Beets. Bees. Trees.

by: ejohnson

Mon Jun 02, 2008 at 11:30:52 AM MDT

It's been a few really busy weeks since last we posted.  Lots going on.

The garden is absolutely bursting now that the soil's warming up and days are so long.  The bed of roots and greens we started in April is providing more kale, chard, and arugula than we can eat -- so we've already given surplus to about 10 people/families.  The beets are just about to the point where they can be thinned for baby beets.  Carrots are still a few weeks off.  Quinoa is really taking off now, and I can see the tiny flower heads developing at the top of the foot-high plants.

The shallots have long since tried to bloom.  We picked off the buds to help them produce better bulbs.  Onions are moving right along, and I expect good results this year, barring hail.  The garlic is huge, though maybe not quite as good as last year (I haven't fish-emulsioned it as frequently as last year) ... it'll be time to dig it up in another 4-6 weeks.

Potatoes look good so far, too.  Reds, russets, and fingerlings.  I don't remember the specific varieties, but I do know I'm going to like all of them with rosemary & butter!

News about our new bees on the other side ...

Our thanks to Karen from BackyardHive.com for help capturing our swarm of bees, and Arvada beekeeper Bob Stone for the swarm itself.  Bob has been keeping bees for many years, and said this swarm was from the best hive he'd had.  They're a busy, vigorous swarm, but also quite gentle, so we feel very lucky!

We hived a swarm of bees a couple of weeks ago, with assistance from Karen at BackyardHive.com.  Penny had bought a top bar hive from them for me as a Christmas present.  It's been fascinating watching them work.  They built a noticeable amount of comb in the three days we were away in Kansas.  By the end of the first week, we could they were starting to make honey in the cells of the comb.

Now'd also be a good time to mention the work of Kelly Simmons and the Boulder Sustainability Education Center.  Kelly's organization offers beekeeping classes, in cooperation with BackyardHive.com, that focus on the top bar hive, and how to keep bees in a way that respects their needs and keeps them healthy.  I took a class back in October 2007, and it really made me want to get started with bees.

The box on the right is what we captured the swarm into on a Friday evening.  The photo is taken on Saturday morning, after we'd moved most of the bees into the hive.  Stragglers were still hanging out in the box, but eventually moved in with the others.

These workers were the last to make the move into the hive.  The branches are from the shrub on which the swarm was clustered.  We cut the branches from around the swarm before making one big cut and lowering the branch with the main group of bees into our transfer box.

After a few days, the hive had already drawn down comb on the empty bars.  This is one of the bars on which they were just starting to build comb.  The blob of bees in the center of the photo is hanging onto the new comb.  A fully-built bar of comb would be many times that size.

This week, we're in the Bay Area-Central Coast region of California, camping and visiting friends.  Something I'm really looking forward to is visiting the UCSC Farm & Garden, where I was a student in 1989.  I haven't been back in a bunch of years, and its always inspiring to see what's going on there.

Last night, we camped at Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park.  The campground is in amongst some huge Ponderosa pines that rise above the oaks.  I don't know the details, but it sure seems like an unusual spot for the pines I'm used to seeing in Boulder County.  Seems like it'd be too wet here in the winters, although the summers are certainly on the dry side.

I'm looking forward to seeing all the sights here!