Day #261 Free Plants and the Arbor Foundation

Speaking of birds, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the trees my friend Millie gave me when I bought this house six (seven?) years ago. They came (little more than long sticks) from the Arbor Foundation, but now they’re 8 or 10 feet tall. One, a golden rain tree, is a favorite perching place for the birds as they wait their turn at the feeding stations.

It’s turned out to be a favorite of the bees, too, with its airy yellow blooms. There are three of my bees and a couple of darker neighborhood bees on this branch. Bumble bees like the flowers too.

And the birds planted a whole patch of sunflowers from leftover seeds they dropped. Here’s one sporting a Bumble bee and a couple of buzzy little friends.

Three or four years ago, a neighbor said they were taking out a bunch of flowers – did I want any? Sure! So I now have a patch of triple-fringed daylily that the bees have been visiting religiously. There are four bees on this one, even though all you can see is the big guy.

And, finally, my very first crop of blueberries. These plants weren’t free, but they did come from the Gwinnett County Extension Service last March. Oops! The picture isn’t of the whole first crop. I already ate quite a bit of it. These I saved for breakfast tomorrow.

By the way, did you hear about the canary that caught a case of the chirpies? The vet said it was

…

...

...

...

…

scroll down  

…

...

...

...

keep scrolling...

…

…

...

...

...

...

Tweetable!

BEEattitude for Day # 261:

       Blessed are those who see the beauty in cast-offs, for they shall discover wonders.

_______________________________ 

The teeny details:

my books:  http://www.franstewart.com

my eBooks on Amazon for Kindle:  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=Fran+Stewart

my eBooks on Smashwordss (for all other formats):  http://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=Fran+Stewart

Day #260 Patting a Bee!

After the last hive inspection, as I gathered up all my paraphernalia, I noticed a single bee sitting quietly on top of the yellow hive.

I couldn’t resist the temptation. I patted a bee!

BEEattitude for Day # 260:
       Blessed are those who treat us gently, for we shall respond in kind.

After a little while, she flew off to rejoin her friends, and I floated into the house to write this blog.

_______________________________ 

The teeny details:
my books:  http://www.franstewart.com
my eBooks on Amazon for Kindle:  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=Fran+Stewart
my eBooks on Smashwordss (for all other formats):  http://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=Fran+Stewart
 
 

Day #259 Fresh Eggs and Green Beans

I’d be willing to bet that people who keep bees as a backyard hobby are the sorts of people who:

a.      have a vegetable garden

b.      buy food at farmer’s markets, and

c.       who conserve water as much as possible.I made two out of three on that list.

If you recall those blogposts of mine months ago where I gushed on and on about the vaggie garden I was putting in for the bees and for me—fresh lettuce! great beets! crunchy carrots! zesty radishes!--you’ll probably assume that item a is high on my list of priorities.

My garden, other than a whole bunch of fresh lettuce early in the spring, has been a dismal failure, though. I think it’s time to admit it.

I’m okay with shrubs and trees and perennials, as long as they don’t have to be pruned, fiddled with, or cosseted.

I’m reminded of a garden I started in Vermont way back in what seems like another lifetime. My dad could grow a garden anywhere, and I’ve always had this feeling that I ought to be able to as well. One of my dismal failures in Vermont was cucumbers. I don’t to this day know what I did wrong. I only know that a patient at the family dental practice where I worked at the time was bemoaning his garden’s lack of success. “Thank God for cucumbers,” he said. “Of course, any fool can grow cucumbers.”

This fool couldn’t, but I didn’t admit it to him.

From now on, all my veggies (except maybe some lettuce and green beans) will come from farmers markets. I love ordering from www.Gwinnett.LocallyGrown.net each weekend and picking up my goodies on Tuesdays at Rancho Alegre. The local farmers in their network really know how to grow good stuff. And I get to pick and choose exactly how much or how many I want of each item.

I do have one ongoing gardening success. I planted five Kentucky Wonder bean seeds in the early spring. Three of them came up. Now, each morning, I step outside my front door and harvest five or six beans, which is just enough for me to cook in my oatmeal or mix into my scrambled eggs.

And speaking of eggs, my neighbor Janet, the one who bakes such wonderful bread, gave me eggs from her sister’s hens. Some of them were blue, and here’s the picture to prove it.

Next year (except for the lettuce and the green beans), I’m planting buckwheat. The bees will love the flowers, and I’ll love the honey they make from it. I hope it grows better than those cucumbers.

BEEattitude for Day # 259:

       Blessed are those who know how to do what they do and who do it well, for they shall be recompensed accordingly.

_______________________________ 

The teeny details:
my books:  http://www.franstewart.com
my eBook sare on Amazon or Smashwords

Day #258 BIG Cookie

Okay. This has nothing whatsoever to do with bees.

Last Monday my grandkids were here, and we decided to make Molasses Chewies. Savannah asked, “why couldn’t we make just one big cookie?”

Why not?

There was a great deal of suspense involved—will the dough expand enough to drip over the edges of the cookie sheet? Will we be able to slide the end result off the cookie sheet?

The answer to both questions turned out to be “NO.”

So we decorated the result and took pictures. (Someone said she thought the face looks like the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz.)

And we ate right off the cookie sheet. Yum!

BEEattitude for Day # 258:
       Blessed are those who are open to unexpected ways of doing things, for they shall be pleasantly surprised.

_______________________________ 

The teeny details:
my books:  http://www.franstewart.com
my eBooks on Amazon for Kindle:  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=Fran+Stewart
my eBooks on Smashwordss (for all other formats):  http://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=Fran+Stewart

Day #257 Geri's Datura

I’ve talked before about my friend Geri Taran. She founded the Georgia Writers Association and headed it up until it was taken over by Kennesaw State University. Geri’s had an interesting (understatement alert!) life for sure. And she used to keep bees years ago. Once I started getting into beekeeping, Geri decided to take it back up again.

The last time I visited her, she showed me a datura the birds or squirrels or somebody like that had planted in her yard. The thing’s three feet tall now. Datura  (also called Angel's Trumpet) is poisonous, as I hope you realize. I found out about lots of poisonous plants when I was researching Yellow as Legal Pads, the second of my mysteries. I bought Deadly Doses: a Writer’s Guide to Poisons by Serita Deborah Stevens. Fascinating. For a mystery writer, that is.

But now I’ve found out that bees are usually smart enough to avoid plants that have toxic nectar. Good thing. These flowers are so inviting, I should think the bees would have a hard time ignoring them. I took two pictures – one of the flower bud just as it’s beginning to unfurl, and one of the blooming beauty (which, by the way, is about 10 inches long!)

Here’s the bloom. My camera made it look purple, but it’s really a bright white.

HAPPY

BIRTHDAY,

GERI!

BEEattitude for Day # 257:
       Blessed are those who let surprise plants thrive, for they shall be rewarded with beauty, rather like Fran’s thistle flowers.


My Website
 

Day #256 Hive Inspection Yesterday

I’m feeling a little bit sad, and I’d like to share the reason with you.

Yesterday I opened both hives to see how much comb the bees had built in the honey supers.

None. Nada. Nuttin. Nope.

I had to accept the fact that I probably won’t get any honey for myself and my friends this season. I know. I know. I’ve been saying all along that if I didn’t get any honey the first year, it wouldn’t matter. After all, beekeepers are supposed to take the excess only. The bees need enough honey and pollen stores to make it through the winter. [Yes, I agree. It’s hard to think of winter when it’s 95 degrees outside.]

Still, there’s always been that glimmer of hope. Why else would I order a honey-filtering kit from Brushy Mountain Bee Farm? Why else would I invest on all those unassembled super frames? Why else would I start an Excel spreadsheet of people to give honey to? Why else would I have TWO SHELVES of glass jars stockpiled in my garage?

Why indeed?

As I saw the dismal result of my experiment with the open, top-bar-style supers, I decided my bees couldn’t figure out how to build comb there, so I replaced the frames with some plastic-foundation supers. That way my girls will have a template to draw out their comb. I’ll feel happy if they can fill it so they’ll be ready for winter.

Yes – I’ll feel happy about that. But I’m feeling sad about the honey I won’t have for me and for you.

BEEattitude for Day # 256:

       Blessed are those who change course when circumstances require it. We bees do that, and we eventually find very good flowers as a result.

_______________________________ 
The teeny details:
my books:  http://www.franstewart.com
my eBooks on Amazon for Kindle
my eBooks on Smashwords (for all other formats)

Day #255 Monster Alert!

Remember the picture of the lovely little birdbath I set up for the bees? I filled it with rocks so they’d have an easy way to get to the water.

Now, do you also remember I said I’d put in a rain barrel two weeks ago?

Well, it turns out the rain barrel LEAKS, right across my driveway. For the past week I haven’t seen a single bee at the birdbath, but they are ecstatic about the puddles in the drive. “Water! Water!” I can practically hear them singing as they zoom around.

The trouble is – now when I back out of my garage, I worry that I might run over some bees. Maybe I could put up a sign . . .

 

BEWARE: Big Metal Monster!

If you see it, fly away until it leaves!

 

How would that translate into BEEnglish?

BEEattitude for Day # 255:

       Blessed are those who drive carefully, for they shall save their own lives, as well as ours.
 

_______________________________ 

The teeny details:
my books:  http://www.franstewart.com
my eBooks on Amazon for Kindle
my eBooks on Smashwords (for all other formats)

Day #254 Sheltered from the Rain

We had a driving rainstorm on Wednesday, and I could see clusters of bees hanging beneath the screen on the bottom of the hive, each bee attached by at least four legs to other bees above and below. I tried to get a picture of them (before it started to rain), but there were too many shadows.

I have to wonder, though, if the bees at the top end up with joint problems. After all, having a couple of hundred sisters hanging on HAS to add up to a lot of weight.

Add the 99% Georgia humidity to that equation, and I must give my honey bees a blue ribbon for strength and endurance.

 

BEEattitude for Day # 254:

       Blessed are those who lend a leg to their sisters, for they shall help to form a living sculpture.

_______________________________ 

The teeny details:
my books:  http://www.franstewart.com
my eBooks on Amazon for Kindle
my eBooks on Smashwords (for all other formats)

Day #253 It's Raining Thistle Seeds in the Living Room!

Remember blowing dandelion seeds all across the lawn when you were a kid?

I certainly have enough dandelions in my yard for both the bees (when the yellow flowers bloom) and the grandchildren (when the seed heads form).

But this year, as I’ve told you, I’ve had some thistle plants crop up in convenient places (i.e. NOT where I walk). Check back through the blog entries for pictures of the bright purple blossoms (Day 226--May 26th and Day #231--May 31st) if you missed them the first time.

As the blossoms go to seed, I bring the stalks inside. Naturally, as they dry out, they pop open. That was a real winner when the grandkids were here last week. They pulled seeds out of the thistle heads, collected them in plastic containers, and . . .

 

 

   threw

       them

             into

                      the

                            air!

Despite the fact that we’d spread a sheet over the rug,

 

those seeds went everywhere.

(c) 2011 Fran Stewart

(c) 2011 Fran Stewart

They looked like stars in the sunlight slanting through the skylights.


And look at them here on Savannah and Aiden’s hair!



BEEattitude for Day # 253:
       Blessed are the Grannies, for they shall open brave worlds for their grandchildren.

_______________________________ 
The teeny details:
my books:  http://www.franstewart.com
my eBooks on Amazon for Kindle
my eBooks on Smashwords (for all other formats)

Day #252 Sticky Fingers

I love having this little phone camera. The last time I did a hive inspection, I found myself picking up a frame and then having a hard time putting it down again. Or rather, I could put it down, but I couldn’t un-stick my fingers from it.

I took this picture so you can see the brownish-yellow propolis all over my fingers. After I took the picture, of course, I had to clean the propolis scrum off my phone. A combination of rubbing alcohol and elbow grease is about the only thing I’ve found that works.

BEEattitude for Day # 252:

       Blessed are those who aren’t afraid of getting dirty, for they shall have many adventures.

 _______________________________ 
The teeny details:
my books:  http://www.franstewart.com
my eBooks on Amazon for Kindle
my eBooks on Smashwords (for all other formats)
 

Day #251 The Life of a Writer

In case you didn’t know, I’ve been writing for most of my life, although I never actually published a novel until after the turn of the century. Still, just like in beekeeping, there’s always more to learn.

At the suggestion of my good friend Nanette Littlestone (who happens to be my editor as well), I signed up for an online writing class. The instructor, Margie Lawson, is an expert on body language, and she’s really good at teaching people how to enliven their prose and freshen up their stale writing.

Not that I think my writing is stale. But still, I learned a LOT from the class. In the book I’m working on now, the town deputy interviews a woman who lives north of Martinsville. He asks her if he can look more closely around her son’s room.

            “No.” I wrote in a previous draft. Mrs. Zapota’s lips thinned to a fine line. “He’s very particular about his things.”

Margie doesn’t like thinning lips, and she encouraged all of us (I wasn’t the only one) to find a better way to use body language to show what the character felt. This is what I came up with:

            “No.” Her lips went from Pillsbury Doughboy to Wicked Witch. “He’s very particular about his things.”

Fun, huh? I may still change it again – especially if Nanette asks me to – but I’m learning to trust that there will always be things I can learn, and ways I can improve.

Just you wait till I start trying to harvest honey!

BEEattitude for Day # 251:

       Blessed are those who call the rain when we need it, for their trees shall be washed and watered.
 
_______________________________ 
The teeny details:
my books:  http://www.franstewart.com
my eBooks on Amazon for Kindle
my eBooks on Smashwords (for all other formats)

Day #250 - Missing My Dad

My father was one of those emotionally-absent men who cared very much about his family, but who worked very hard to do his job as he saw it, showing his love through that work. I didn’t appreciate him (or the work ethic that defined his life) enough as I was growing up, and didn’t really get to know him until the last seven years of his life.

I was with him when he died. My sister and I sat on either side of his bed and held his hands as he walked down that long stairway. When he reached the end of it, he took a deep breath and stepped off.

His dying erased any vestige of fear I might have harbored about death. I’m not ready to welcome it—not for a long time—but I know from having seen my dad die, that it doesn’t have to be a scary process.

I wanted to share the experience my sister and I had on that March day in 2002, so when I wrote the 5^th book in my mystery series, Indigo as an Iris, I put in the story a death that looked very much like my dad’s. If you read INDIGO, you’ll see the loving gentle way he left this life.

I’ve been thinking about it because, obviously, Father’s Day is here, but also because bees from my hives die on a regular, daily basis. I’ve found their sweet little bodies on the deck, in the planters, and caught in a spider web behind/beside a recirculating fountain. I hope they went as easily as my father.

BEEattitude for Day # 250:

       Blessed are those who appreciate their family while they can, for their memories shall be richer.

_______________________________ 

The teeny details:

my books:  http://www.franstewart.com

my eBooks on Amazon for Kindle

my eBooks on Smashwords (for all other formats)

Day #249 Cockroaches

I apologize in case you’ve just finished eating breakfast.

Several nights ago I had reason to walk out on the back deck well after dark. There were cockroaches – lots of big ones – scurrying around deck near the hives. On the railing around the deck, I spotted half a dozen of them scooting out of sight.

So, my question is this: are my bees at risk? Is there a chance the roaches will enter the hives and eat . . .  wait a minute . . . what do cockroaches eat?

I don’t have a clue.

One more thing to find out. If you know the answer, do tell me, please.

BEEattitude for Day # 249:

       Blessed are those who help their friends, for they shall live in a happy hive.

_______________________________ 
The teeny details:
my books:  http://www.franstewart.com
my eBooks on Amazon for Kindle
my eBooks on Smashwords (for all other formats)

Day #248 What a Difference . . .

I apologize for having spent the last week bemoaning the sorry state of my white hive. All my friends have most likely gotten thoroughly tired of hearing about my poor bees who hadn’t done any comb-building as of the last time I checked the hives, one week ago.

To paraphrase an old song, though –

What a difference a week makes, tra-la-la

Thursday morning I called Tommy Bailey, asking if he would stop by sometime soon and help me figure out what was going on in the hives.

He said yes, of course, he’d stop by on Friday, because he’s that kind of guy – unfailingly polite and committed to helping inexperienced beekeepers. But he added, as he always has before, each time I’ve talked with him, “The only way to learn about honey bees is to work the hives yourself. You’ll never know what the books are trying to tell you, or what I’m trying to tell you, until you get in there and moves those frames around. Try something, anything. If it works, that’s great. If it doesn’t, you’ve just learned something.”

As many times as he’s said it before, I think this was the first time I heard him.

I put down the phone, grabbed my smoker, bee jacket, and hive tool, and headed for the deck.

What I found astonished me. I opened the brown hive first, knowing ahead of time that it was a dismal failure. And guess what I found? Three and a half full frames on the top hive body, with lots of capped brood, lots of larvae, and lots of worker bees.

Sure, some of the frames were stuck to the ones underneath them. I wiggled them loose, scraped off the offending protuberances, and put it all back together. Then I added a super, because it looked like they’d soon need more room.

All this activity going on at a time when beekeepers (including Tommy) are saying, “It’s been too dry and too hot, and not much is in bloom now, so don’t be surprised if your bees aren’t doing much. June is the down-time.”

 
Not for my girls!

They’re as busy as . . . okay I’ll say it . . . as bees.

p.s. I called Tommy right back and told him not to bother stopping by. Everything was just fine and dandy at Bees Knees Beekeeping!

BEEattitude for Day # 248:

       Blessed are those who provide clean water for us bees, especially on hot days, for they shall be buzzed about in the hive.

_______________________________ 

The teeny details:
my books:  http://www.franstewart.com
my eBooks on Amazon for Kindle
my eBooks on Smashwords (for all other formats)

Day #247 Time of Use from Jackson EMC

Last year I signed up for the Jackson Electric Membership Cooperative’s Time of Use program. It’s their way of encouraging people to avoid using electricity during the peak times – from 3 to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday.

The program runs from June 1^st through September 15^th. Any electricity used during those peak hours is punitively expensive. But any electricity used any other time (all year long) is quite inexpensive.

They installed a special meter in May of 2010, and I went through the summer using as little electricity as I could. My average bill that summer was $37, while friends and neighbors had bills over $200.

 
How did I manage it? At 2:45 every day, I went to the circuit breaker box and turned everything off, except for the breaker that governed the garage door (in case I had to leave on a moment’s notice), and the one to the fridge. I had the most peaceful afternoons and early evenings. If I needed light, I lit a candle. If I felt a need to listen to the radio, I played the piano instead. I wrote my books by long-hand during those hours and transcribed them (self-editing as I went) during the non-peak hours.

Now, I must admit that if I lived in a sterile subdivisions with lollipop trees, I’d have had a hard time with Time of Use. But I’m lucky. My house may have been “as is” when I bought it – my flooring may be painted subflooring rather than wall-to-wall carpet, and my furniture (most of it) may be from GoodWill – but, by golly, I love this house. Particularly the deciduous trees that shade the house from the west. So what if I turn off the A/C at 2:45 every weekday afternoon? Those trees are on the job all the time!

So here it is June again, and I’m on Time of Use again, blessing those trees every single day.

And when the shade hits the beehives each afternoon, I'll bet the bees are thankful, too!

BEEattitude for Day # 247:

       Blessed are those who challenge themselves to do what seems impossible, for they just might surprise themselves.

_______________________________ 

The teeny details:
my books:  http://www.franstewart.com
my eBooks on Amazon for Kindle
my eBooks on Smashwords (for all other formats)