the latest, greatest garden in nashville + a bee update

things are a bit quiet in the bee yard. the girls are gearing up for winter and not much is going on.

and then we opened the lid and saw just why it is so quiet outside. the girls have been busy building comb all over the place!!!

a close up of the girls and their mess

and one of darry cleaning it...he is fully dressed this time, last time he was stung twice

darry set all of the comb he scraped off to the side to let the girls reclaim the honey. two days later, they had stripped that comb of every bit of honey-only the comb was left.

bees need to be treated preventively for things like mites. we placed some medication in the hive-it is mainly menthol and it smells like vapor rub. we will go back in to remove it in a week.

in the mean time, this is what is happening in the vegetable garden:

cabbage and kolrhabi, we've also got broccoli and brussels sprouts but i seem to have lost the photo...next time

a close up of the cabbage

tomatoes

kale from long hungry creek farm-home of the barefoot gardener, jeff poppen

peppers, lots of peppers

banana peppers-sweet of course

okay, i definitely had technical difficulties! i lost my photos of the serranos-hot peppers

eggplants

over in the raised tomato garden, things are sprouting. in the half at the bottom it is all salad greens. in the top half it is all asian greens like pak choi and japanese mustard.

see you soon, with all of the photos, i hope!

the latest news from the yard

i am glad to see the intense heat of summer dissipate but i am not thrilled by the upcoming cold weather. as much as i dislike the heat and humidity, i would rather sweat than shiver. this is what is going on in the yard:

our little fig tree is gearing up for its first ever crop of fruit. we have a dozen or two of figs and we hope to have a chance to try them-squirrels, take that as a warning

remember last year when darry went shiitake crazy? we had some rain recently and he discovered that his logs fruited!

the scourge of the tomato garden-horn worms!!! there is one that is covered in parasitic wasp eggs and he will soon die and in front of it is a young one. he didn't last long after the photo shoot-we squashed him before he could do any damage.

we found two of them and here is the second one waiting to die as well.

bee update, 8/8

today was a hot and sunny day and we entered the hive a little late in the afternoon. there were too many bees inside and they did not appreciate the interruptions! darry was stung twice as a result and more than once, i had them divebombing me-good thing i was covered with my bee suit and long pants! at today's beekeeper's meeting we asked an experienced beekeeper who is also the man who sold us our bees about some behavioral issues and he told us to add another box of frames-the girls are crowded! boy is he right on the money, just look for yourself:

the outside frames in the top box are full to the brim-no more room to build comb and store honey and pollen. we should have another box of frames tomorrow; we also ordered that while at the meeting today.

just look at all of those bees!

the view from the top down into the next box, crowded as can bee

darry looking at the frames, they were getting agitated and he was stung on the arms, twice

cleaning up the mess. the girls will build comb all over if you let them. darry scraped some off to keep it manageable.

all of the frames in the top box are full and capped, we really need to add more frames!

what bee happening in the garden

it's best not to go into the hive frequently unless there are problems or illnesses to take care of. we haven't gone into the hive in a few weeks to look around, we do open the top to feed them 2-3 times a week but that is about it. today we decided to do a hive inspection and check on the progress of our girls. boy have they been busy!!!

they have completely drawn out all of the frames in both boxes. they were a bit cramped for space and started to draw out come in the feeder-that is the what the diagonal white line in the screen is. we were ready for this and we had a new box of frames to add.

this was one of the frames in the top box. when they draw out the comb, they generally start in the center of the box and work out to the sides. if the frames on the outside are full-as this one is, it is time to add a new box. don't know what you see here? in the top corners of the frame, the whitish cells are capped honey. the dark open cells are most likely pollen-their only source of protein. the yellow capped cells are brood-the next generation of workers(females). if there were some larger, bullet shaped cells, they would be drones-males, but i do not see any on this frame.

in order to get them started, we took one frame from the full box and replaced it with an empty frame from the new box and then put that full frame into the center of the new box. we then placed the new box on the top of the hive. here you see the girls, orienting themselves on the full frame in the new box. that big black stripe in the frame is a beetle blaster. we are lucky to say that our hive beetle population is under control. we do have them but not so many that we are in danger of losing our hive. we have a friend who lost her hive to the beetles last week.

what the hive looks like now, 3 (8) frame-medium (or illinois) supers.

what's in bloom

here's a look at what is blooming in our garden right now. these are annual dahlias

hostas of all kinds are sending up blooms

tomatoes

clematis

coneflowers-"magnus"

white yarrow and blue spiderwort

lavender-grosso

native primrose

morning glory

miniature roses

goldenrod

and hidden around the plants are faces

some are napping

others are working-she is holding a plate that we fill with bird seeds

the latest buzz

sooner or later you had to expect at least one bad bee pun...here is a shot of the hive. right now, we have two brood chambers and expect to add a third soon.

the girls are hanging out on the front porch.

a close up of the the girls

pretty flowers, coreopsis tinctoria

blackeye susan, rudbeckia hirta

my shade garden out front has lots of new plants. solomon seal, hellebores, hardy begonias, sweet woodruff, toad lily and more.

weeding is something we do a lot of. while doing just that, i came across the flowers for the heuchera-coral bells and it became so obvious why they are called that...

they look like tiny bells carved from pink coral.

the tomato garden. we had our herbs here last year but they have been moved back to the herb garden and the tomatoes have moved in. they are doing well, some have set fruit and they are all almost as tall as me.

this year we have built raised beds for the vegetable garden to see if that helps us improve the yields.