Catastrophe

Catastrophe. Destruction. Devastation.

It all looks so idyllic. It has taken me a whole 24 hours plus to ready myself to blog about the incident. Yesterday, I made my rounds as usual... observing new garden growth, shaking my head at my tomatoes and their disappointing blight of some kind, smelling the hillside's herbs and flowers, then noticing something I couldn't quite place... down the hill, something askew, something off... something... oh the drop in my stomach at the slow realization, at the immensity of what was already impossible to undo. no... a quiet whisper... My dad happened to be in town, and I quickly nursed the baby, handed her and my son over to grandpa, suited up and headed down the hill.

The sinking feeling overcame me... I momentarily wanted to run, didn't want to face the gruesome reality. But the moment passed and I methodically prepared to confront the carnage. Nothing, not a thing I could do now but survey and salvage as much as possible, if possible.

It was obviously a bear. Not just any bear - THE bear. The same albino blackbear that loitered here last year, that strewed the neighbor's garbage about several weeks ago. I know this only because it came back late again in the afternoon, to lick up the scraps I suppose, and my dog gave me ample warning in growls. I ran out and yelled that mangey, yellowish, LARGE (much larger than last year) creature back down the slope.

To confront such a loss is so disheartening, so sad. So many bees lost. Every single topbar scraped clean of comb. The remaining comb pieces scattered about baking in the hot June sun, the young larvae and new emerging bees already dried and shriveling. I couldn't believe the efficiency of the ants. A steady line of ants were carrying eggs, larvae, dead workers out and away, cleaning up the scene before I even knew it existed.

I carefully picked up each small fragment of comb, searched with a small glimmer of hope for the queen and placed them back in the hive. One by one. Most comb simply gone. The few bees still alive were scooped up, and gently lowered into the hive. They were so disorganized, so frenzied, so angry. I cannot even count how many stingers were on my clothes, how many bees I witnessed dying on me as I tried to rescue them. The once gentle bees fighting with their lives...

I never found the queen. I'm fairly certain she is in the belly of the albino bear.

Well, this is life in its most natural sense. I have learned so much through this process... the biggest lesson being PUT UP A WILDLIFE EXCLUSION FENCE IN BEAR COUNTRY. Its up now, thanks to my husband. Its up and ready for another colony. I will check the survivors tomorrow. Check to see if there is any sign of cohesion, any sign I could possibly requeen them this late in the game, despite the complete absence of comb, despite the great stress, despite the minimal number of bees... there is always hope, even in the greatest of losses. I know... its only bees... but the lessons are applicable in all realms, and I am strangely thankful for that.

Evening Diversions

There is an odd feel to the air tonight, to last night. A moon rose veiled by a smokey-thin red cloud cover - no fire, no smoke in sight. The wind howled lowly, constantly through the fir boughs and cottonwood branches, bending the birches across the river into one uniform, uncomfortable southwest angle. There is a jitter in the air, like the energizing O3 increase before a thunderstorm, but I don't sense that kind of storm. Typically my half amputated middle toe lets me know when a storm is coming... its true what they say... "I can feel it in my bones", in my case, my toe bone that's no longer there... but not tonight. Tonight its something different... and I like it.

New Comb

I checked the hive again yesterday. Not a lot new to muse over this week. The seventh bar has been built upon - new translucent pale-cream comb, so different from the brilliant yellow dandelion comb of the early spring. Still beautiful, just in a new way, a more peaceful, angelic way. I am noticing one anomaly that may prove difficult in the future: the bees built a double comb on the sixth topbar, knocking off the spacing ease of the first five. I almost destroyed comb between the sixth and seventh bar before I noticed that the seventh bar also has two combs... hmmmm... at least its straight comb, not wavily attached to multiple bars. I should still be able to remove and access future topbars... I hope.

Good Brood Capping The old combs are darkening from yellow to gold to swarthy sunflower to dazzling dirt. They are FULL of larva, capped brood, drone cells and new eggs. One thing is certain, Flower knows how to reproduce!



The final object of writing interest this evening: Garden salads. Yes, those greens I longed for for months, dreamed of during the long whiteness of winter, thought of which I would never tire... those greens. They are just beginning to overwhelm me. We have been eating salads every day since that first exhilirating salad last week, and the salad keeps on coming. I've given several bags of greens away, but they're reproducing like rabbits, or, well, bees. Tomorrow I am harvesting spinach and possibly turnip greens to freeze, then probably will be compelled to eat yet another salad for dinner. So many salads, so few salad permutations. Tonight I got creative with what was hiding in my kitchen... here's a blanket recipe for tonight's salad - a little different, a little more exciting:

Tonight's Thai Shrimp Salad

1 can coconut milk (though I think ideally coconut cream)
a couple Tblsp brown sugar
quartered button mushrooms
fish sauce to taste
Curry paste or a garlicky seasoning to taste

Bring to low boil, cook mushrooms. Add
Shrimp
Cook until shrimp are pink and add juice of
one lime
and a handful of bean thread noodles or rice noodles

Add to Salad:
Garden greens
thinly sliced Green Onion
thinly sliced onion or shallots
thinly sliced hot pepper (serrano in my case)
thinly sliced lemon grass (if you have it on hand)
peanuts or cashews
about one inch finely grated ginger
fresh mint leaves
fresh cilantro
water chestnuts

Basically anything in your kitchen that sounds good... :) Enjoy!

Chaos Versus Cleanliness

The Progressing Garden

I've got to admit, I'm a dichotomy. Maybe everyone is, really. There is a part of me that appreciates structure, yet a more pronounced part that yields to the chaotic. You won't find perfectly rowed monocultured vegetables in my garden, instead a cacophony of interplanting companions... a dash of herb there, and splash of mustard here. That's my dad rearing up in me... his garden has always been a resplendant display of gently organized wildness. I also love writing music... not just writing music - feeling music onto those straight staff lines... letting it ebb and flow in its own meandering mode. Maybe that's why I find myself drawn to the undeveloped - the natural so often... there is more intense beauty there than in any clean line I've ever seen... My chaotic side is the most prevalent... perhaps more so because I married an engineer? We naturally balance eachother's stronger attributes? We subconsciously fulfill a piece of a the whole?

A Beautiful Broccoli Beginning

However, overarching all the espressive chaos, I DO savor orderliness - the structure of a day, a week, a season. There's a time and a place and reason for all those events we base our lives upon. The time to plant, the time to rest, the time of the last frost, the time of the first frost, the time to get my daughter up for school, the time to read our bedtime books, the time to learn, the time to share, the time for noise, the time for quiet. All the little times working together to form a life... all purposeful, all divined. I am so happy to experience it all, to be able to express both aspects.

Chaos in the Peas

Proper Pepper Propping... Perfect!

Order... Chaos... What DOES tend to incite my order analities is my desire for a clean house - I get that from my mom... her structure and cleanliness kept us kids healthy, well loved, safe. Her home was, still is, unabashedly clean. I relish the feel of fresh shining floors under my feet, of smooth white bathtub walls, of sparkling stainless steel kitchen sinks, not even a streak of mineral deposit or grease... I may not have all the paperwork filed away, all the little piles of this and that in their proper places, but, darn it, my house is scum free!


Super Shine!

I make my own cleaners - I have since my daughter was a baby seven years ago. I just can't stomach the thought of any extra chemicals assaulting young cells. Here are my cleaner recipes... they work just as well as the toxics, if not better!

Baking Soda Scour Paste: baking soda mixed with just enough liquid soap to create a thick paste, plus a couple drops tea tree oil

Disinfectant Spray, Window Wash, Multipurpose Cleaner, Wood/Tile Floor Cleaner: white vinegar plus 6-8 drops tea tree oil per small bottle

Wood Polisher: 1:1 ratio white vinegar to olive oil

Well, enough of this random post! :)

Hives and Produce

Inspecting for the Queen

How glad I am! For the last week, anxiety has welled up at the thought I may have inadvertantly swatted the queen away last inspection. After reviewing the queen photos and noticing her long black shape, I recalled swatting a long skinny wasp-looking thing away from last week's comb. Was it the queen?! Could I have been so flippant? Waiting, waiting, waiting to find out... then, on this inspection I saw plenty of new eggs, capped brood, larva, no new queen cells - all good signs of queen health. Finally, I found Flower yet again, diligently poking in and out of the cells. Phew! The anxieties of a beekeeper once more relieved!

A Followerboard Comb

The bees have built this bedraggled looking comb once again on the first followerboard. I pried it off last week in the hopes they'd build only upon the bars, but its back. I'm not sure what the purpose is, as it is accessible by only one side, not uniform in shape at all, and storing only nectar. I decided I'd leave it be now... it must be a food store at least.

The rest of the combs look good - definitely progressing appropriately. There are now six fully built combs, with a seventh beginning. The sixth bar holds a new find - a double comb full of either nectar or honey... I'm too inexperienced yet to differentiate. I am hoping this doubled up comb does not create difficulties in later comb spacing but left it alone for the time being. My interference does not seem to help much, rather hinder - the bees know their comb building much better than me!

Double Comb

Yesterday was a day of the new. New gardens planted, new plants sprouting, new food. My son and I planted the summer garden... lets see... cucumbers, crooknecks, zucchinis, butternut squash, pole beans, bush beans, more tomato and peppers, basil, dill, marigolds, nasturtiums, sunflowers, my celery seedlings (started months ago), corn, some more mesclun mix. Then we harvested a delicious salad for dinner - FINALLY! The salad was a mix of spinach, mustard, little tiny radishes, young turnip leaves, mesclun mix, lettuce, green onion, chive, terragon, lemon mint, and some purple leafy plant my dad previously scattered about. It was... flavorful!

First Garden Salad of the Year

The sun has been shining with an increased intensity lately - it makes me feel joy and ambition, and it seems to incite similar attitudes in the garden. Each day I watch as new things appear and old things advance... potatoes are sprouting all over the place, spinach leaves double in size nearly daily, peas are now able to be trellised... oh, and weeds are finally threatening their mass usurpation. No worries there, however - I just can't seem to stay away long enough to let the weeds abound. I find myself drawn out there morning, noon and night. Drawn out to wander, poke around, beg and plead new seeds into sprouts, nibble older things here and there... My kids are just as enticed by the greenery and know nearly every plant by name and taste and danger level (no potato leaves, kids!). The thrill at seeing one of our honeybees alighted upon a tomato leaf! The titillation of a spicy mustard leaf upon the tongue! Its all so sensory, it has to somehow advance young brain development.

The Finished Salad
A few additions - tomato, cheese, garbanzo beans and leftover chicken, and the salad was a complete meal!

Hive Inspection II

Serviceberry Blooms = Happy Bees

It is springtime... warm, shorts, bare feet springtime. Suddenly everything has awakened. Stubbornly slow leaves now unfurl in an afternoon. Cherry blossoms appear one day and bloom the next. The whole slope down to the river is covered in thousands... millions! of white serviceberry flowers, all arriving within the last couple days. I walk back to the garden and am happily assaulted by a sweet, fruity fragrance that must be savored... it will only last a moment til something new will take its place. Its so intoxicating I could walk circles around our house all evening. The bees must smell it too - they are actively pursuing the spring show, and (for this week anyway) are healthy and happy.

Comb Number 1

I inspected the hive Sunday afternoon to find five topbars with well developed comb and a sixth bar comb beginning. The eggs have progressed, and some areas are capped. There are new eggs in all the comb, more nectar stores, more pollen stores too. I am venturing a guess - I think the five combs are the brood comb, and honey comb will begin soon on the other bars. These bees have a lot of work cut out for them - not only feeding themselves, but feeding and raising brood, collecting extra food, and making wax combs. All this entails adequate food stores (even wax - its a by product of digestion), so this warm blooming weather is vastly appreciated.

Some capped brood, nectar and pollen

I found her! (look for the green dot)

The kids and I voted: my son's suggestion wins - the queen's name is Flower. This inspection, I wanted not only to find evidence, but to find Flower herself. On the third bar I saw it! The green that shouldn't be there in all of that yellow and brown and black. My eyes immediately made out the long thin shape surrounding the green dot and realized Flower was there crawling about the comb, fulfilling her lifelong baby making duty. She darted (and that's not an exaggeration - she was quick) around the comb so I had to carefully shift hands and turn the bar to watch her. I observed the workers almost piling upon her, protecting her from my prying eyes. Is this normal queen threat behavior? I decided to quickly return the bar to the hive lest I lose my most prized bee, so Queen Flower was plunged back into the safety of the dark before the hive became too stressed.



Comb I pried off the first follower board. No brood, just food.

Images of Spring III

Indian paintbrush

One of the bees landed here, 100s of yards from the house

The neighbor's cherry trees

Images of Spring II

The Flowers, The River

My oldest daughter watches ruby throated hummingbirds dance in the young serviceberry blooms

She decides to reach for the highest flower and take a picture at the same time

Images of Spring

Dandelions in the Lawn

My daughter found these mushrooms growing in the manure pile

Borage from the strawberry patch


My hail-battered spinach

The perfect compliment to a spring salad... still waiting

This and That This Afternoon

Busy Bees

The weather minimally cleared this afternoon, enough that the bees were out and about. Watching the hive entrance is a social studies/science lesson in itself. There are bees flying in and out at a continuous pace, with about one fourth of those incoming full of pollen. Pollen pollen bright pollen - mostly yellows and orange, and stuffing back leg pollen sacks to the brim. Some bees seem so heavy they appear clumsy - almost like maneuvering an overloaded cargo plane into a tiny terminal. They are relentless in the quest for food.

Springtime at the House

The green is beautiful... a soft framework around harsh angles. It makes me want to roll down a hill and eat garden chives.

A Plastic Garden

It would seem plastic is inevitable for a successful Flathead garden. My broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage seedlings - so spindly from their indoor plantings - have enjoyed their own personal milk jug greenhouses for the past couple weeks. They were anorexic seedlings when I transplanted them, but now are bulking up and flexing their strong leafy muscles.

The cold frame in the background is rebar, 6 mm plastic and some old PVC tubing... pretty simple. I did transplant two tomatoes - two that were starting to look pretty rootbound themselves - to see if my cold frame experiment will work so early in the season. After the transplant I had a sudden surge of tomato empathy and ran into the house, microwaved a bowl of water, shoveled some woodstove coals, and gently poured both amongst the two plants. We'll see what happens!

This and That This Morning

The Jungle on My Table

My poor tomatoes. They were planted (unwisely I might add) in mid February and now have taken over my dining room table. I've replanted them several times in makeshift newspaper planters, but they are more than ready to get outdoors. I am experimenting with a cold frame of sorts (more on that later). Two unlucky (or hopefully lucky) tomatoes will meet their experimental fate there today.

April Showers, May... Fires?

Another cold day... I suppose I have to indulge in three favorite wintertime staples - fire and coffee and newspaper...


The BEST coffee - isn't it wonderful, Flathead friends?



Hmmm... sweet Montana Nothing...

Alive and Thriving

Planting an orchard under a rainbow

Spring has sprung. Yep, no doubt about that. We have had a wonderfully busy few days soaking up the warming sunshine, planting cherries, plums, pears, apples, hazelnuts and even peaches (intrepid - good to a zone four!). My broccoli, cauliflower and cabbages are all nicely laid out in the garden. The final summer garden spading was completed and a cold frame is in the works. I have been pleasantly surprised by the blooms occuring on our hillside - serviceberries are slowly awakening, small chokecherries are preparing for their bloom, fairybells, wild strawberries, shooting stars, oregon grapes... and so many more are all flowering at last. The ginger scented arnica leaves share the rocky hillside with patches of nearly bloomed lupine and wild onions... I love seeing all this new life surrounding me. However, there are those that are more thrilled than I with all of these blooming wonders...

Beautiful Comb up Close

We made the first hive inspection on Sunday... Mother's Day... to finally observe if the queen was fulfilling her mothering duties. I was terribly nervous, despite having watched the busy bee business nearly every day, despite having witnessed their voracious sugar syrup appetites. I just didn't know for sure... But... what wonders! What a gift to gently lift the first topbar and see the beautiful, brilliant yellow comb hanging in a perfect curve, carefully attended to by the workers and filling up with pollen, nectar (or sugar syrup) and... EGGS. The evidence of the great mother among them. Though we did not find the queen this go around, we were pleasantly surprised to find five topbars with comb, to see the orange and yellow pollens coming in, to feel the docility of a harmoniously working colony.

A Topbar in the Sky

The comb's color was another unexpected surprise. The softest, newest comb with the most vibrant lemon yellow tint... from all of the dandelion pollen? We marveled at both the color and the engineering of comb. Holding the comb up against the sunlight, my husband - an engineer himself - immediately noticed the perfectly balanced structure of each cell... how the backside cells were aligned exactly halfway between the front cells, perfectly overlapping for optimal structural soundness. What intelligence! What design! And to think it all happens without (or despite) our superior human help...

Sarah holds a piece of comb I cut off

Compost, Glorious Compost

Evening Gardens Love Compost

I have a love hate relationship with compost. It all began when I was just an itty-bitty, probably two or three years old. There was something magical about the compost pile... old egg shells, rotten vegetables that were there one day and gone the next, worms, and even the occasional squash plant on steroids - or, well, compost. It drew me in for a closer look. One evening I was drawn in a little too far, wanted to experience it a little too closely, and my brother found me in the middle of the pile with a half-composted orange peel hanging from my mouth. Needless to say, I was sicker than worth remembering that night.

Fast forward a few years... the memories of after-dinner clean ups, pink skies, maybe a mosquito or two... then -horrors!- the command, "Anna, go dump the compost". I would approach that container of kitchen waste (usually an old Schwan's Ice Cream bucket), and be utterly nauseated by the smell. Subconscious memories of my days as a compost eater would return with a vengeance and threaten to take hold again. But chores must be done, no matter how challenging. There was no excuse, and I would venture way out back to the pile only to be greeted with more of that smell. I vowed never to compost when I was a grown up.

Fast forward to adulthood. Living in various locales where composting wasn't really an option made me realize how wasteful it was to not. I slowly began considering the merits of the pile, despite the smell, and a quiet longing to compost began to take hold. When we finally arrived at this point in life, where such a thing is an option, I find compost almost magical again. No worries - I don't intend to dive in, but in a sense I am eating it once more. That lovely black dirt is slowly substituting for the local rocky "soil", and my vegetables love it. We can mix it up with rotted manure and plant our trees there - to great success. I can sprinkle it in the "dog spots" in the grass, throw down some seed and there we go! It has a multitude of uses for feeding our plants, and ultimately our family... now I just wish I had more!

My son Jaegar and a new cherry tree to be planted in... you guessed it!

Getting settled...

Sunny Day Flying

It has been one week since our little ladies' installation. I have to contain myself and not harass them everyday - they need the time and space to get established in their new home. However, it is quite fascinating to walk down over the bank of the hill, balance precariously on the rocky glacial til soil (can I even call it soil?!), and simply observe a sunny day hive. The bees bustle about with a purpose beyond my comprehending, as busy as bees so they say. I have yet to notice any pollen on the bees, but I'm hoping they are finding it in all their foraging. The bees will eat, and more importantly, feed their young the protein rich pollen. There are currently no synthetic pollens available that can remotely compare to the real thing, so I have to trust the land will provide. And it will... pollen for the bees, pollination for the plants... such a lovely symbiotic relationship.

The sugar water supplement in hive box, separated from main hive by a follower board


I do check almost daily the level of sugar syrup the bees have consumed. Because there is so little nectar available yet, I am supplementing with a 1:1 ratio of organic sugar dissolved (but not boiled - that can cause bee dysentary) in water. If they survive the winter, I would like to forego this next year, and allow them to feed on their own honey instead. But for now, being newbees, they seem mighty appreciative and have been consuming nearly a jarful a day!



Bees clinging to a topbar


I have checked the main hive several times - only lifting one topbar off each visit. I am amazed by the cohesive clinging ability of these girls! They link legs and hang in this pattern, most likely beginning to build comb so their queen can begin her egg laying. I fret - I don't see any comb! what if they build comb over multiple bars? what if this cold weather permanently weakens them? what if the queen has flown away?! - but I realize these bees are in far more capable hands than mine... their creator's and their own.