What's blooming 4.25.12

 Blackberries!

 Clover! There's a honeybee hanging on to the clover in the center of the photo.

 My favorite, honeysuckle.

And peonies.

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Garden Report 4.25.12

 Some of the strawberries ripened.

 I had to try one. So much better than storebought.

 Several of the tomatoes and peppers are overflowing their milk jugs. Guess it's about time to take them off!

 The potatoes experienced a huge growth spurt after last week's rain.

And the beets finally sprouted, probably also due to last week's rain.

I put fertilizer around the fruit trees and blackberries. I also put some on one row of potatoes and couple tomatoes, peppers and cabbages, to see if it makes any difference. Our soil report said we're low on lime, which we have a bag of and I need to spread. However, our potato crop has been subpar for the last couple years, so I'm looking for ways to make it better.

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Irises

 We have many colors of irises on the farm.  They were brought to the farm by my Great Grandpa Maevers, when he worked for a local iris breeder, Mr. Niswonger.

  These irises have been on the farm since the 1960s, and are in bloom right now.

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Queen Sighting!

See the long bee that is vertically oriented in the middle of the photo? That is the queen!

After seeing the queen cells the workers were building, I got worried that maybe the queen had died or flown away. I asked my brother to help spot her and she was on the first frame we looked at! Still a little concerned because there are now two queen cells started.

I'm thinking about being a bee-nerd and going to the local beekeeper's association meeting tomorrow night. I just have this feeling I might be the only person under 40 there...

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Music Monday: ELO Don't Bring Me Down

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Checking on Bees

 Yesterday Mom and I checked on the bees.

 They are working on about 4 frames of the hive so far.

 You can see they've started drawing out the comb. When the foundation went in the frames, it was relatively flat. Now they are storing nectar and sugar water!

We were looking for the queen, and may have found her, but aren't quite sure! We saw many drones though - the male bees that bum food and expect to be waited on hand and foot.

A disturbing find was that the bees started building a queen cell. This is something they shouldn't be doing unless they are crowded and wanting to swarm, or their queen isn't producing correctly. They can't be overcrowded; they've only been in the hive six days.

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The Queen Bee(s)

 When the queen is shipped with the rest of the honeybees, she is in a little cage, suspended at the top of the larger cage. She is not from the same hive as the worker bees, so they may kill her. There is candy at one end of the cage that the worker bees eat and when they finish it off and release the queen, she is accepted as part of the family.  It's hard to see, but my queen also came with about half a dozen attendant bees.

Me in my get-up.

Me in my get-up. You might recognize the hat; I bought it in Puerto Rico on vacation last year. Mom made a netting veil to keep the bees out of my face. I bought some long, thin gardening gloves from Target. And I'm sporting my Crocs galoshes.

As far as I know, I've never been stung by a bee, so I'm taking precautions against stings in case I'm allergic! I even bought a small box of Benadryl to keep on hand...

Last night, I was checking out the germination progress in the garden and noticed several honeybees on the clover next to the garden. I wonder if they were "my girls"?

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