What have you done today in the Garden?

We have been cleaning the plots and tucking them in for the winter...the green manure is still growing and flowering. We harvested the last of the blueberries ans red blueberries. We combined them and the taste is wonderful. I love the sweetness and the fragrance of blueberry jam. I shall have top pop out and get another batch of croissants.
We had a pal over for hamburgers in the lottie yesterday. Sheesh!--so much planning to do that. Blimey!

 

Here is the Theatre full. Need a lot more saucers and a lot of new unbleached pots. Filled it up, but a fair number of the plants are repeats which need to be put in the garden. Just thunked it looked better full.

 

I like it Palustris. You have an incredible number of plants there.

@Sjoerd you can cook at your lottie?

 

The tomatoes are winding down quickly and I only have about 5-6 that are doing well this late in the season. That will give me pots and space for the peppers which are still strong.

I have noticed a resurgence of hornworms recently... Eewwwwwwww!!!! Ugly and destructive, they need to disappear!

 

Hiya CAYU--Yes, we can cook on the lottie. We have a one-eye gas burner and a tank that we can refresh from time to time. We eat fresh boiled spuds, beans and corn straight from the plant right there in the lottie ...oh yes, and tea and coffee as well of course. Being able to boil water or cook food just makes the gardening experience all the better. Recently we bought a "throw-away grill to cook the burgers on. It was billed as "milieu friendly". It was made from cardboard, lava stone and bamboo. Weird, but it worked very well.

 

Well Palu, what types of plants are those anyway?

 

Palustris, I like it, too! However, when my husband saw the photo and the gleam in my eye, he was less than thrilled. If a guy in cowboy boots and a Stetson shows up on your doorstep, don't answer the door!

 

Those plants are Auriculas, Sjoerd. I have seen a similar structure used for Dwarf Hostas and another one was full of Primula sieboldii. In the shade it could also house a collection of Hepaticas.

 

Going to cull all of the dead and dying plants this weekend. It will be sad, but it will give me more pots to grow in for the fall and winter garden.

 

Friends came & helped me put more of my community garden to bed for the winter. It is looking great, all snuggled down.

I ordered garlic (5 lbs!) for fall planting.

 

Putting up toms today.

 

Yesterday we did more covering of beds in the veggie plots...interspersed with tea visits from the gardening girls up the way.
Finally I had to break-away and go into the bees. It was time to check them ( I inspect them every ten days ). Sadly one of the queens has disappeared at a crucial moment. I had not seen her the last two inspections, but that isn't odd in itself, for with 80,000 bees crawling around in the hive it is no wonder. I thought that I detected a bit if irritability and a diminishing amount of closed brood...and last time no open brood at all!

The queen was three years old this year, which is old for a queen here. At any rate I started making plans to acquire a new colony, but first I did a little test: I placed a frame with open brood from the neighbouring colony in the barren hive. If the girls make a queen cell, this means that they are indeed queenless. Yesterday I had a looksy and this is what I saw:


That's it standing alone, over there in the lower right-hand corner. The beginning of a queen cell. It took the ladies only three days to make this. There will be a little larva in it with some queen's jelly in the bottom of the cell.

In this next foto, you can see that after I cleared the cell of bees by blowing gently on it...they rushed back to tend it.


Sorry for the poor quality of the foto's, but I had to do it on my own as the Bride was over with the garden girls having a chin-wag. I was holding the frame in one hand and trying to get the fone to focus with the other. hahaha... I did not quite manage, but the quality is enough to give you an idea.

The next step will be to buy that new colony, place it over this queenless colony separated by a newspaper and by the time that they have chewed through, they will be used to each-other's pheromones...hopefully.

I have not decided what to do with the remaining queen cell--destroy it or save it in case the "reading the newspaper" trick does not work.
Making a new queen at this late time of the season is not wise, as there are very few drones left to fertilize her. These late fertilizations typically produce poor queens that get killed-off by the worksters in the hive. They recognize her imperfection and want her gone. A queen has to be able to lay eggs now so that the colony will have enough "winter bees" to get through the winter. So...I don't know. I shall have to think about this and speak with some old imkers and see what their experience is. As I said, the disappearance of the queen at this time is a serious thing that could have consequences for the very existence of the colony.
Wish me luck.

 

Great posting Sjoerd. I am learning so much about bee keeping...enough so I appreciate how complicated it is. I wish you success with your queenless hive.

 

Did some pruning and got to play with a radio controlled toy

Not too much damage, lost the irrigation line, a few cracked paving stones. I now have a bunch of opportunities to replace shrubs and grass.

 

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!