HAH! I just remembered I had an old blogger account. Funny seeing some of my first years beekeeping mistakes. Hard to believe it's been about 12 years since I started beekeeping. And I never came up with a clever name. Just KS Bees.

swarm call #4

Site Location: Rancho Cordova
Swarm Location: 6 feet up a tree on a branch (perfect)
Time invested in collection: 45 min on site; 45 min driving (total 1.5 hours)

This swarm was combined with my weak overwinter hive (hiveA) last night.
Hypothesis: combining the swarm will increase the population of the weak hiveA. expected results include: increased honey flow from this hive/swarm mix versus other 2 colonies which are swarm only.

Notes: HiveC, is a combination of 2 swarms one small one & one medium. Both swarms combined into hiveC were established within a week of each other ~April5, April9 (from collections in Natomas - Bill Bird). HiveB was another swarm collected March 27th (I think) from Bill Bird in Natomas. HiveB, is a single strong swarm. All hives have been consistently fed sugar water on a 2:1 ratio.

Tomato transplants

Today was the day to transplant tomatoes. Things went pretty smoothly this year until I realized I used the acronym BB for 3 types of tomatoes: better boy, bloody butcher and big beef. Luckily, I had written down what I planed in each flat, so determining what was what wasn't very difficult. Too bad I didn't think of this before I move stuff around. Luckily, I caught this before finishing Big Beef (the last one). So, there is only a 50/50 chance that BB is better boy or bloody butcher. Normally, I write down the days to maturity on all seedlings too (as seen below). But I lapsed. So we are stuck with a 50/50 shot here. Every year will get better. So, I'm looking forward to next year. Oops!

+-------------------------------
| Flat 1
+-------------------------------
| Name -- Days
+-------------------------------
Early Wonder -- 55
Early Girl -- 52
Sun Gold -- 57
Bloody Butcher -- 55
Sugary -- 60
Polpig -- 55-60

+-------------------------------
| Flat 2
+-------------------------------
Sweet Million -- 65
Big Beef -- 73
Champion -- 70
Isis Lady -- 67 (2 of 6 propogated)
Striped Cherry -- 70
Super Fantastic -- 70

+-------------------------------
| Flat 3
+-------------------------------
Cherokee Purple -- 80
First Light Hybrid -- 76
Lillians Heirloom -- 90
Black -- 80-85
Japanese Black Triefel-- 85
Ananas Noir -- 80 (2 of 6 propogated)


+-------------------------------
| Flat 4
+-------------------------------
Better Boy -- 75
Black Seaman -- 75
Black Zebra -- 75
Zebra Cherry -- 70
Sweet Million -- 65 (duplicate planting)

Flor De Oro Apiary

One of the most experienced beekeepers I know is a guy who lives across the street from me. This gentlemen has decades experience in the bizz and knows all the buzz. The best part is he's eager to offer advice. So when I called him yesterday talking bee's he was willing to provide some keen insight. It seems that the one hive that failed was probably due to the small swarm size that simply didn't build up enough resources before the winter hit. The population wasn't big enough & they most likely starved out. A hive with no honey made this pretty obvious, when I opened it. But until this conversation, the mystery remained. It's great to live in the country.

As an added bonus, the B man on my A list, said he would call me if he got any swarm calls. He's too busy to get to the swarms. So this is a great potential boost to the startup of my apiary. It's almost time to come up with a creative name, like naked ladies apiary.

Potato Pals

Sam (6) & Jacob (4) helped cut the seed potato's early this morning. Sam kept trying to cut with the flat edge & Jacob was dutifully correcting. It was pretty funny to watch. We have the Blue & yellow fin seed potato's from peaceful valley. I found a good article from Mother Earth News about planting potato's. We'll be using the stout method, with our composted chicken manure & bedding (pine shavings & straw). This stuff is at the turning point with only bits of the straw remaining identifiable, which should add good aeration for the potato's. Straw, for those of you who may not already know, takes forever to compost.

seedlings planted

Tomato seedlings were planted on 2/14 (last night)-- truly the best V-Day in history. I changed my process to water from the bottom and spray the tops to moisten the soil. Then I closed the grow trays to let the humidity & absorption go to work. All heat mats & lights are working, and the lights came on with the timer this AM. Life is good.

Tomato pr0n

Tomato's are looking good this year. I got started about a month earlier and finally gave in to the ghost, and added miracle gro. Now they look outstanding! I have approximately 180 of 23 varieties. I still need to post the variety types and descrption.

Re-birth of Aloe vera seedlings

Apparently, aloe vera doesn't need much attention. I had given up on the seedlings I thought I killed. Just as I was about to throw the lot of 50 away, I noticed that they were starting to turn from purple to green again. It's possible that the light/water ratio was too high initially. So I've moved these to a lower light level in the bakers rack. I think I might keep the water level the same for all of them, to test 1 thing at a time.

Sacramento Succulent and Cactus Society

They meet on 4th monday of every month not the 5th. Glad I called in advance.

A.Vera seeds starting to sprout.

Nearly 2 weeks ago I planted the Aloe vera hybrid seeds that were given to me by my mother-in-law. I can see sprouts now. If these free seeds work out well, I may try propagating more succulents. Maybe I'll have a wacky rock garden on the side of the house which has no irrigation. Also the Aloe vera clone I yanked out of the ground has done well. This is on the easy list of plants to clone/propagate and that's good right now. Next, rhododendrons and azaleas.

Successful clones
-----------------
mints - spearament, chocolate, etc. Super easy to take root divisions or cuttings or anything else. I started with this one and would suggest using these fast growing plants or coleus to practice with in the beginning.
lavendar - agustifolia, intermedia, & spanish ( could be stoechas or dentata )
coleus - multiple unknown species. this is a very easy plant!
Succulents & cacti listed in other posts.


used
----
rockwool with lemon to bring ph down to 6.0
Coir: a coconut husk & castings & potting soil
earth juice rooting hormone
small containers for soil mix
light and temp control -- indoors under florescent grow lights


Goal
-----
Accumulate species that do well in the area to multiply and thrive to ensure future gardening successes. this will also allow for an inexpensive recovery from failures. Provide a cheap rotation since mints and herbs take over containers, extraction and division can be used to keep a healthy rotation thriving.

Size doesn't matter

Size doesn't matter in gardening. Due to space limitations, and a puppy, everything is grown in pots, in the front yard. Bottom left to right: recent cuttings ->established coleus + other clones. What you won't see, until they bloom, are the sunflowers which reside in the flower garden.

more plant starts from sue

Cuttings from Sue Lopez:
--------------------------
- Pelargonium robertianum (geranium)
- Sempervivum Tectorum (hens and chicks)
- Schlumbergera bridgesii (christmas tree cactus) -- blooms during winter!
- santolina chamaecyparissus (gray santolina)
- chenopodium ambrosioides(epazote) -- used in mexican cooking and tea
- Crassula rupestris ( donkey tail )
- unknown succulent (TBD)
- Thymus citriodorus (lemon thyme) -- verigated

El Dorado County Fair -- herbs

The El Dorado County Fair turned out to be a great stop after getting a brief lecture on plant propagation from a "wise" woman. Funny thing was she had cuttings from plants that I have recently begun to explore. Salvia plants offer a great way to contrast the garden with different leaf shapes, colors and texture which can add a cool depth effect when applied properly.

Picked up S. greggii and S.clevelandii to compliment my growing herb collection. Also got a great cutting of lavendula agustifolia which is really common around here. So common that it's really not worth buying when you can just get a pinch from here or there. Now I just need to find some lavendula dentata -- this plant has distinct leaves and a great flower that punctures the background.

What's the big diff?

Here's the big diff. The plants are looking pretty good after all that I put them through. The foliar growth of those on the left is comparable to those on the right -- and remember the pics on the left had 2 days (TWO) of no light and shot up. This is a great picture of the difference in the size of the leaves, which are larger in the ones on the right. With regular watering though these plants are doing much better than the previous batch. So the seedlings are very susceptible to underwatering which causes leaf yellowing. But this is still fairly early on. So, I'm still waiting to see how these perform for the long run. 

Now the meter...umm...I don't think it works. The soaked plants from outside were reading in the middle of the "moist" range so I got curious -- what would the meter read if it was in water? Water is apparently in the middle of the moist range too -- not wet like I would expect water to be. The pH was the same so I decided to test the wet clay soil outside....humm same. The potted soil in a 8 year old Japanese maple and 1 year pomogranate had a slight pH change (+0.5). I think this was $$ not well spent. But I am hopeful that other meters will have better results. I just need to find a good one not a cheap one from Home Depot.

plant protective services

This is my admitted neglect for my plants over the past couple of days. They brought this on themselves -- they deserved it! Besides these are outdoor plants and I need to teach them to be tough..so...umm...ya it's for their own good. And who are you to judge? So, I brought tomatoes back inside and treated them to light and the warmth of the house.  

seeds sprout + tools

The seedlings came up fast and furious w/in a 2 day period starting Sunday 4/19, except for the peppers. Previously, the peppers took about 2 weeks longer than the tomatoes to sprout. I'm interested to see if the soil temperature will change this.

Also I invested in new gadget that measures pH, light, and moisture levels. This is a HOLD ALL two pronged...thingy that I have no other device to compare it to. Current readings are below:

Moisture: 4 ( 0 = dry, 10 = wet)
Light: 600 ( 0-2000, dark-light)
pH: 7 slightly alkaline

Pudding proof

So the proof is in the pudding or the pictures. These pictures show how well the plants have grown the past couple of weeks in their new containers with the soil amendment (alfalfa meal). The one in the center is a beafy fella. I think his percentage of alfalfa was higher than some of the others.

In response to this wonderful growth I decided to start a new batch of seedlings -- because I can. These guys are starting off in the same soil with better lights, and amendment, in an effort to test the delayed lighting I had in the beginning, one watering error, and the amended soil. A second batch has been started in a small plastic container -- a lettuce container -- with only one set of peat pots and no amendment. This batch will be raised with the same loving care but should test the effectiveness of alfalfa meal on seedlings. I believe there is a time to release/decomposition of alfalfa meal in the soil and I need to look this up. All other conditions will remain the same while testing out these variables.

Plants be gone

So I handed off my tomato seedlings last week after repotting them the week prior. I kept a couple to myself and found that the repotting worked fabulously with a little something called alfalfa meal. I used the same crummy soil that was used to grow the seedlings in the peat pots but added about 1 Quart of alfalfa to a 5 gallon mix of soil, while this was probably too much it did the job. The seedlings I kept seem to have responded very well in the last week. Oh I would be skeptical too if I hadn't also tested 2 transplants with the non-alfalfa soil. These malnurished seedlings are still small and weak looking like a little girlie man, to quote our govenator. So using Arnold and my seedlings as proof I can only concluded that suppliments work....natural ones of course.

Succulents

Succulents have grown on me over the past couple of years. I never really got into them until I moved to this house which had some well established aloe vera plants that bloomed. Sue my gardening friend had never seen aloe vera bloom, hence the pictures. So Sue if you see this picture you can see the bloom and that the donkey tail you gave me is not doing so well -- this is partially due to two curious midgets that love to pick at things. Only time will tell if this plant will survive. I have a feeling the only way to give this plant a fighting chance is to teach the kids not to pick at Daddies plants -- or else! :-)

The Good, Bad & the Ugly

Half of the tomato seedlings look good. The other half, which had 2 weeks w/o lighting, look ugly. I have ordered another set of seeds from totally tomatoes which should be here next week. This should give the seedlings about a 4 week head start beyond those seeds that would normally be planted after all danger of frost has past. If you are a farmer fred fan you would know April 28th well. Only time will tell how these new seedlings will perform.

Thanks garry for the the cool website and seeds I'll get the next set started the right way.