The Balance of Nature
I saw this ladybug in my garden this past fall, so I snapped a photo. I thought it would be a great reminder of how all things in the garden work together.
Our garden health is like our personal health: maintaining a healthy foundation limits problems now and down the road. When you maintain healthy soil in your garden you’ll have healthy plants and you won’t have too many problems with insect infestations or plant diseases.
When bad insects come they are usually followed by the beneficial ones that prey on them. This is the balance of nature, and it’s important to keep that balance.
When we step in trying to fix things we perceive as problems with chemicals and quick fixes, we often only do further damage. Plant disease and insect infestations are often symptoms of a deeper problem. If we resort to the quick fix spray, often our problems will persist or multiply because we aren’t fixing the actual cause, we are only treating the symptoms.
Even so called green, non-toxic, and all natural products often kill the beneficial insects along with the bad ones. So what are we to do if we don’t want to upset this natural balance? We’ll be exploring this all this week here at Chiot’s Run.
Are you an organic gardener, or do you use chemical fertilizers, herbicides & pesticides?
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Setting up our Bee Hive
Yesterday afternoon we moved the ladies outside (for those of you that didn’t visit yesterday, read about the ladies here). We carried the hive outside when it was warm and set up in the spot we picked at the back of our property.
We chose this location because we are surrounded by woods and this is the least likely spot for our bees to bother any neighbors.
I tell you what, this bee suit cracks me up every time I see it. It kind of looks like a space man landed in the back yard.
The ladies were much more active today since it was warmer. You can see them all clustering around the opening where we had the feeding jar (we removed the jar for this photo).
We set the hive up just like it was in the garage. Tomorrow morning when it’s still chilly we’ll take off the bottom box and remove the original cage that they came in. We removed the covering from the door and replaced it with a smaller one, allowing them access to the outside, but not opening it up too much so predators don’t get in.
The ladies sure were happy to get out and stretch their wings.
They were all taking their orientation flights. Bees take short trips that get progressively longer to orient themselves to the position of their new hive. I was out working later and some of the ladies were getting quite brave in their trips out, they were buzzing by me in the front yard.
So does our experience convince anyone else to try keeping bees?
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Installing a Package of Bees
Yesterday afternoon we headed over to Wooster, OH to pick up the new addition to the Chiot’s Run Family. We now have an extra 10,000 ladies in the household. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, we got our bees! We picked them up from Dave at Ohio Honey Farms, he has a few hives in his front yard (and this is only a small portion of them).
On our way home Mr Chiot’s looked at me and said, “This has the makings of a horrible nightmare. The story would go something like this, ‘I picked up my package of bees and all was going well. I heard something in the back of the car and then a swarm of bees attacked my face. I ran off the road into a ditch ….'” We had a good laugh about that on our way home.
When we arrived home we proceeded to follow Dave’s instructions for, “the easy way to install a new package of bees”. It’s much different than the way the books tell you to do it. We decided his way sounded great, and since he’s a veteran beekeeper we figured he knew what he was talking about.
First we pried to lid off of the box of bees, then we removed the can of sugar syrup and the queen cage (the queens come in their own little cage inside the bigger cage of bees). Then you put the small wooden lid back on to keep the bees inside until you want to release them.
Then the box of bees is placed in an empty super on top of the bottom board of the hive (lid on it’s removed after we get the queen cage suspended above). This process takes the place of banging the box of bees and then dumping them into the hive, this seemed like a much “nicer” option both for us and the bees.
We taped a piece of wood over the opening of the hive to keep the bees inside until we move them outside (this afternoon when it’s warm).
We then proceeded to hang the queen cage in a super with frames (the part the bees build comb on) above the empty box that has the bee cage in it. We wired her in so that the bees could still reach her. She will be released into the hive in 3 days (thanks for the question Christy).
Her cage gets placed over to the side so that the jar of sugar syrup that you put on top to feed them doesn’t drip on her and get her wet.
After placing the super with the queen on top of the box that has the bee cage in it, remove the lid from the box of bees below, then place a the inner hive cover with a jar of sugar syrup on top so that the bees have something to eat.
Then you put an empty box or two (we used 2 because they were small ones) and then the hive cover to keep them warm and to keep them inside.
It was a much easier process than we were expecting, thanks to Dave’s great installation instructions and the cold weather which makes the bees pretty lethargic.
Mr Chiot’s says, “Bee suit is optional”. We only have one bee suit, so I wasn’t wearing one (I decided I didn’t want one, I’m going to be brave and do without). We only had 10 bees that “escaped” when we opened the box, and they were all caught and put into the hive. So our bees are quietly tucked in the garage, waiting for us to put them outside later today when it warms up. We checked on them at midnight last night and all of the bees were out of the original box and clustering around the queen cage just like they’re supposed to.
We’re trying to come up with a name for our hive, any great suggestions?
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Busy Busy Bees
Mr Chiots and I have been busy busy bees the last couple days. I’ve been spending every waking warm sunny hour out in the gardens preparing a new garden bed (photos to come on that next week) and in the dark hours of the day I’ve been getting my office work finished. We’ve also been busy attending local bee club meetings (we’re joining 2 local clubs) and reading books on beekeeping.
We’re super excited about the coming of our bees on April 7, but we’re a bit nervous as well. Last night at a club meeting we had a great discussion with a very knowledgeable beekeeper that really helped out. I can’t wait to see how it all goes this summer, I’m glad you all will be along for the ride. Perhaps some of you will decide to take the plunge next year.
What do you think, would you ever keep bees?
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Tri-County Beekeepers’ Association Workshop
On Friday and Saturday Mr Chiots and I attending the Ohio State University Extension and Tri-County Beekeepers’ Association 31st Annual Beekeeping Workshop. We really learned a lot and had a great time, we even saw an old friend who’s getting into bees this year as well.
The workshop started on Friday evening with a tour of the beekeeping museum, which was very interesting. It was really neat to see the different kinds of hives and all of the old tools, I especially loved this old glass sided hive.
After the tour, we attending a honey tasting session. I think this was the highlight of the seminar for Mr Chiots! It was very interesting to taste all the different kinds of honey that come from different flowers and different countries.
There were light honey and dark honey as well as honey from clover, citrus, sage, tupelo, buckwheat and many more. Next time I am at a good grocery store I’m going to try a few different kinds of honey.
We each picked out a favorite; Mr Chiots really liked the dark buckwheat honey and I loved the Manuka honey from New Zealand.
The second day of the workshop was full of learning seminars for all kinds of beekeepers. Since we’re newbies, we attended all of the classes for new beekeepers. They were very informative and we learned some great things.
There were also some instructional workshops going on in between sessions. Mr Chiots and I learned how to wire up our frames for our hive, which we’ll be doing next warm day we get.
Overall it was a very informative seminar, I’m really looking forward to getting my bees in April.
Would you ever keep bees in your garden? Or are you scared of them? (take the poll)
