keljonma's Front Porch - Settling in and adjusting

[keljonma]

wow on the swarm! and good/quick thinking to grab them.. hopefully they will work. will you feed them to see if they will make it thru the winter?

OFG - I wish I would have kept my wits about me last Thursday. I have been doing the "woulda/shoulda/coulda" thought process since the swarm.

Instead of calling friend, I could have just taken a medium super off the original hive to dump the swarm into. I used friend's deep 10 frame super; but all my equipment is for 8 frame mediums. So the Miller Feeder I have is smaller than the deep super (8 frame vs 10 frame). So I have jerry-rigged a way to feed them, but I noticed yesterday that there were some yellow jackets harassing the deep super hive. So I am going to have to do something this week-end.

We are getting rain until Friday I think. I am thinking that after a check of the original hive I will have make sure there is no queen in the original hive, kill any queen cells I find, add some more supers and combine the two hives into one.

I wish others in the Beek Assoc were using 8 frame equipment - everyone seems to be using 10 frame.

 

[keljonma]

I wish it were a virus.... the fellow I talked to on the phone said he couldn't make any promises since we were struck by lightening.

You may be lucky as hard drives seldom get damage from a voltage spike as the sm power supply will usually take the brunt of the surge and never makes it beyond that.

If you take the machine anywhere always tell them you want all the parts back (do it in writing if you have to). Not only is it the law but also because not every tech knows how to troubleshoot and plays swaptronics until the machine starts working, resulting in many parts that were not needed. My computer was hit by a power glitch awhile back and a new power supply fixed it inside of 15 minutes for $25.

Even if the hard drives in this case were damaged it is generally only the integrated drive electronics (IDE) and can be repaired at a cost but all the data is retrievable.

ps. those little usb hard drives for $50 are a godsend

Thanks for the info xpc. I have printed it out; well worth the 15 cents!

 

[keljonma]

I spent the morning pulling poison ivy, broken glass, old aluminum cans, and discarded roof shingles from the front garden. I was hoping to transplant some yarrow in there today. But there is still a bunch of garbage and PI in there. It is supposed to rain tonight (severe weather headed our way), so I probably won't get to it again until Friday.

It has been a week and my arms are still completely covered in poison ivy!! So glad I wore long sleeves and gloves!

 

[keljonma]

This has been a strange summer weather-wise. Almost every morning we have had a very thick fog that doesn't clear up until 7:30 or 8 in the morning. Temp wise we have been in the low to mid 60s at night and mid to high 80s during the day. It has been very humid.

This week TR has worked day shift (7 am to 3:30 pm) and modified second shift (4:30 pm to 1 am)!! It makes for a really long week! Wednesday was his day off, and he volunteered to help Tom (church custodian) strip and wax the cafeteria at church, as it is too big a job for 1 person. As it is, they only got half of it done (9:30 to 5:30 with a short lunch break). TR said he was a bit sore yesterday and his throat was bothering him a bit (probably from the stripper).

Garden updates.....

This morning I harvested the last of the blueberries this year. I have 1 quart in the freezer and 1 quart canned and 1 quart dried in the pantry.

Tomatoes are just forming on the plants (from the July replants). We have flowers on the bell pepper plants, but no fruit yet. The ground cherries did not take at all after the second planting. I think I will try to grow some in the house in a container during winter.

I finished drying the basil I got from Pat, and ended up with 1 filled quart jar of dried basil. The basil plants in the garden (from the July replant) are now about 4 inches tall and doing well.

The French tarragon is starting to yellow. I am wondering if I need to give it more shelter from all the rain we are getting.

The back flower garden has lots of greenery - but so far only the sunflowers, marigolds and nasturtiums have blossoms on them. I planted about 15 different types of flowers... what a year! :/ Actually the nasturtiums are growing gangbusters and we have been using the leaves and flowers in salads and the leaves on BLTs (with the nasturtium leaves in place of lettuce). The lily from Easter is blooming again and should open up within the next week. I am disappointed but hopeful that the cockscomb, flamingo feather, hyssop, zinnias, bee balm, calendula, poppies, etc... aren't flowering yet.

Pat gave me some of her yellow yarrow (I planted white in the back garden this year), since she was dividing and cutting back her garden this year. I am going to plant it in the front garden (now that the poison ivy is gone ). It will look nice there next to the purples (phlox and something else I don't recognize) and pinks (peonies). I saw that the Chinese lanterns are turning orange. These are also in the front garden by the bleeding heart.

The buckwheat is doing great and just about ready for harvest. The amaranth are getting seeds on the flower heads now. Some of the plants are close to 8 feet tall.

The scarlet runner beans are still producing, but I am leaving them on the vine to get large for drying.

Out of the vine-type plants, it looks like we will get something. Yesterday TR found a couple gourds growing.... looks like they might be Sweet Dumpling squash. So far there are no signs that this year's garden will produce cukes, zucchini, crookneck squash, butternut, buttercup, watermelon or pie pumpkins. I am a bit confused by this, as the plants had lots of flowers and they were covered with bees; so not sure why fruit did not form.

TR is planning the next planting session for cool weather harvest. We are thinking Swiss Chard Bright Lights along with some greens and peas.

Thursday was 1 week since the swarm. Although I checked the original hive the day after the swarm for a queen, I need to check again. If they don't produce a queen, one of the worker bees may start laying - and that would mean only drone bees (a working layer isn't fertile and cannot produce more worker bees). We have had rain every day this week, so I haven't been able to examine either hive too closely. The bees in the deep super are doing well, drawing beeswax and are about ready for another super to be added.

TR is off this week-end. We need to get another hive set up and do bee stuff - so I hope the rain does hold off one day at least.

 

[keljonma]

Yesterday Titan celebrated his 12th birthday! After church, TR and I spent a somewhat lazy day at home (doing some gardening and transplanting) and sitting in the shade drinking iced green tea. Titan got some ice cubes to munch and then got a bath to help cool him down - the temp was 87 and with the heat index it was 90.

 

[lorihadams]

Awwww how's the old fella doing? Is he feeling better?

 

[keljonma]

Awwww how's the old fella doing? Is he feeling better?

We are definitely on the down side of life here. Titan is still eating and enjoys being out in the yard .... but he is having more trouble moving around.

 

[Farmfresh]

ME too!

It is a credit to the great care that he has received that he has been able to have this long, LONG life. You have been a great owner.

 

[keljonma]

Thank you, FF!

 

[keljonma]

Temp near 91 yesterday; hot and humid last night. Fog was with us until about 8:30 this morning! and the day has been hot and hazy.


I was going to work the bee hives today, but didn't as most of the girls seemed to stay near home today. :/

We might be taking a small bit of honey from our #1 hive ... depending on how it looks this week. I may just feed it to the #2 hive, which is the swarm from our #1 hive two weeks ago.


The Ashtabula County Fair started yesterday and runs through Sunday. Even though we are within walking distance now, we really haven't heard too much fair noise yet. I think tonight is motocross and this week-end is the music attraction, so the noise level at our place may change. I think the music this year is Randy Houser. Anyway, I think that is what was posted on the fair billboard - I think he does C&W, but I've never heard of him before, so can't say.

TR and I did not sign up to help with the Beek Assoc booth or the church's "we will pray for you" table under the grandstand. TR is working everyday, so not sure we're going to the fair this year at all (a first for us).

I harvested some buckwheat today that I will use as part of some 10-grain bread I am making this week. There is still a lot to be harvested.

The amaranth and millet are doing well too, although it is still too soon to start harvesting any yet.