Harvest Tally May 2011 and Updated Project List

May 2011 Harvest Tally:


1/2 lbs of Mulberries
2 lbs of salads which we ate
2 lbs of salads which the birds ate
4 lbs of mustard leaves which the birds ate
3 lbs of zucchinis

 

Here are the leftovers from our super large project list:

• Terrace the backyard with two parallel running walls - DONE!
• Build Chicken Coop (still in the works)
• Build Animal Enclosure (still in the works)
• Get / Plant Pakistani Mulberry tree - DONE!
• Seed / Plant: Herbs and insect benefitial flowers: Thyme, Mint, Echinacea, Purple Basil, Camomille, Coriander, Stevia, Rosemary, Dianthus, Zinnia - I DID BUT THE CHICKS ATE IT ALL... Grrrr, needa reseed
• Set up Bee Hive - DONE.
• Build hive - DONE
• Schoko pregnant (gestation is 63 days) - No babies for our big girl.

I guess we need more projects ;-)

"Nature never says one thing and wisdom another." Decimus Junius Juvenalis

Building Raised Beds with Trellis - Tutorial



Raised beds with wire trellis

I did this all by my own little self; design and execution.

The man had a day off today; after all it is MEMORIAL DAY. Happy happy!

Being from Europe, I decided, I am not memorialising any past event. I am living in the now and I am building what I have been wanting for a while: Raised beds with trellises.

In particular I want them to 'hide' our composting endevours. The plan was to create somewhat of a curve around the compost piles. Then plant something climbing (am thinking about perennials, such as scarlett runner or lima beans or even air potatoes) to 'hide' the unpretty sight, which is why these raised beds need trellises.

Raised beds make gardening easy: Just fill them with soil and grow-grow-grow. Especially if your soil isn't that perfect, this is a great way to start.

It is recommended to use redwood or cedar ― both are beautiful and rot-resistant. We cannot use cedar because we have chickens and ducks, who do not like cedar.

After I decided on the measurements, I went to the home despot.

My goal is always to save some money: So, instead of buying lumber (redwood can be pretty pricey), I chose redwood dogear fence pieces. They are about 6 feet long and my home despot cuts them for me; I use 6 in regular size and have them cut 3 in pieces of 2 ft each. Cool, because I am not crazy about using the electric saw and - as I said - Roberto has a day off.

For my three and a half raised beds with trellises, I used:

6 pieces of 4 feet length (1.2m) dogear part 1 and
6 pieces of 2 feet length (60cm) dogear part 2 as well as
18 rebars each 1 foot length (30cm)
5 rebars each 4 feet length (1.2m)
A wire fence of about 12 feet length (4m) and 4 feet height (12m)
NAILS

Cost me about $75.

And here is how I did it:

Lotta on the left and Big.


First of all, I had to take all that watersucking useless lawn out...  GRRR. This is slave-work!

But fortunately our ducks, Lotta and Big, are visiting me. They are hoping I am digging up some worms for them.

While I am picking the lawn out, I am very careful not to hit one of these beaks.


Long rebars on the left

Taking out lawn is pretty rough because the soil underneath is usually pretty compact and hard to work, which is just more reason to use raised beds. One can argue that I should have sheet-mulched the beds but I felt sheet-mulching is more a winter project (when the rain comes) here in California, because you need to use a lot of water to get the rotting going.

Back to the beds: Then I hammered the 1ft rebars in the ground, right next to the position where the wood was going to go.

Did that with all four sides of the bed. Then nailed everything together.

Now, for the trellis, I hammered one of the 4ft rebars on oe of the long sides.


Hope you can see the woven wire.


Later, when all three and a half beds were done, I 'wove' the wire fence around the rebars.

Then I filled the beds with soil and put some ollas (terracotta vases that hold water) in.

Now, I only need to plant. But that is going to have to wait until tomorrow. I am hungry and tired now...


"Nature never says one thing and wisdom another." Decimus Junius Juvenalis

Building a Composting Pile - Tutorial

Composting is one of the pillars of homesteading. It gives you a place to throw away food scraps or gardening waste while creating the gardener's gold: TOPSOIL.

You can go out and buy one or you can build one yourself.

The ones you can buy often are tumblers, which have four main problems:

1. They aren't even connected to the ground, so no insects or other compost-helpers can enter.
2. The tumbling creates a dicruption for the compost-workers and it is really not recommended. I know these thingies have become quite popular recently but I for one do not want my workers to be smooshed and killed; I need them to WORK.
3. They are made of plastic, which is toxic and cannot be recycled.
4. Price.

Obviously, we built ours. I chose a design that is simple and has been successsfully used for centuries in Europe. My father built our compost pile like that and many bio-dynamic gardeners have been using it. So, it is not some fad design.

The key thing is that you put it on soil so that all sorts of small benefitial creatures can enter and do the turning-trash-into-topsoil-work. It is also important to allow air in.

When Roberto saw the design, he immediately said "Lincoln Log, that's easy." So you got an idea of what we were making.

To be perfectly inline with bio-dynamic principles, that thing oughta be square.

However, our space was somewhat limited so we made ours rectangular 3 by 5 feet (1m x 1.7m) and a height of a tad more than a yard (about one meter).

We used:

4 pieces of 2x3's (pillars) each 4 feet in length
18 pieces of 2x3's each 5 feet in length
18 pieces of 2x3's each 3 feet in length

First, we put the four pillars in the ground.

Then we started lincoln-logging.

Cost us less than $30.

The plan is to put a reet fence over it, but our home despot had run out of the right size for us. . .


"Nature never says one thing and wisdom another." Decimus Junius Juvenalis

Checking the bee hive after installing packaged bees

Today was the day! First checking of our newly established bee hive after we received 3 lbs packaged bees about a week ago.

What we are looking for is eggs and larvae to find out whether queen bee is alive and doing her job.

In case she is not (alive or laying), we need to order a new queen immediately. Obviously this is a time sensitive issue, which is why it is recommended to do at about 5-7 days after hive installation.

Apparently, when a hive looses its queen, the working bees will start laying eggs to populate the place. However, these reproductively incomplete girlies can only lay drones (male bees), which don't do any work (not even bringing the trash out!), which is why the colony will fail. Also, only the queen has the instinct of mating right (yes the first 36 years of my life I was NOT a queen bee) and directing a colony.

In short, if my queen is dead or incapable, I better rush and get a new one, which is why the initial hive-check after installing a packaged hive is due after about a week. That should be enough time to for a plan Bee.

We have Italian bees, which are somewhat gentle but not as docile as the Carniolans. The reason we chose the Italians was pure patriotism; everthing Italian is superior! Duh!

No, the main reason was availability. We did not find a NUC of Carnis, so we got the Italians. So far I find them pretty docile.

While one may argue we could have requeened (killing the old to bring in a new queen) with a Carni-queen right after delivery, we chose not to do that as to not upset the colony. Personally, I simply don't approve of killing ANYTHING which is why I will not kill my queen just to be able to put another one in while running the risk that the colony may reject her or such. Also, I am rejecting the entire disposable thinking in general, and requeening for no apparent reason simply seemed wrong.

Anywho, let's get the apiarist regalia out. Yes, I know, tres chic! Where is my Louis Vuitton purse to go with this outfit!? Sorry, don't know how to do the accents on my keyboard.

Aurelia and Roberto were not home, so this was the perfect time.

It is recommended to open the hive in the late afternoon, when most of the ladies will be out working the fields.

It was 4pm. CHECK

Following my bio-dynamic Guru's Rudolf Steiner and Mathias Thun, I also chose the day in accordance with the moon. This is how this works: The moon stays in each sign between one and four days. You need to check the ephemerides http://www.astro.com/) to know for sure where the moon is on any particular day.

AIR - BLOSSOM - DAYS
When hives are worked on days when the moon is in gemini, libra or aquarius, the colonies tend to increase brood functions and pollen collection. On those days the bees are calm, they tend to stay on the board without running about nervously, resulting in above average honey harvest.

WATER - LEAF - DAYS
When the moon is in cancer, scorpio, or pieces, the colonies do not want to be disturbed at all. They are most aggressive on those days. On those days the bees are very nervous, resulting in poor honey harvest.

FIRE - FRUIT - DAYS
When hives are worked on days when the moon is in aries, leo, or sagitarius, the colonies tend to increase pollen collection, potentially neglecting the brood. On those days the bees are calm, resulting in above highest honey harvest.

EARTH - ROOT - DAYS
When the moon is in taurus, virgo, or capricorn, working the hive will increase building. The bees are not as calm and docile on those days and honey harvest will be below average.

BTW: I installed my hive on a Earth-Root day, which should have resulted in a lot of building, which is probably a good thing for a newly installed colony. Or so I thought.

Today, La Luna was in the sign of aries, a Fire-Fruit sign. Bees are supposedly less aggressive on those days, although the general recommendation is to only work the hive on days when the moon is in an air sign, such as gemini, libra or aquarius. I chose today because the next air sign day is 4 days away and I need to check on the queen now. In case she is dead, we need to get a new one before the colony fails.

OK, so, about the hive-check:
I am kinda nervous and excited about this at the same time. I have NEVER done it before and from what I have read and seen, it is pretty wild: Opening a box where about 10,000 bees are in to see whether one particular bee (the queen) is doing her job.

So, off I went ...

Empty queen cage
Note all this cell building
on the wire

Well, these guys sure did build a lot. A lot of funny looking stuff, too. Even on the wire of the queen cage, which I tried taking out. Of course I dropped it on the floor of the hive. GREAT!

That gave me the opportunity to put my entire arm into the hive right smack middle where (seemingly) ALL of the bees were to fish this thing out.

Got the queen-cage out. CHECK!

Then I checked every single frame. It appeared that many of them cells were built out. So much for hiving on a EARTH-day. They really went building-crazy.

Saw the queen. CHECK.

She is alive. GOOD. Imagine here a deep sigh of relief.

Saw some honey in cells. CHECK (actually: AWESOME!)

But I didn't see eggs or larvae. UH-OH

Queens will mate about five days after emerging. Sometimes it takes another week or ten days before they start laying.

We hived the colony with the queen in the cage. Typically when you buy a NUC with a queen, that queen should be mated. The pros tell me that there is only one proof that the colony has a good queen and that is eggs.

While it is generally advised not to disturb them too often (reco is to only check every three weeks), I may have to check them again on the next AIR-BLOSSOM day, which is on Wednesday and Thursday, to make sure our queen infact is laying eggs.

Hopefully on that check everything will be fine.

Wanna bee in the know?

http://countryrubes.com/images/Egg_laying_worker_bees.pdf

http://www.beemaster.com/site/honeybee/qpage.htm

http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/agcomm/magazine/winter08/n_mating.html


"Nature never says one thing and wisdom another." Decimus Junius Juvenalis

THE FIRST ZUCCHINI

They have been growing like mad.

Robert calls one of our zucchini beds the Jurassic Park, because they are out-of-this-world huge.

Yesterday was the day. We finally harvested our very first zucchini. It was only one that was big enough to be harvested and I cooked it into a shrimp red thay curry.

Ahh, so yummy...  we LOOOOVE zucchini, which is why I planted about twenty plants. And the best part:  With every day passing by, we will  have more to harvest. Can't wait....

"Nature never says one thing and wisdom another." Decimus Junius Juvenalis

FOOD FOR BEES AND THOUGHT

One would think they are able to find their own food from plant pollen in their surroundings but sometimes there is no or not enough food or there are other special considerations such as you just hived a packaged bee delivery and of course in winter, when bees need to be fed; typically with sugarwater.

I am refilling the jar with
sugarwater of our entrance feeder.

If you - like me - just hived your packaged bees, you are dealing with super young bees. Chances are that they have not had much flying experience yet and that they are still practising to fly. So, in the first few days, you will see them flying around, in what appears to be short, erratic flights. However, they are learning, both to fly and their new whereabouts. They need to also memorize where the hive, their new home, is.

So, these young inexperienced bees out of a sudden have the complete burden of building a hive and making sure noone (especially not the precious queen bee) is starving.

After about a week or so it is considered a good sign to see these young bees returning from their flights with some pollen. Gradually then, you can start reducing the supplemental feeding.

However, ensure there is always a source of water for them. I use an old terracotta saucer which I placed a couple of meters away from the hive and keep refilling.

Back to the feeding the bees: There is some controversy about why they should be fed sugarwater, which I will not go into.

Here is how I prepare the sugarwater for our bees:

In a large pot I put water (or camomilletea) and sugar; I use 2 cups of sugar and 1 cup of water. It is recommended to use cane or beet sugar. No raw sugar because the molasses cannot be digested by our ladies.

I put the pot on the stove and heat the water at a low or medium heat, stirring constantly to dissolve the sugar completely in the water. Be sure not to caramelise the sugar; that can be fatal to your colony.

In winter, you may want to add 1 1/2 tbs. of apple cider vinegar for each gallon of this concoction to prevent it from freezing.

Then I let it cool off completely before I give it to my girlies.

Rudolf Steiner, father of bio-dynamic gardening recommends to use camomille tea instead of water. The reason for this is that camomille do not pollen which is the reason why these flowers are so potent in teas.

If you choose to use camomille tea, it is advisable to use organic tea; preferably harvested from your own garden. Since we are not quite there yet (hopefully next season), my bees get regular water for now.

We use an entrance feeder, because I do not want to disturb the colony by opening the hive body everytime I am refilling the jar.

BTW: They are quite hungry. I am feeding a jar every day; sometimes two.

Today I refilled the jar of sugarwater in the entrance feeder for the first time without complete beekeeper regalia.... No stinging yet!

It is kinda interesting walking around in the backyard, trying to see whether 'our' bees are at work. I see so many bees, but most likely not ours yet. I can still tell ours apart because young bees are much darker than older ones. The sun has 'bleeched' out the older ones who appear lighter in color.

While we are still a tad concerned about our neighbor's reactions to the bees, we are also quite smitten with them and have been spending hours just observing them. Aurelia loooves to watch them from behind a window in the house.

I am truely in awe about how the reproductively incomplete female working bees work together for the greater good, selflessly sacrificing their own lives to serve others, through feeding the lazy male drones (whose only purpose in life is to mate with the queen) and the only complete female with reproductive abilities, the queen. By doing so, these ladies ensure not only the survival of their own species but also the survival of numerous plants (through fertilisation), animals and not to forget humanity (no bees, no crop production), who all depend on these little wonderful creatures.

Especially after the disaster in MO, with vast amounts of crops destroyed and food prices - once again - on the rise, we should all take a moment and rethink the way we live today, with food being produced in one area of the continent that is aimed to last for 300+ million people. We cannot fathom yet what the future holds for these farmers and their acreage because of all the toxins being released into the soil; what does it mean for our food supply if the soil in these areas will be contaminated for years to come?

If  more people started tearing out their useless watersucking lawns and replaced them with an edible landscape, the scale of these disasters would be more manageable and we would not be implementing so much monoculture anymore.

Maybe, just maybe Gaia is telling us something?! Are you listening?

Die Biene, Haltung und Pflege

"Nature never says one thing and wisdom another." Decimus Junius Juvenalis

Hiving Packaged Bees

So, they arrived today. They is 10,000 bees or 3 lbs including a queen.

My UPS gal said, "These bees are not happy!"

I honestlly wouldn't be all too happy either after a 24 hour transit.

Anyway. Great, they are here now. Now what?!

YES, I got to hive them. And this is precisely the part that I had been hoping to be able to do without Aurelia here but with Roberto's help.

Well, Aurelia's father apparently did not want to deal with her because she was still sicklish, so my girlie was here with me and Roberto was off. Off to work that is.

I had read how to do it.

BEEKEEPING. THE GENTLE CRAFT. AN INTROUCTION TO ONE OF THE OLDEST AND MOST BEGUILING CULTURES OF MAN.


I had watched youtube videos from other people on how to do it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a4a-Tw-qFI

But honestly, it looks pretty easy but then you start doing this in full beekeeping regalia at about 75F degrees and you mess up a bit here and there and out of a sudden you realise that this is NOT as easy as these pros make it look like.

Anywho, I eventually got them in and here is how I did it (the plan was to take pictures along the way but I really did not want Aurelia to do that - and it'snot because she doesn't take great pictures):

I gave strict orders to Aurelia to stay in the house with Schoko until I gave permission to come out again.

OK, so now to the actual task.

I took out 4 frames out of the super and put them aside.

Then I tried opening the package of bees with a knife and pliers. And here is where I failed: I could not open this thing faster than the bees got out. GRRRR!

So, here I am with some of these 10,000 bees flying around me while the rest including the queen is still in the box and I still need to fully open this box to release everyone else. Yes, you bet, I am sweating in this apiarist-suit.

But I need to get it done. Noone else will and they need to be hived before dark. So, I keep pulling.

Eventuallly I got it open and then dropped the box a few times on the hive, as to shake out the rest of the bees. That worked. Good.

Obviously a few still remained in the box. Not to worry; I put the box aside, hoping that these guys will eventually find their way into their new home.

Found the queen cage. Hallelujah, she was alive and kicking!

I took it out, wrapped a wire around it (with up to a dozen bees on my hands all the time) and took out the cork infront of the candy. This will allow the rest of the bees to eat their way into the queen and this way allow the colony to accept her.

Then I hung the queen's cage between two frames and put the remaining four frames in and closed it.

DONE! Man, am I proud of myself!!!

"Nature never says one thing and wisdom another." Decimus Junius Juvenalis