Really?! Zombie Bees?!

Something I never heard of before.  Bears watching...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/washington-states-first-zombie-bees-reported-parasite-causes-bees-to-fly-at-night-die/2012/09/24/fbcefa56-0677-11e2-9eea-333857f6a7bd_allComments.html?ctab=all_&


Also a zombie bee map and more info (I don't think I have every heard of a zombie fly before).

www.zombeewatch.org

We Have Honey!

9-16-2012

We actually have some honey!



https://dl.dropbox.com/u/31974115/Honey%21%209-16-2012.wmv

We have very little honey in fact, and all of that from Harry, but it will be nice to have a small harvest!  I checked the other two hives and there isn't much to recover from them.   The bees in Dick have drawn out most of the comb in the honey super, but they don't have any surplus honey.  This is still positive (except for over winter feeding), because we'll have two honey supers full of drawn comb ready for next season (from Dick and Harry).  It takes a lot of bee energy and nectar to draw out comb.

Here is an interesting and recent article about Colony Collapse Disorder and its potential impact on our food supply.  I highly recommend eating food that is organically grown as much as is humanly possible.  Society has only just begun to discover the long term impact of inorganic farming practices on our bodies and the environment.

http://www.kitchendaily.com/read/19-crops-would-disappear-without-bees?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl12|sec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D207396/?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000058?test=latestnews

A guy's gotta have some fun!

Monday September 3, 2012

I could hear the vehicle approaching from 1/2 mile away.  Fully expecting a large pickup with dual wheels and a huge power stroke diesel engine, I had just walked to the front gate to push it wider when a recent model, souped up Mustang GT with big rims and low profile tires showed up.  From inside the vehicle I heard "'r you Eric"?  I fully expected a young kid behind the wheel of this hot rod.  Instead, his appearance was predictable but his mode of transportation wasn't.  He was a long skinny man, maybe a little older than me, with well worn wranglers and a button up work shirt that had the look of someone who spent a lot of time in the sun doing hot, sweaty work.  After inspecting the 'stang a little more closely I noticed the usual signs of it's being a country car, something that has seen a lot of travel on gravel roads.  "That's not what I expected you to show up in," I declared as he climbed out.  He responded, "a guy's got to have some fun, sometime."  The next day, being Labor Day, he arrived in his usual work attire but with an entirely different toy.  This time it was an eighteen wheeler with a large John Deere dozer on a low-boy trailer.  And I was sitting there thinking, which would be more fun "operating a large earth mover or driving a mustang GT"?  It's too close to call.

He finished the spillway and the pond dig-out in less than two days.  Just in time for the fall and winter precipitation.

Too Hot and Too Dry

Sunday September 2, 2012

Over the course of a few weeks in May and June we probably planted over 300 sunflower seedlings only to see them destroyed by the deer or eaten up by grasshoppers.  In spite of our deer repellent efforts and automatic watering system to hedge against drought.  It will be a lot easier to care for the land once we get moved.

We met with representatives of Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to plan some food plots for pollinators.  The food plots will have the added benefit of supporting the local quail population (I jumped a small covey a couple of times over the last 18 months).  We decided on two plots of about 3 acres each in the larger hay meadow.  NRCS has a No Till Seeder I can rent for the planting and my neighbor to the north is extremely willing to help me get the seed in the ground.  We'll plant the wildflower mix after the first of December.  We hope to achieve a constant bloom from May through September and into October with this effort.  NRCS will prepare the seed according to the plan I select.  The cost of the seed and the drill rental are very reasonable and my farmer friend seems very willing to plant it for free.  I intend to at least cover the cost of his fuel.  I can't wait to see the result of our efforts next summer.  We just need to pray for a more reasonable weather pattern.

Ramona and I also considered planting yellow and white sweet clover in the 3 acre brome hay field.  But I think the investment in the larger hay meadow this winter will be enough for one year.  We can budget something for the 3 acre field in 2013.

 

It has been too hot and too dry for the bees to make any surplus honey.  So, for the second year in a row now we'll have to provide more supplemental winter feeding than is normal.  Like I said we need to pray for more temperate weather next year.

SCKS Honey Producers Meeting

Sunday May 20, 2012

Attended SCKS (South Central Kansas) Honey Producers Meeting near Cheney and learned more about forage for pollinators than we could possible retain in a single meeting.  I need to do some more research.  Here are some of the things we learned at the meeting.

1)  Double bloom (aka double flower) versus single bloom - bees won't forage on double  flowers because the stamens were converted to petals.  Watch out for this if you intend to plant flowers for pollinators.

2)  Pollenless Sunflowers - Sunflowers are very popular in cut flower arrangements and some pollenless varieties of sunflowers have been engineered so that the cut flowers won't stain the surface upon which they sit (from dropped pollen).  If you intend to grow sunflowers for pollinator forage please be careful to avoid pollenless varieties.

3)  Yellow and White Sweet Clovers are biennials - this means the seed germinates in the first year, blooms the second, then the plant dies and sheds its seeds.  New plants will be formed from the seeds it drops given the right conditions.

4)  Consider the quantity of ground that is used for crop production - how much of it is not pollinator friendly and how much of it is harvested prior to pollinator usefulness (such as alfalfa).  Also worthy of noting is the fact that many road departments mow all of the public right-of-way thus destroying other forage opportunities.  I visited with the local road department about our roads, which have a lot of naturally occurring clovers and other forbs.  The county man happily assured me that they would not mow along the roads that front our property.  I guess old habits are hard to break!