The Latest Garden-scape

For 2011 this is how our garden has expanded. There is an entirely new garden-plot and (of course) bees. There are also a few more blueberries and a new blackberry patch. The fruit trees are pretty much the same, but we cut the top off the hemlock to get better sun in Garden 1 and we also did some major pruning to the old apple tree to remove the big vertical growth.
2010 garden
2009 garden
2008 garden
2007 garden
Not bad from where we started (what came with the house) in 2007.

The Bees are All Right

Latest check shows that there is a queen (below) and there are larva and capped brood so everything looks good. I think the scare is over.
Last week I swapped the position of frame 1 and 2 and frame 9 and 10 at the ends of the hive. I did this so the bees would not forget to build wax on them. My trick worked and every frame was ready to go this week, which means I could put another hive on top.

This is how the bees were acting mid-week. I think the new queen was on her mating flight and so the workers buzzed on the hive to spread pheromones to help he find her way back. Usually bees do not loiter around the front of the hive.

Alewives Running

The Alewives are swimming upstream! There is a fish ladder in Damariscotta/Newcastle where they bottleneck and you can get a good look at them as they ascend uphill. Yesterday was the first hot day of the spring and Karen, Alden and Darrell went to pay our regards to the swimmers.
The last time I saw the alewives migrate was about ten years ago. The fish ladder has developed a lot since then and there is even a campaign to develop it further. There's even a fish ladder celebration already in its fourth year. One of the best/worst developments is that they have put nets over the stream to keep predators from grabbing the fish, which makes photography difficult.
There are also a couple of basins on chains and motors that occasionally are activated and lucky fish get hefted upstream a ways.

Fixin' the Truck

On the edges of the spectrum there are repairs and patching. 'Repair' is getting as close to a restoration of original quality as you can manage, 'patching' involves making something functional with the least amount of effort. In the middle are stages of the 'fix'. There is 'fixing', 'fixin', 'fixun', 'fexun', 'pheksen' and so on. I would say I am somewhere around fixun the truck.
The truck accident last week TOTALED the truck, but for something like $600 I was able to retain ownership and get the insurance settlement. All the damage was to the truck bed (none to the frame) so my pal Darrell came by and we went at it with hammers and pry-bars.

The two best tools of the afternoon were the come-along, which we attached to a tree and then pulled the point of impact back to original position. This move fixed about 50% of the problem. The next best tool was a pipe we used to extend the handle on my ratchet set to remove the bumper and lift-gate bolts.
We made good progress and I ordered a new bumper, bumper-brackets, and driver tail-light. When they arrived I continued/ finished the fixun... and voila !

They see me Rollin'

He still gets distracted and drifts off the sidewalk, but all-in-all I am psyched that Alden is riding his trike.

Bee Confusion

The hive seems to be developing a little slowly because of the cool damp weather, but it is developing well, with new brood, pollen and nectar filling the comb. So it is distressing to see the queen cell still hanging on the frame... are the bees really discontent with their queen? Ilana and I love queen Isabella and hope they don't depose her. I suppose we are bee royalists.
There seems to be more bees in the hive (this is good) but the young bees are a little funny looking. Their eyes are kind of far apart and their heads are fuzzy.
We caught this little gal chewing her way out of the comb. Welcome to the hive newbe(e)!

2011 Groundhog

Here is the first groundhog of 2011
We noticed activity around some of the holes from last year, suggesting a new brood had arrived. About a week ago we baited the traps and put them out.

The rain and cool weather may have kept them underground until this point, but the sun yesterday and the overcast-but-not-rain day today got them out.
We took this one to Peacock beach as per the tradition. Alden was excited to see that the groundhogs were back and enjoyed taking him to the beach with me. Alden wanted to pet him, but we told him you only pet rabbits, not groundhogs.

Drone Bee

For those of you who do not know there are three kinds of bees in my hive. One queen, dozens of drones, and thousands of workers.

The queen is the most important, she lays eggs and creates pheromones
The workers are also important, they work all day and night all their lives making honey
The drones are male, they do not lay eggs, or work. They hang-out and eat, if a new queen needs to be mated they are useful, but they can go years without doing anything.

The plus side of drones is that they can easily be identified (Big eyes and non-pointy abdomen) and they do not have a stinger. So if their wings get wet you can pick one up and let it crawl around on your hand.

Trouble in Bee city

Last Saturday I checked the hive to see if everything was okay and found a queen cell (top middle). This is worrisome. A queen cell means that the workers are not happy with Queen Isabella and want to replace her.
At first we thought Isabella was killed or injured or missing, which would cause the workers to make a new queen, but we found her in the hive, so it is a confusing state of affairs.
IF Isabella is 'failing' then there are two options. Either let the bees sort it out themselves, or buy a new queen and re-queen the hive. We decided that since we don't know what we are doing we should make the bees some sugar-candy and hope they can sort things out.

We will watch the hive closely and if there is still worry by mid-June we will re-queen. Until then I hope they can settle the matter among themselves.

New Hampshire

We had a quick trip to New Hampshire this weekend. Scott came up to visit on Friday and Saturday and enjoyed the Friday Gardiner Artwalk and then helped with chores on Saturday.
Saturday night we drove to the Casa de Scott and slept over. On Sunday it was rainy and cool, but we still did farm stuff like look at chickens and ride the tractor.
There was also some extra tractor equipment in the barn we checked out.