Bee Bandwagon

Honey produced by the bees that live right here on the farm

Bees are, like, so totally in right now.  If you’re an eco-activist 20/30-something, who lives in a soon-to-be-gentrified urban neighborhood, wear skinny jeans and you’re something of a food snob, than you better have a beehive on the rooftop of your apartment building. Although Derek and I actually fit most of those slightly embarrassing qualifications up to last year, we had yet to jump on the bee-bandwagon. So although we're a little late to the party, I'd like to announce that we love bees too!

There are eight beehives scattered around a couple of sites on the farm we live on. A while ago I had the pleasure of observing our bee keeper add a new group of bees to one of our hives that did not survive over the winter. The process was fascinating.

First, we had to do some cleaning.

You can see in the picture above that we have taken a bunch of frames of honeycomb out of the bee box. The bees don’t care that the frames are blackened from use or even that mice may have eaten holes out of the framed honeycomb. They will reconstruct it all like new this year.  We do scrape off areas with chunks of a substance called propolis so that the frames will fit more securely into the hive. Propolis is a secondary product made by the bees. In the photo below you’ll notice that the wood frame looks like it has a golden varnish.  

This varnished look was achieved through the application of propolis by the bees themselves! They manufacture this substance in a process similar to making honey, but instead of using flower nectar, they use sap from trees. (That last part just blew my mind). And then they apply the propolis to any areas of the hive that they want to make more secure. They also use it for its antibacterial properties. If they think a part of the hive is susceptible to disease for some reason, maybe mouse droppings, they will cover that area with the propolis and the hive will remain healthy. 

After the cleaning we put the hives back together, and added the bees to an empty box below so that they could find their own way into their new home.

Another interesting fact I learned is that honey bees are not native to North America. They were brought over by the European settlers. Apparently Native Americans called the honey bee the “white man’s fly” because the honey bee’s movement westward across the continent always preceded the inevitable arrival of Europeans.

Over the course of the afternoon I learned a lot from our enthusiastic bee keeper, but I was also surrounded by flying, buzzing bees the entire time. So, as I was doing my best to concentrate on all the knowledge she was providing, I was also attempting to conjure my absolute most Zen countenance. I thought that, if I was very peaceful and unafraid, the bees wouldn’t bother me. And they didn’t. After it was all done I felt a bit of a rush, as if I had just performed some dangerous act! I suppose hanging out with some bees is as exciting as I need life to get.

I learned so much that afternoon, that I cannot possibly fit it all in tonight. And I also need to save time to put up some more ridiculously cute lamb photos.

All My New Friends Are Really Cute

Every morning when Lesley and I walk to work, there is a chance that we will see a newborn lamb. Needless to say, I like going to work a lot. So far, there are five little lambs running around the farm, and there will be at least seven more in the next week or so if everything goes well. Here are a few pictures of the new arrivals. 

Mystery at the Farm #72

It was a dark and stormy night…

And we were wondering why some of our seedlings wouldn’t grow.

Exhibit A:

Blood Sorrel and Good King Henry are actually supposed to be particularly hardy leafy greens. So it surprised us when no single plant emerged after seeding on February 21st.

Exhibit B:

The plot thickened when we compared lettuce plants that were seeded at different dates. Here we see that the Nancy lettuce plants seeded on March 7th are not growing as quickly as the lettuces seeded a week later, March 13th.

 The weather was very good following the first batch, so we have ruled out weather related problems.

Exhibit C:

Another March 7th seeding completely failed.

Our fellow apprentice Katie was disappointed when her herb seedlings of calamint wouldn’t take off. We were about to find out that it was more than a novice mistake.

Findings:

When the farm’s copy of Farmers’ Almanac 2012 arrived in the mail we used it as an investigation tool for our mystery. The Farmers’ Almanac has been published every year since 1818 and is still an invaluable resource for farmers.

We checked the section of the publication called Gardening with the Moon. There is a short explanation that you can see in the photo below.

And here’s what we found:

February 21-22: described as “Barren days”.  We planted the Good King Henry and Blood Sorrel on Feb. 21^st. This indicates that it is not a good time to plant seeds

March 5-8: is described as, “A most barren period”! This is when we planted the lettuces and herbs that didn’t work out!

Is it really possible that the Farmers’ Almanac could predict what would happen to our plants when seeded during specific phases of the moon? To me, it seems almost supernatural and very hard to believe. But at the same time, this publication has provided highly trustworthy information to farmers for almost 200 years. 

I decided to do a little more research and found some scientific evidence to back up our findings. We have all heard that the ocean’s tides are governed by our moon. I learned that the tides are highest during the full moon and the new moon. At these times the moon’s gravitational pull is at it’s highest. But it affects more subtle bodies of water too, including moisture in the ground. So if we plant seeds during the full or new moon, they will absorb more moisture and grow more vigorously.

In contrast, during the half-moon following the full-moon the gravitational pull is at it’s lowest point and so seeds have a harder time germinating.  This is when we planted the seeds in question above.

Somehow the moon can even tell us when “…seeds will rot in the ground”. The Almanac predicted this for last Wednesday and Thursday March 28^th and 29^th. So we decided to take the almanac’s advice and hold off seeding more lettuces until Friday.

This theory has much more depth than what I’ve summarized here. If you’re interested you can learn more at: www.gardeningbythemoon.com

I suppose we can't say for sure if the mystery was truly solved. There are so many factors that play into the success of any growing thing. And as a beginning farmer, it would take me a while to see all the variables. But I must say, this mystery made me a believer in gardening by the moon!