Garden: Fall Planting

This year, like every year, I have been planning to put in bulbs. Last year, I followed through on my plan. This year, I am doing the same. Last year, I planted something like 240ish bulbs, of varying kinds. The end result was well worth the cost and effort. If anything, I wished I planted more. So, this year, I'm going to do just that. I have purchased another 320 bulbs, which I will be planting over the next week or two.

I also picked up some tiny chrysanthemums for $.49 each. They probably won't come back next year, but if they do, it's far cheaper than paying $10 for mums which won't come back. I also theoretically have some garlic that I ordered which will need to be planted. After I write this, though, I'm going to go send an e-mail because it is supposed to ship in Sept., which is flying by. I had a bunch of perennial seeds which I was also planning on planting, but I don't know if I can get the bulbs in and seed beds prepared before it's too late. Theoretically, I should have planted them back in late August. Right now is about the latest I could expect them to survive. I suppose I could always save them to plant in Spring.

Finally, I planted some carrots, broccoli, kale, collards, lettuce and spinach. All are quite a bit behind where I would like them to be, except the carrots. We'll see how they turn out.

Bees: Inspection 05 September 2011

It's been a few weeks since I last inspected the bees. On the previous inspection, I had robbed a single frame of honey. I had a slight concern because it seemed like they were almost out of space. They had a few empty frames plus the outsides of the last frames. At the very least, I was concerned about how large (or small) the brood area was. That said, they seemed to be foraging like crazy.

In an ideal world, I would have put drawn foundation into another box so they could fill it with the fall flow. Sadly, being a first-year beekeeper, I don't have any drawn foundation. They are in really good shape, honey-wise, to go into winter but there is still another month and a half before first frost. At this point, it is really unreasonable to expect that they will draw out another box and fill it before winter sets in. I had considered robbing another frame or two, but they all had uncapped areas in the bottom, middle of the frame and I don't have a hydrometer to test for moisture content. So, I guess 1 frame is all I get this year. Oh well, they will hopefully be better off this winter because of it.

One neat thing to mention... When I robbed the frame of honey last time, I added a foundationless frame. I used a wedge frame and nailed and glued the wedge to the top bar. I was happy and surprised to see that the frame was mostly drawn out and being used for brood raising. It was neat to see a frame of totally fresh, clean comb created entirely from nothing. The only little issue is that it was slightly crooked. I suspect that my intricately leveled hive has settled, making it slightly out of level. Oh well, it will work perfectly fine. I'm planning of using only foundationless frames from now on though, so I will have to recheck for level in the Spring.

Almost completely capped frame. Probably OK, but why chance it.

A closer look at the uncapped section of comb

This comb is totally the work of the bees, done in about 2 weeks.

A close-up of the comb. A little more work and it will be done.