Water Source

North Carolina is in a technical drought again. However, I just checked with a statistical source and that doesn't seem to add up. However, it hasn't rained in several weeks (more than just a few showers that didn't actually accumulate anything).

We have a drain on the side of the house that takes the condensation away when the air conditioner is working. The water just drips, but I wondered the other day how much I could accumulate if I put a watering can underneath the drip. I think this is a 3 gallon can, but it may be smaller. I filled it up 3 times during the course of the day. So that is between 6 and 9 gallons, just from the air conditioner.

I am thinking of creating a small hose that will run from the spout to the water barrels. A little extra water for the garden is always welcome.

Garden Update

This will just be an update on the progress of various plants in the garden. I am going to start with the cucumbers. Both varieties are growing. I picked a small parade cucumber the other day. I am growing them for pickling, but we used it in a salad. Mostly, we just have growth of the vines, but the vines are being trained nicely on the netting. Perhaps there may be a few too many plants (12 on each end of the raised bed) and that is keeping bees from pollinating them because the flowers are hiding under so many leaves. I hope not. I think they will thin out a bit as the vines grow taller.


There are now tomatoes. The photo below is a Hungarian Heart. True to its name, it is somewhat heart-shaped. I have the one large plant that was planted early and was hearty enough to have withstood the early cool weather. I have one medium plant that I grew indoors after the early plants died. And I have 6 plants in the bed that grew from seed. The seedlings are not very large yet, but are alive and growing. There is also one Rutgers in the bed.


The John Baer tomatoes are growing and starting to produce fruit. I noticed some evidence of early blossom rot on some of these, but others seem to be doing well. Of the three varieties, they are at this time the smallest in size.


The Italian Heirloom, despite my misgivings about the poor soil they were planted in, have grown very well. The fruits are generally a bit larger than the John Baer tomatoes and all the plants seem to be producing at about the same rate.


I am finally getting zucchini (pictured) and yellow squash (not pictured because it was out of focus when I got it into the computer and we ate it for dinner, so there is no second chance for a good photo). No bugs yet on these plants, although I know they are coming.

Goofy Bees

It has been almost 4 weeks since the bees swarmed. That is enough time for the queen to have laid eggs and the brood to have hatched. It is also about a week and a half since I combined the hives. So, I needed to go in today to check on the status of things. Doug Shaw was in town and it was good to have a buddy with me.

The first hive, which is the split hive, was very full. There was honey and bees everywhere. All the supers were full, including the top box (white and on its side in the photo), which was the original brood box from the package hive. So, I added an empty super. The frames have new foundation in them so the bees will need to draw it. I think the bees in this hive are pretty ambitious. We'll see how they do.


The second hive, which is the swarm hive, was not so progressive. When I did the swarm capture, I put a brood box with new foundation in it. The bees had not drawn a single frame. There was also a brand new super. The bees had only drawn part of a couple of frames. The third box up must have started with some drawn comb, because that was where the queen was. It is a small super, so there isn't much room to lay eggs, but there was capped brood there.

I'm relieved that the queen is laying, but disturbed that there hasn't been any more progress at drawing comb or laying nectar up.

Here is my plan. On Monday, Doug and I are going to take the top box off of the split hive and extract honey from it. I will let bees clean off the left over honey so that the frames are clean. I guess I will just put the box outside the hives and let the bees go to town. I expect it won't take them long. Then, once it is pretty clean, I will put the box in the swarm hive. I have yet to figure out exactly where I will place it. My current thinking is to place the current brood box (the small super) at the bottom of the hive and put the brood box directly above it. I doubt the queen will want to move down, so offering her drawn comb to move up into sounds like the most reasonable alternative. I may also shift around some other boxes, but I'm not sure. There is a nearly empty box with just a little drawn comb that is now just above the brood super. If I take it away and there are eggs laid there, I wouldn't like that. So I may keep it in the hive but above the true brood box. I'm thinking.

Onion Harvest

The onion harvest is beginning. Last year, I remember that I started too late and then, by leaving the onions out in the sun after they were picked, many of them went soft. I am starting earlier this year. So far, I haven't harvested many, maybe two dozen of the long red Florence. There are maybe a dozen left of that variety. They turned out to be a very nice size. There could be more of them, I suppose. But I am very happy with what I have. I'm not sure quite how to store them. I am thinking that some will need to be diced and frozen. I would like to keep some for fresh use.


I picked two dozen of the yellow of Parma. Even though there are fewer than I expected, they are all nicely sized. I may get a few more from the Parma bed. One question I have about the rest of the Parma is whether to save the seed or not. The seed all come from early bloomers. I doubt that it was genetics that caused the early bloom, I attribute it to environmental conditions. If it is genetics, I may be perpetuating a one-season variety. Of course, I don't know. Perhaps I will save seed and plant these seeds separate from the left over seed I have from this year and see if there is a difference. It may not be a strong test given that the seed will all be related anyway and one generation cannot possibly make that much difference in genetic variation.

Catching Up

Come June, there are always a lot of things that start happening with the garden. I'm just going to race through some documentation so that I might be able to keep track of when I started things and how things are proceeding at this point in time.

Jason and I planted 24 cucumber plants from seedlings that I had sprouted indoors. Half (12) were Parade, which I believe are for pickling. The other half were Japanese Climbing cucumbers, which I believe will be for salads. Each of the 24 seem to have taken hold. I have one that is ready to climb the trellis I installed. I added a little fertilizer and compost. They seem to be doing well, but things are going slow.

The tomatoes are growing but I have yet to see any set fruit. The exception is the box where I planted Hungarian Hearts, followed by Rutgers. All but one of the Rutgers have died. I suspect I have what Clarence Brown refers to as tomato wilt. But, i planted more Hungarian Heart seeds and have at least half a dozen of those that have sprouted. Sort of a lame bed in many ways. I had such high hopes. Perhaps the seedling Hungarian Hearts will yet grow and produce.

The yellow squash (below) and zucchini are disappointing so far. But, I understand why. The beds they are planted in have very poor soil that is really just mulch. The only reason the Italkian Heirloom tomatoes are doing well (I am convinced) is because of the soil I added when I transplanted them. Nonetheless, they are now starting to grow. I added a little fertlizer to get them going a bit better. It's keeping them watered that is the real challenge. The mulch doesn't hold water well.


I planted three varieties of green bean Saturday and this morning in the same poor soil. I added as much compost as I could and then stole some soil from one of the older beds to try to boost water retention. I also fertilized heavily. I guess time will tell. I believe I will have to water morning and evening until they sprout. It's rained the past several days, which has helped. (The barrels are full again.)

My yellow of Parma onions have gone to bloom. They were so healthy early on. The ones that haven't bloomed have nice large bulbs. I'm at a loss to understand exactly why this happened. I have two ideas: water and spacing. I am hoping to eventually add a drip system and can plant next year's crop 4 per square foot instead of 9. The long red Florence have not suffered this fate.


Finally, I have some peppers that have sprouted and should be ready to plant soon. They are outside now.

Combined Hives

The odd swarm from the first hive required that I combine what was left behind without a queen. I decided to split the hive boxes up. The two supers went to the hive in which I placed the swarm, which I have been calling the third hive. The brood box from the first hive, which is now just filling up with honey since there is no queen, no brood, and was the lowest box the bees could get to, was combined with the second hive. In the case of the second box, all the bees are at least first cousins and perhaps some are still sisters. The bees in the third hive were all sisters with the bees in the first hive. I did the usual, putting a piece of newspaper with slits cut in it between the existing hive bodies and the boxes that got placed on top. The only other adjustment needed was to remove the top feeder from the third hive.

Doug Shaw is out of town, so I pulled a couple of men from church. Randy Daniels actually put on a veil and gloves and kept the smoker going. Before it got handed to Randy, Parker Funk got the smoker good and lively for me. Ray Teague pitched in with a tool when I thought I had lost my hive tool, which I found on top of the hives when I actually got down to them.


So, technically, I guess I need to renumber hives. Maybe I will do that. Maybe I will just name them differently, east and west or split and swarm. I have to think about it.

I went by this morning to inspect. The split hive was very lively. I think brood had recently hatched and there were a lot of orienting flights. The swarm hive is a bit quiet. They haven't had time to produce young bees yet. They've only been in the hive 11-12 days and they started with no drawn comb.

Garlic Harvest

I have thought for several weeks now that it must be getting close to the time to harvest the garlic. I read the instructions from Seed Saver Exchange about growing and harvesting garlic. The timing and symptoms were correct. So we harvested today after work. All 30 of the cloves planted produced nice bulbs. I had to dig down a ways to get to the bulbs. Kathy and Jenna cleaned them off with water. (Now that I re-read the instructions, it says to not do that. Too late.) We then carried them to a place where we could clean them a little more, pulling off the outer layer in most cases.


Overall, I think we got between 25 and 30 pounds of garlic. Most of the cloves are quite large. Some had started to separate from the bulb, suggesting that we harvested just in time. The bulbs were generally large. I put a measuring (1 cup) next to the bulbs to give something to compare in terms of size.


We braided the garlic into 5 braids, 6 bulbs to a strand. I've hung them in the garage, which I think is too hot. Kathy wouldn't allow the aromatic herbs to occupy the house. I cannot think of a different place to move them to, but I'm sure I have a day or two to figure that out. We have a cold room at the office where the computer equipment is housed. Unfortunately, the air conditioner is having problems, so that isn't an ideal solution just yet. I'm afraid I would odorize the entire office if I put it somewhere else there. I have to think. Re-reading the instructions, it doesn't say anything about heat, so maybe things will be OK. Once they are dried, the cold room may be a good place to store them. I plan on replanting next year. Kathy says we need to give a lot away.

Problems with Quick Swarms

I went in to the hives today to see if they needed any additional supers. All the sugar water I had left for the newest hive (the one on the right) was gone and there were no dead bees sitting in the top feeder. None of the other hives needed any new supers.

The oldest hive (the one on the left) had not progressed at all in terms of the bees storing more honey. We left it as it was, but then I thought about it and came back later. It was my experience last year that a premature swarm can sometimes be just that; premature. Last year, when I had just installed a hive, within a week or two it swarmed. I gathered the swarm into a new hive. I turned out that the old hive had no queen. In the end, neither colony was strong enough to defend itself from wax moths. As I thought about this, I realized that I may have the same situation this time around as well. So, I went back into the hive a little later. I'm afraid I may have the same situation this year. I pulled out every frame from the brood box of the original hive and found no evidence of a queen laying eggs whatsoever. I saw no evidence of the bees making a new queen either. And, by the end of my observations, I found that I had a very angry hive; another sign that the hive is queenless.


I need to go back in and combine the three boxes with the other two active hives. I have evidence from the middle hive that there is a good queen because there were capped brood cells all over the place. I trust the other hive also has a queen because they clustered around her when I caught the swarm.