smooth, with a bit of reshaping to keep them as close to a consistent width.  Using a single row seeder, I planted one full row of carrots, one half row of radishes and one half row of turnips.  These root vegetables are seeded somewhat close, with six or more rows wide in each 4′ row.  The radishes seeds seem to have jammed up the seeder at some point, because there are big gaps where I thought I seeded.   I’ve added a 6 row seeder to my life long garden wish-list, after I nearly pitched a fit trying to convince the one row seeder to work properly.

The bees remain very busy, especially given the sunny warm weather we’ve had, and all of the blossoming plants.  I fed them once, but don’t think they’ll need it again. In a few days, we’ll do a hive check and I am hoping to add a super to each (the layer of the hive where they store honey).  We also dismantled most of the bee bunker, as it is plenty warm out now for them.  A few feet in front of the hive, we placed a stack of straw bales, to keep the bees from flying straight in across the garden.  It’s really hard to plant kale whilst standing in the beeline- my fuzzy hair seems to be both invisible and entrapping to them. The new bees finally have an arrival date of two weeks from now.  We’ll drive down (or some subset of the beekeeping collective) to Long Lane Honey Bee Farm and bring those little bees home (cue the music, I’m bringing home a baby honeybee, won’t my mommy be so proud of me…).  Long Lane, if I haven’t already said this, has a great blog and courses too, for those in the area, if you are interested in keeping hives yourself.

Some of the starts that have been growing up in the greenhouse are coming home to grow too already!  So far, I’ve transplanted 2/3 of a row of Napa cabbage (which grows faster than green or red cabbages), 1/4 row of komotsuna (I think), one row of kale (three varieties!) and one row of cabbage, mostly savoy.  It was at that point that we ran out of daylight and time really.  The hail came just after the first round of starts were successfully transplanted into the garden. Then the garden was too wet to plant before we left for my next excuse.

My final excuse is that we’re in Florida, again.  I feel almost silly about it, but maintain a seize the day attitude.  The flyboy doesn’t choose where he goes, but getting stuck in Florida for four days isn’t nearly as bad as somewhere like Erie, Pennsylvania in winter-time. Better still when he can drag me along!  For him, it’s work, for me, it’s vacation.  We’ll just summarize and call it a working vacation, where the destination chooses us (rather than the other way around).  As previously mentioned, trips like these can be good for a body. We checked out a farmer’s market this morning, which I found lovely local fruits like chocolate pudding fruits, canistels, sopadillas, mamey sapotes, and other tropical fruits that never make it to grocery stores up north. I also saw Hakueri turnips, watermelon radishes, and sungold tomatoes, all things we grow too but just not now.  Their market season is coming to a close, while ours won’t begin until the end of May! Today we are headed to a more conventional tourist attraction, the beach, where we will work on some pre-garden season tanning, a technique for sunburn prevention.  I also want to give a thank you shout out to Kim, Tom, and Nan, whom are taking care of our wee vegetable starts and and garden whilst we bask in the southern sunshine.  We couldn’t do it without them!

 

*Nate, a fellow of many talents, gets photo credit for at least 51% of these shots, particularly actions shots that I’m in.

A Mouse in the Greenhouse and other Garden Fairytales

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Once upon a time, a little mouse (who in fact was reincarnated from his previous life as a ground squirrel) spent his (or her?) winter in a lovely, warm and protected environment that was more commonly known as a ‘greenhouse’.  After a surprisingly short winter, the little mouse was interrupted in early spring by the invasion of those huge bi-pedal humans.  While noisy and disruptive, the humans didn’t seem all bad. After they left what to his wondering mousy eyes should appear but trays of dirt with one little tasty seed sitting in each little divot.

It was like an Easter Egg Hunt with snacks! Surely no one would notice if he took these ten seeds here and nibbled these wee lettuce sprouts there, right?  Despite our current efforts with peanut butter and mouse traps, our small four legged greenhouse resident has not yet taken the bait, literally. Nate and I occasionally assume very traditional and archaic roles- he the hunter and I the gatherer.  That is why you’ll find him checking the (mouse) trap line in the greenhouse and me eating weeds in the garden. I find I’m pretty content with our respective roles, as I do not like rodents eating my vegetables but am admittedly quite squeamish about mice. I hope the mouse is caught soon, as the plants are taking a toll from his gourmet eating habits. Speaking of gathering, I collected a nice bunch of chives, garlic chives, chickweed and garlic mustard to jazz up somewhat ordinary tacos for dinner.  Not too shabby for March 20th!

Last week, we were astounded at the summer-like heat wave, and to my amazement, the streak of 80 degree days continues.

Some of my fellow gardening friends have wondered if it’s okay to plant cold sensitive crops like pumpkins, melons and tomatoes but I’m not convinced that the spring just skipped us. We’ve still stuck with keeping the plants in the greenhouse and planting outside by our schedule, not by the sense of urgency I feel after day upon day of balmy Florida-esque weather. Despite the hell-bent mouse, some plants are looking well, like these Napa cabbage starts (I confess I am showing you THE best looking tray of starts).  Almost all the brassicas have come up and have grown their first set of true leaves.

Nate with his insatiable appetite for soil fertility, ordered up two dump truck loads of compost from Bean’s Farm this week. We’ve gotten several loads from them in past years and have had nothing but positive experiences.

As you might notice from this flattering shot of my favorite shoveler, that’s one big pile of sh**!  Today when the owner of Bean’s Farm was out delivering the pile, he paid us perhaps the nicest compliment the Fox Plot has gotten-”This isn’t a garden, it’s a farm!”  The Fox Plot has always seemed an appropriate name to us, as we are really too big to be a home garden, yet still too confined to a suburban acre to ever be a farm.

Finally, the honey bees who live next to our garden (allow me to anthropomorphize for a moment) seem rather content these days, though busy.  I think I would like being a honeybee.  They are industrious, focused, cooperative, have a work ethic beyond anyone I’ve met, and they eat some of the best food on earth.  Correction:  I would like to be a worker bee, not the queen or a drone bee.  The worker bees have diverse roles in the hive, that change as they ‘grow up’.  Last week I fed the bees some sugar water, as is recommended in early spring in our northern Illinois climate, as a bit of insurance to get the bees through the month where there isn’t much food.  Our fellow beekeeper John (the handy one of the group) had handcrafted these feeders over the winter.  They are top-feeders, meant to be placed on top of the hive, below the lid.  The narrow screened area in the center allows the bees to crawl up from below and then dip down, coating their bodies in the sugar water. They seemed to take to it just as soon as I put it on and filled up the reservoirs with sugar water. However, within days of feeding them, every other stinking tree in the neighborhood seems to have burst open with blossoms, giving them plenty of food to forage!  In any case, I don’t think I’ve cause any harm and perhaps I can soon add an empty super for them to begin filling with honey. 

Who turned on the summer?

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Even after such a mild winter, I am guilty of complaining just a week ago that I was ready for warmer weather.  I honestly wasn’t expecting 80 degrees in mid-March!  As delightful as it feels, it sets in motion some things that would not ordinarily begin until later in spring (as it is still officially winter, not even spring yet!)   For one, the bees are compelled to have a bit of spring cleaning and to begin foraging.  During the cold months, they remain hunkered down, not hibernating but limiting the the food they eat and the activity that takes place.  Once it warms up, they gear up for the high season like Alaskans preparing for the invasion of tourists.  The only problem with this now is that there is so little out there for the bees to eat.  Today, after leaving the garage door up for a couple of hours, I went back out to find that they had descended upon the empty honey supers in search of any little scrap of honey they could find.  While it’s not dangerous, per se, for them to be in the garage, it is a bit of a nuisance.  So I donned my bee suit (the white one that gets funny looks from the neighbors) and carried all the empties out of the garage.  Since I was already in the suit, I also went out to the hives and moved the entrance restricters. Here’s a shot with the restricter in place followed by one without the restricter.


In the wintertime, we install these to make the opening to the hive smaller.  This helps keeps out rodents, makes it easier for for the bees to protect the hives, and keeps the cold out a bit.  When it’s warm out like today, it causes more of a traffic jam.  The bees were very busy, but were having to wait their turn in line to get in or out.  I took out the restricter and they said, thank you very much, and went about their business.  I also noticed several bees down at the lower entrance that were carrying out dead bees.  I take it as a good sign, it’s natural for some bees to die of throughout the seasons (in the summer alone a bee may only have a life expectancy of 6 or so weeks).  When they die in the hive, they fall to the bottom of brood box and the healthy bees carry them out.  The good sign is that there are enough healthy bees around to do this type of spring cleaning.

Another minor issue of the delightful warm weather is that it actually can get too warm in the greenhouse.  We planted several trays of spinach seeds for transplant, and they won’t germinate if the temperature is too high. According to Cornell University, spinach needs the temp to be between 40 and 75.  We are well exceeding that in the greenhouse.

Our first and second round of plant starts had a big day yesterday- moving day!  They took a short trip over to their new home in a nearby greenhouse.  It didn’t seem as though we’d planted all that much, but when gathered all in one place, 35 trays is sizable.  We have caught up with the planting, at least according to my slightly extensive calendar.  The starts took the move well, all except the tray of Toscano Kale that I turned upside down during transport.  On the bright side, it was the tray with the poorest germination so we’ll start them over during next week’s planting.  The flyboy is out earning his keep so I’m holding down the Fox Plot until he’s back.  I am hoping to put his rototilling skills to task when he’s back this weekend!

And they’re off!

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The bees have left the hive and are coming back with pollen!  Here’s the comings and going at one hive entrance.   I give them serious accolades for being the first hives (kept by our small three beekeeper collective) to make it in through the winter since I talked my own mum into this four years ago.  This is not to say we are entirely out of the woods yet but our very industrious bees were out gathering water and finding pollen in the barren landscape of LaFox in March.  Our best guess is that they stumbled upon a very large patch of crocuses, because they were coming in from the northeasterly direction with large granules of bright yellow pollen.  We have a few around the yard, though it seemed they had not yet been discovered by the bees.  They did find their way to water stored in small divots in an upturned five gallon honey bucket (salvaged from the bakery where I work part time).  While it is very good that they are out foraging, I am still planning to feed them again soon, just as insurance for them to make it through March and have a little boost for the brood. And finally in bee news, I received a letter from Long Lane Honey Bee Farms, confirming my order of two more packages of bees and alerting me to the pending postcard that will tell me when I can go pick up the ladies.  Last year’s bee pickup was very cold and blustery, which is the nature of March and April, so my fingers are crossed that we’ll get a day more like today, sunny and 60′s.

Along with the bees, our little seedlings are off to a good start as well.  In the past week, we started a total of 35 flats of seedlings, including onions, leeks, cabbages, kales, lettuces, celery, parsley, Asian greens, and spinach. For the time being, we “blocked” these starts out in the garage/backyard but have made arrangements to barter some greenhouse space starting sometime this week (hooray! Next best thing to having my own greenhouse).  Blocking out trays or starts is just one method we’ve found works well for growing transplants.  The soil blockers are relatively simple tools that squeeze wet potting mix into even sized cubes with a small divot on the top for the seed. I especially like this method because the close cubes help keep the moisture level up and the blocking tools eliminate need for extra plastic plant trays.

The first round of planting have all popped up and look quite darling, as newly sprouted plants do. All the brassicas still look very related, with only the cotyledons showing. Next week we’ll start the broccoli and cauliflower and with any luck, the peas and radishes will be planted out in the ground. That’s about about all for now from the Fox Plot, where the bees are speedy, the vegetables are greener, and the growers are ruthless to the ground squirrels.