04-27-12 New kids on the block

Early this morning, I was on my way to New Hope Church Rd on the other side of Chapel Hill to go pick up my new bees. The place was busy with a truckload of bee packages ready to be picked up by people of all ages, looks and shapes.
A package that looks like this:

Packaged bees

Package sitting on top of their new home. The green container is filled with sugar water as they need some help feeding until they fill enough cells with honey to sustain themselves..

has about three thousand worker bees, and a queen in a separate mini cage that looks like this:

A queen and some servants in her own little quarters. The blueish stuff on the right is the candy gate that her workers have to eat through to open her exit and free her.

The queen remains captive for a couple three days after the workers have been freed to give them all time to get accustomed to her scent. If she was introduced to the hive right away, they would commit regicide since they would have no good way to know she was not an invader. While she sits in her mini cage with her workers slowly freeing her through eating of a candy "gate", the workers start drawing combs, gather pollen and store honey. As soon as she is free, the queen will start laying her eggs (only she does; female workers have not been mated) in the drawn cells and workers follow her capping those cells and nursing the next generation. The whole thing is highly organized, most probably because there is no male in the hive to distract them from their tasks, no TV and no FB.

Right now, air traffic over the garden has greatly increased while the pollen gatherers are trying to orient themselves in their new surroundings. By tomorrow, I am sure things will quiet down quite a bit.

Let me outta here!!!

04-26-12 Le temps des roses!

These last few days have been great for roses, some blooming 3-4 weeks ahead of a normal year.

This lily is blooming six weeks ahead of time.

Last weekend we finally received some rain, a nice 1 1/4 inch for a 24 hour period but a little short for the last 10 days. Last night we had some major rumble but little rain came out of it.








I finally planted my tomatoes last week, and, as soon as I did it got cold but they're in and Monday I helped David plant his at his place. Next step: tasting them in a few weeks.

In one of my preceding posts I had expressed concern about my surviving hive and the very small number of worker bees that had survived winter. Yesterday I opened that hive and noticed the population has about doubled in the last couple of weeks and they have stashed away a good amount of honey both signs that the queen and her workers are doing a great job.
Tomorrow I am going to pick up two packages of new bees to triple my hive number. I'll keep you posted on how that works out. 

04-19-12 Funny

I received this personalized advertisement in the mail yesterday. They can't possibly know how funny this is:

04-17-12 planting day for me and tax filing day for the procastinators.

      After the frost last week, I was glad to see my tomatoes in full shape this morning, ready to be planted. Few pleasures are greater than getting my hands in the dirt in early spring even when the sun beating on my shoulders is a little hotter than I'd like. But who am I to complain? Rain's coming, hopefully in sufficient quantities since we already are in deficit for the season.

Tomato futures

To make room for my toms, I had to remove a few things that had gone to flowers like my chervil, my cilantro and I harvested some of the onions. I'll miss those wild looking flowers but can't wait to see some fresh tomatoes instead. Since everything has been early this spring, it won't bother me one bit if my toms and cukes come a little early as well.

Blooming cilentro

Onions put out to dry

What else is blooming?

onion bloom

potato bloom

Foxglove

Fennel is not in bloom but on the way to bulb

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of Van Gogh's favorites

04-12-12 Brrrr!

With everything in the garden being about four weeks ahead of schedule, it is just as hard dealing with the fact that our last possible frost date in Raleigh is April 27.

Last night was one of those nights when I could not take a chance. My tomato plants, peppers and cukes have been hardening outside for the last few weeks now but, last night, the thermometer was supposed to get too close to freezing for comfort. Especially since those plants would get hurt by temps in the thirties. So I did something I never do, I moved all of them inside for a couple of nights. They may look a little odd on my living room floor but, to quote my wife, "next to me nothing really looks odd." (I have to take my wife's opinion the way I do my salad, with a little salt and pepper) I'll move them back out tomorrow morning for the weekend and, if the warming trend trend keeps up, they'll all go in the ground next week.

Looking forward to a couple of early tomatoes!

The funny part is that while I worry about frost, my roses are way ahead of schedule. The following picture is the way my rose arbor normally looks on May 8th:

The pinkish rose we see in front is called "Souvenir de la Malmaison" supposedly raised in the gardens of Joséphine de Beauharnais, Napoleon's wife.

04-08-12 No Easter egg!

Major disappointment in my garden this morning: not a single chocolate egg to be found anywhere! Either the bunny's GPS is messed up or my neighbors' cat must have scared it. End result the same: no Easter egg for me :(




In spite of a couple of cold fronts coming through the last few days, spring's growth is still way ahead of a normal year, three to four weeks ahead. I know people who already have transplanted their tomatoes but I decided to play it safe and wait a little more.

Tulips and Dutch irises are on their way out, replaced by bearded irises and corn flowers. Tree leaves are growing by the day. Another week or so, as soon as the dogwood does its thing, I'll be able to sit on my front porch in mid-afternoon without frying in the sun.

We've been eating lettuce for a few days now with plenty of scallions, radishes and gorgeous parsley. Peas are growing but far from production yet. For the rest, we admire flowers growing everywhere and I am in no hurry to re-experience the 84 degrees we had last week. I want to enjoy spring temperatures before heading to the summer fryer.