Bees!

Well we were all there when Idgie Threadgoode charmed the bees to sneak a jar honey and watched Dakota Fanning grow up under the wing of August the bee keeper, but do we really know what goes on in the bee world?  This past weekend I was able to get a small glimpse into the world of bees thanks to an old friend, "The Bee Guy" of Honey Fly Farms. 

"The Bee Guy", Kevin, took me out on a usual checking of the hives.  Basically we lifted the lid off each hive and pulled out each frame. Now I should stress that this should be done carefully.  I quickly learned that loosing your grip on the lid and dropping it makes the bees upset.  Each box holds about a dozen frames.  The frames are inspected for disease, vigor of the hive, unwanted insects such as mites, and of course, we were trying to spot the queen.  The queen is slightly longer than the rest of the bees and has more of a solid coloring on her back rather than the typical black stripes.  As you watch her you'll see her cruising through the crowd of bees like, well a queen.  Once spotted, we were extra careful not to damage that frame, we certainly did not want to hurt the queen.  

Can you spot the Queen?

 And just for an extra bit of information, this little adventure would count as my "walking on the wild side" day because when bees sting me I swell up like a marshmallow peep, some would say I'm slightly allergic.  So Kevin made sure I was safely suited up, which left him without a suit.  Luckily neither of us got stung. 

We visited a couple different hive locations.  Locations are spread out across the county to give the bees different nutrient sources when the surrounding plants are blooming.  But when there isn't an abundance of nectar for the bees we put out nutrient solutions just to be sure the colony had plenty to eat. Basically a simple sweet water solution is mixed up and placed close to the hives to supplement their nutrition.  We were also checking the boxes for ants.  Ants love the sweetness of the hives and the nutrient solution.  I learned that sprinkling some cinnamon on the wooden box lids deters the ants.  The cinnamon burns their little feet!  

      


Next time we will be extracting the honey from the hives.  This will be done in a few weeks.  Hopefully it will be a good harvest. 

Until next time,
Lynn

Tears and Torch

Many things in life bring tears to my eyes, funerals, weddings, stubbing my toe, Grey's Anatomy, and plants (the point of sharing this unknown truth).  This little fact may actually come as a shock to most people, but the ones that truely know me, know this to be a truth about me. 

Here is a case in point.....

I have two greenhouses, one is strictly business.  It's where all the J Lynn Nursery magic happens, where plants are born, grown, and shipped from.  The other greenhouse is more of a personal haven for me and my helpers.  This greenhouse is where all the funky little pet plants live that have absolutely nothing to do with business, it's all fun under the sun in this greenhouse.

The other day my sister was doing some work in there and wanted to show me what she had accomplished.  Now, I had not been in there all day or even the day before that.  She was telling me how she clipped back the strawberry plant and re-arranged some of the benches when I completely ignored her and gasped out loud.  I let out a little squeal, put both hands over my mouth, and started jumping up and down a bit.  Completely confused, my sister thought she had done something wrong.  She tried to get words out of me but my full concentration was on my Torch Cactus in bloom! 

At this point I grabbed it off the shelf and placed it on the center bench to get a better look.  There I stood in complete glee staring at Torch with tears in my eyes.  Yes, a plant has made me cry.

This cactus was a gift from a dear friend of mine.  He bought it for me, along with a couple other cacti, on a trip to Arizona.  The tears were of pure joy that it actually bloomed and of course remembering my friend, whom I haven't seen a quite a while.  When I received this gift I was worried that I would not be able to get it to bloom and my friend would be disappointed, but it had bloomed and he is gorgeous.  :o)

Here are a couple pictures of it:

This is Torch on the first day I noticed the bloom, the flower had already started closing for the night.

This is day 2.  The second flower had opened up and we got a good look at it this time.