Latest swarm we caught settling into their new home

Yesterday afternoon a friend called and said there was a swarm in an orange tree a few miles from me.  So I took advantage of that opportunity to re-populate one of my hives that recently disappeared.  The orange tree was full of fragrant blossoms which made it particularly pleasant.

Fortunately I was able to get these really nice honey bees between rainstorms. 

While sizing up the situation and figuring out how I was going to get the bees out of the tree, the homeowner and a bunch of his neighbors gathered to watch.  The only problem was when the homeowner walked up to me and smacked at a bee that was on my shoulder.  I told him that was the worst thing he could do.  The bees don't land on you to sting you ... well at least not unless provoked.  But I was able to educate them somewhat about bees and thanked the group for calling someone to remove the bees instead of calling an exterminator who would just kill all of them. 

I'm hoping they like their new home at The Florida Bee Farm. 

Pestilence, destruction with lost and found bees

To say things are busy at the Florida Bee Farm would be an understatement.  The tomato plants have been producing like mad and we canned 10 quarts of tomatoes in addition to using many of the tomatoes in recipes we like.

Washed tomatoes

canning tomatoes

But these tomato plants take a crazy amount of time every day.  I spend at least 2-3 hours a day re-staking, trimming browned leaves, looking for worms, and harvesting.  And I love doing it so don't get me wrong here.  It's relaxing.

But it's getting to the point where these tomato plants are at the end of their life.  They lost most of their leaves and I'm not sure why.  Possibly a fungus or ????  I'm pretty sure they have enough water and not too much since they are watered with a drip irrigation system.  Maybe the browning and losing of leaves is natural for tomatoes when they are fruiting.  I'm not sure.  But the latest problem has been an infestation of tomato worms which is a big problem since I'm doing this organically without pesticides.  These @#^*&^ worms burrow holes into a lot of tomatoes making them useless.  Yesterday I tossed dozens of tomatoes into the compost bin.  And I squashed a little more than a dozen worms too.  My purple cherokee tomatoes which were just starting to produce nice size fruit (which were not quite ripe) were hit hard.  Oh well, we'll just focus on the tomatoes we do harvest.  And next year we may rethink some things.

The bees are busy as ever doing what they do.  I caught a nice swarm in one of my traps but it looks like one of the hives on the stand is empty.  Maybe they're the ones in the swarm trap, not sure.

The pollinator garden in memory of Paul is doing great and loaded with flowers and milkweed.  The Monarch butterflies and honey bees are all over it. 

I think this blog may be winding down some as I just don't have the time to keep it active.  Too many things to do lately.

Bye bye bees : (

Over two weeks ago I ordered some needed equipment from Mann Lake Beekeeper supply and they still haven't shipped !  This is their busy season and it looks like I'll have to wait.  But unfortunately what I was waiting for would have prevented the loss of many thousands of bees from the largest hive I had.  I was going to split the hive but looks like the bees did it for me.

Yesterday when I was getting ready to leave the Florida Bee Farm, I went over to check on the bees.  And it was an amazing site.  My busiest hive emptied out and zillions of bees were flying around in front of the hive.  It was loud too.  From about 20 feet away you could hear all the buzzing and excitement coming from the hive.  This time of year large honey bee hives make extra queens to facilitate splitting the hive.  Sometimes multiple groups will fly off to form their own colony's.  As a beekeeper, you try to prevent this by doing a split for the hive.  But in this case I was too late and off they went. 

I can't help thinking that the bees were excited to head out and move into their new home wherever it is.  It's nature and you just have to go with it.  The video I took with my phone didn't capture the big ball of bees in the tree very well but you can kind of make them out.

Mrs. Chippy's plant world and edible landscape design

Debra from Mrs. Chippy's plant world

 Last week I took an incredible road trip to visit Debra from Mrs. Chippy's plant world and edible landscape design in St. Petersburg.  She had a large diverse collection of beautiful tropical edible plants throughout her entire property.   No wonder, she's a master gardener and practices natural organic permaculture gardening principles.  This tropical paradise was loaded with honey bees feasting on all her flowering plants.  The bee in the sunflower image below was completely covered  in pollen.  I wish I had a better camera to show the mess she was making.

honey bee completely covered with pollen

Debra sells red wriggler worms and was able to set me up with a nice worm casting / compost system.  With this system the worms will make super food for your plants and provide a powerful compost that makes the best compost tea.  Plus the worms multiply.  More worms = more compost.

Getting up close and personal with my compost

I had purchased her worms through the Indian Rocks co-op but incorrectly placed them into my compost pile which I later found out was a very bad idea.  Thinking it through, I quickly realized the mistake and dumped my two compost bins and manually went through all the compost looking for worms.  Since it was the next day, three hours of sifting only yielded about 20 worms or so.  They blend in so well.   Debra was a great help and quickly set me on the right track to raising worms correctly.

In addition to learning about many exotic plants I traded honey for plenty of cuttings and plants to bring back to The Florida Bee Farm.  It was a blast learning from an expert.    Here's a few pictures of Mrs. Chippy's plant world.

Double rain barrel capacity and pests in the compost pile

The Florida Bee Farm has about 8 watering zones and each takes a good amount of water.  Up until now, our 275 gallon rain barrel system would run dry after only a couple runs. Plus the water recovery intake (the system that takes the rain from the gutters into the barrels) would lose water during heavy rain because it was undersized.  Not a problem on one of those days where it rains all day but quick heavy downpours would lose a high percentage of water.

New rainbarrel container (left) and new water intake system (top)

So this week the rain barrel system was revamped and water capacity increased to over 500 gallons.  Friends of our son were moving and had a giant bait tank container ... around 250 gallons I believe, that they needed to get rid of.  So it didn't cost us a penny.  All it needed was a coat of dark paint to keep algae from forming inside the tank.   This should supply enough water for most of the Bee Farm's needs.  While modifying the plumbing to accommodate the large tank I decided to completely redo the water intake system so it would branch out and feed into two tanks instead of one to accommodate heavy rainstorms. All the tanks are linked so this will be much more efficient. 

freshly planted seeds

It was graduation week for a lot of the little seedlings in the nursery and a new class of future seedlings was added to the greenhouse.  It's fun to keep adding plants to the Bee Farm and experiment with different seeds.  I get some of our seeds from the Safety Harbor library which has a free seed program.

In other news, don't wander too close to the compost pile. (click play below)

pests in the compost pile

Protector of the Blueberries

As the blueberries ripen a big concern around the garden is losing them to birds.  Someone told us that they heard birds can wipe out a blueberry patch in a short period of time.  Besides running fishing line above the plants which would be very time consuming, we came up with the idea of putting a fake owl overlooking the blueberries to discourage curious birds.  I just hope it doesn't deter the band of little birds that are always hopping around between my plants munching on the bugs.  These little birds really do a nice job and are a joy to watch as they go about their business.

See if you can spot the Owl scarecrow in this picture

The Florida Bee Farm's irrigation system has completely failed as the water pump needs to be replaced.  This water pump has been nothing but trouble and recently is overheating and stopping.  When your goal is consistent reliable water to the plants, a pump that randomly shuts down is not an option.  

Blueberries and Bees

Lately there's plenty of activity at The Florida Bee Farm around the blueberry plants.  And there's many different types of bees buzzing around the blueberry flowers.  Bumble bees, carpenter bees, honey bees from our apiary and a couple bee types I wasn't sure of.  While watching a large Carpenter bee on a bud I noticed a couple smaller bees buzzing the Carpenter bee and even bumping into it a few times.  There was plenty of blueberries to go around so not sure what the bee anger was all about. 

Some of the smaller blueberry plants even have unripe blueberries already.  It looks like we'll have a nice harvest of blueberries this year with over 20 mature plants.

Carpenter bee enjoying the blueberry buds

Blueberries formation

Tea time ....

Compost tea and Epson salt tea is probably a big factor why the plants at the Florida Bee Farm are so healthy.  The system can efficiently deliver large amounts of compost and epson salt tea to all the plants.  It's been a work in progress and does have a few bugs to work out.  There is a good amount of sediment in compost tea so it runs through a filter because we don't want the drip irrigation system to get all mucked up with clogged sprinkler/irrigation heads.  And therein lies the problem. 

After running for a bit, the system begins to lose pressure.  When I remove and wash the filter, pressure comes back but it doesn't take long before the filter is clogged again.  This is a problem that needs to be figured out.  So in the meantime I remove the filter and turn on the pump to route the compost tea into the garden hose.  Walking through the gardens and using a hose to apply the compost tea is the next best option for compost tea application.  It doesn't take too long although it's not as easy as allowing it to flow directly through the irrigation system.

After making and delivering the compost tea, the barrel gets washed out and then marries back into the rain collection system to collect rainwater.  When I'm ready to make another batch of compost or epson salt tea all the other barrel's valves get shut off and the tea barrel is ready for another batch and conveniently fresh rain water is already loaded in that barrel and ready to go.

Epson salt tea work without clogging the irrigation system's filter and makes adding epson salts to the plants a breeze.  The system is working pretty good but still needs a few tweaks.

Aquarium bubbler used to aerate the compost

Radish's potatoes, mint and Elvis

Nothing says romance like Elvis impersonators at the State Fair

Being the sentimental guy that I am, our romantic valentines day celebration consisted of going to the State Fair and seeing the Elvis impersonators and Budweiser Clydesdale's.  Top that valentine.  The State Fair had many agricultural and 4H club displays.  At one display, the kids were giving away little plastic bags with cotton balls with some radish seeds.  Since my wife likes radish's, she gladly accepted one and gave them to me to plant.  That was several weeks ago.

sprouting radishes

radishes new home

So today while rummaging around the shed looking for something I noticed the little bag with the cotton ball.  Somehow it accumulated a few drops of moisture in the little bag and the radish seeds were starting to grow inside the bag.  So the cotton ball was removed from the bag and all the little seedlings were separated from the cotton and planted.

newly planted potatoes

Another new addition to the Florida Bee Farm and a long shot in my mind are potatoes.  I was recently at a Farmers market and talking to a guy selling organic potatoes.  He happened to have a few potatoes that were starting to sprout that he had under the display because he didn't think any customers would want them.  He gave them to me for purchasing a pound of good organic potatoes.  That worked out perfect because you need organic potatoes for planting because the ones in the supermarkets are sprayed with an anti-sprouting spray to keep the potatoes from sprouting eyes.   Another reason for eating organic.

The potatoes had quite a few eyes already sprouting on them so they were cut into many pieces that all had an eye.  And then placed in large pots with a small amount of dirt on top.  As the plants grow you're supposed to keep mounding dirt on top.  I've heard only a few varieties grow in Florida so this may or may not take as the guy at the Farmers market had no idea what type of potatoes they were.  Since I'm the lucky guy it's worth a try.

relocated sweet mint

While reading some gardening tips today, I noticed people discussing growing mint.  The consensus was that you should put mint in a shady location with plenty of water.  My mint was not doing well in a sunny area so our barely surviving mint plants were transplanted into pots and put into a shady spot after a heavy watering.  Must have mint for Mojitos.

Indian Rocks Co-Op

Once again I was away from the Bee Farm on another everglades sailing trip.  Upon my return I noticed a group of tomato plants that looked pretty thirsty.   Checking the irrigation system revealed one zone that was inadvertently switched off !  How very frustrating it was because it was simply due to rushing a job to hurry home and pack for the trip (which was put off until the last minute).

One of the tomato plants was heavy with fruit so when it weakened from lack of water it collapsed on it's stems.  That plant may not make it.  The other plants were better supported by their tomato cages and will probably be ok even though a few lost leaves and stems.  Needless to say on Monday morning all plants received  extra water rations.

The good news is the tomatoes are starting to take off and we listed eggplant and some tomatoes with the Indian Rocks Co-Op.    Plus there were plenty of garden fresh tomatoes to accompany me on the trip to the everglades where our group eats well and shares so much food that we all probably gain weight on the trip. 

eggplant

The Indian Rocks Co-Op will be selling our excess produce and it looks like a good source of fresh veggies.  We'll be ordering from them as well as selling.  As people learn more and more about how big agriculture poisons our food, co-ops and healthy organic vegetables and food will continue to be more popular.

As they say, you are what you eat and last night was such a delight using a half dozen of these delicious heirloom tomatoes and several extra large Black Krim tomatoes (not shown) which are just starting to turn red.  The flavor is amazing.  We diced the tomatoes and added to a large pan of thinly sliced onions, lots of garlic and some white wine.  A little cream, salt, pepper and pasta .... heavenly and just one more reason I'm the lucky guy.  

Rutger tomatoes