How can half the bees in my hive already be heavily infected by nosema cerenae, yet the colony is strong, putting stores in the honey supers in April and at risk of a swarm? Nevertheless, this is how it is. This is the same colony that presented me with Chilly Bees last year but recovered [...]
Installing Drip Irrigation
Just as the last bed gets dry enough to cultivate I have to start to worry about watering. It's the May transition, and this year we are now past twenty days in a row without rain, so getting the watering going is more urgent than usual. There are as many ways to put together a [...]
A Swarm in May
A swarm in May is worth a load of hay goes the old proverb, so when my dentist called me to say that there was a swarm of bees outside his office on a bright spring day, I had to go after it. You never know exactly what you will find on a swarm call. [...]
Decisions
The glorious spring weather propels the season forward and we struggle to keep up with nature's beck and call. This last week the bees have been sitting out on their porch like it was August. I can tell they are getting restless and want to expand their numbers. If you are a beekeeper you are supposed to do something [...]
Hive Tops and Bottoms
If your hive swarms today do you have the equipment you need to set up a new colony? More than once I've had to scramble to hammer together equipment for an unexpected new arrival. There's always an old box, but never good tops and bottoms or enough frames. Last weekend I readied myself with a [...]
Spring Salad
Although much of the country is getting a premature heat wave, up here in the Pacific Northwest we are getting another rather cool wet spring for the third year in a row. The garden is still too wet to cultivate in most areas. However, last year's industry is still paying off. I finally removed [...]
Wood Stove Biochar
I'm still looking for an easy clean way to make large quantities of biochar for my garden. Ideally I'd like to turn the woody brush that accumulates throughout the year, and that's too slow to compost, into char for the garden. This will probably take the form of a couple of barrels arranged into a [...]
The Overwintered Garden
New growth is the name of the game in March. Until now, winter gardeners were mostly harvesting the stored fortunes of the previous growing season. The Brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, cabbage, parsnips, and rutabagas put their future in stored nutrition in the form of tightly curled leaves, and oversized stems and roots. But with the longer [...]
Keenian Economics
No, I didn't spell the title wrong - not Keynes. If you haven't heard of Steve Keen, that's not too much of a surprise because I hadn't either, although I regularly visit sites in the economics blogosphere. Steve has an important message, but it's unlikely you will hear much about it any time soon because it is just [...]
Winter Greens
With a couple of beautiful days this weekend, we are back to unseasonably dry winter weather. The temperatures squeaked up to almost 50 F both days, so the bees were flying a little. We are still eating lots of things from the garden. Earlier in the week, Ellen picked about a bushel of collard [...]
Squash Practice 