Making a stand, Honeycomb from heaven, and a busy bee month

What a month !  The Florida Bee Farm needed more room to accommodate all the new arrivals (3 swarms caught) and one split so a new stand was built and squeezed into the apiary.  A large Oleander bush and one papaya tree needed to be relocated and the ground needed leveling in the area of the new stand and it turned out nice.  Not as shaded as the other hives but there is some shade.

New hive stand and 2 of the 3 new hives at the Florida Bee Farm

New brood boxes needed painting and stands needed to be finished to work correctly.  Also bought several migratory covers to experiment with instead of the covers I'm currently using which seem to host more pests and ants than I care to deal with.  But I remember a couple old time beekeepers saying that migratory covers are best in Florida and they're probably right.  I'll probably change all my hives to use migratory covers because I'm tired of finding ants, spiders, frogs and lizards under the cover.

The tomatoes have really been getting most of my attention and have been producing quite a few delicious tomatoes.  Between many nice meals with them and multiple canning sessions, they are just about done for the season.  I learned a lot and picked up a few tips for next year when I plant tomatoes again.  This weekend we probably did our last canning of the season.   It's a bit of work but so very satisfying. 

Final tomato canning session of the year

My latest experiment that was started about a month ago is Hops.  I purchased a few starts from a company in Michigan and they're already 5' tall !!!  They're growing like mad.  It will be an interesting experiment and if successful they may be grown on a larger scale next year even though they're not officially a Florida plant since they may need cold to go dormant.

Honeycomb from heaven The Florida Bee Farm

More honeycomb from heaven at The Florida Bee Farm

The other day I was sitting under a tree and got up to do something.  When I came back, a 8" piece of honeycomb with some bees was sitting next to the chair.  Looking up, I couldn't see through the canopy of leaves to determine if any bees were up there.  Next day I walked by and there were two more pieces of fresh beautiful honeycomb on the ground.  Something's going on up in the tree but not sure what and why the comb keeps falling out.  Fresh made comb is quite amazing.  Very light, perfectly formed and just beautiful.

Finally, for the first time I did a split of one of the hives that was getting too large.  Stacking too many boxes on top of each other is too heavy for me to lift up high and it's also not good for the bees unless you add an upper entrance to the hive.  Because you don't want them coming in with their nectar and pollen and having to climb through a couple brood boxes and honey supers to drop off their load.  So I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  Another hive I was in this week may be in trouble as the brood wasn't looking good.  Possibly needs a queen. 

There's been an abundance of fresh vegetables, herbs and fruit on our table this month.  Delicious.  And the extra has been sold at the Indian Rocks Co-Op which has been a great group to work with.  A good place to get organic veggies, plants, and all sorts of things. 

Papayas, Okra and getting ready for fall gardening

It's been a busy week getting ready for fall gardening.  First thing that needed to be done though was to transplant the papayas that my neighbor grew over to the bee farm.  There were many more papayas than anticipated though.  My nephew has been helping all week and we spent several days getting a few yards of topsoil and then transplanting the papayas into pots that we had available.  We had to prioritize this since all the rain of the last month loosened the roots of some of the papayas and laid them down.  If we didn't move them asap they would not survive.

Nephew Joey in charge of transporting the papayas to the Bee Farm

This whole papaya idea is not yet completely formed.  I really don't know where I'm going with these and what we'll do with 80,000 pounds of papayas come harvest season.  But it should look pretty cool and very tropical.

The Okra is going to town and we'll be frying up some Okra tonight.  I didn't realize how pretty the flowers were on the Okra plant.  Beautiful.

Okra with flower

It's been tough trying to source horse manure for the compost pile.  Some of my sources were flooded out during the rains and others are just not reliable sources.  Eventually it will happen and hopefully sooner than later so it can compost and be ready for the fall gardens.

Seeds were ordered for the fall garden include tomatoes, carrots, peppers, moringa, onions, pumpkins, zuccini, beans, Florida kale, lettuce and a couple others I can't remember.  This year I cross referenced a document the state of Florida puts out showing recommended planting dates for plants as well as recommended subspecies of plants that do well in Florida's climate.  That should make a difference.

The solar powered rain barrel irrigation system was also completely redone.  All the wiring was pulled out and a new switch was installed.  There was a problem with a screwball switch I originally installed that caused the pump to work irregularly.  The new wiring solved the problem and it's pumping water perfectly now.  The other significant modification made was we dug a trench and installed pvc pipe from the city freshwater supply to a junction in the rainbarrel system and added a checkvalve and manual valve to feed the irrigation system when the rainbarrels run dry.  I discovered that problem the hard way during a spell of draught in  the spring where I had to spend a few hours manually watering everything when the rainbarrels were empty. 

The next step in the irrigation system is to install timers and to finish adding other sections of soaker hose / sprinkler heads.  Not a big priority now but it will be needed soon enough.  The key is to make gardening as automated as possible giving you the time to attend to details like weeding and chasing varmits from the plants.  And most important, my afternoon Siesta.

A House for Bernard (our Lion) and Summer Gardening

With all the rain we've been experiencing plus the fact that lions are in the news lately, we decided that our lion Bernard (distant relative of Cecil) should have a covered shelter to get out of the rain if he wants.   Plus where he was previously hanging out got so overgrown with flowers and weeds that he was pretty much hidden.  A watch-lion needs to be seen, not hidden like a cowardly lion in the undergrowth. 

Bee farm watch-lion (Bernard)

Happy with his new home and his proud mama

Now that the sun is shining, it was fun working in the garden again.  We pulled weeds and transplanted a few potted plants and moved several others.  It's amazing how some of our plants grew so much in the last month.  Our Okra is doing well and is quite healthy. 

Okra

My two Moringa and numerous Papaya plants are also doing well.  Unfortunately in the heavy rains, I lost a dozen or so Papaya's that fell over in the water saturated soil.   But most of them are still doing well. 

Moringa and Papaya plants

A few months ago at a rally against Monsanto I was given some seeds that I mistakenly thought were Moringa plants.  When they sprouted, they didn't look at all like Moringa so I went to a gardening facebook page and asked what the plants were.  Turns out I received a handful of Tumeric seeds that are now quite healthy and ready to go into the ground.  Yvonne transplanted them into our new Tumeric garden.  Tumeric root and Moringa plants are loaded with excellent nutrients and are very good for you.

Tumeric garden

It really felt good getting out into the garden and working.  It's such good therapy getting your hands dirty while working with plants and the earth.  Our bees were very good and seem to have really calmed down now that they have good weather.  The Queenless hives are now back to normal with their new queens and gardening around the hives no longer brings out the guard bees.