Jake Esselstyn

Thom Bri wrote:

Mike Barkley wrote:Those "maggots" were probably wax moth larva. Wax moths are considered the undertakers of bee colonies. My guess is the bees had a major decline in population while you were away.

Or small hive beetle larvae.

I figured it was probably a mix of beetles and moths. Fortunately, I discovered the situation before all was lost. I was able to recover several frames of brood comb that I can use as swarm bait next season.

I'm not sure why the hive population would suddenly decline. It was mid-way through our dearth, but they had a good store of honey (I was planning to harvest as soon as I got home). I'm not sure about their pollen stores though. I did find some supersedure cells in the brood comb, so I suspect either the queen died or they swarmed and then failed to re-queen.

I don't have much experience, but I'm planning to set some swarm traps next spring. I never had any desire to keep bees, but a friend gave me a hive last summer, and then another friend gave me a bunch of equipment. Over the last year, the bees sucked me in with their fascinating lives and then left while I was away this summer. I came home to  a hive full of maggots. Now I feel sad whenever I pass the old hive spot. I hope I can catch some new bees — they're too expensive to buy.

Ryan Burkitt wrote:

Bridget Evab wrote:Sandhill preservation center in Nebraska is a neat place![/quote
Do they ship over mail?

Yes, but probably not until June, which should be fine. You don't want to plant until it's hot.

https://www.sandhillpreservation.com

I don't do much of anything. My bin of sweet potatoes just starts sprouting this time of year. (That may indicate that I'm bad at curing them.) I'll select a few good ones and set them aside soon, but no need for soil, water, or artificial light. Just break the slips off and stick them in the ground once they're big enough and we're expecting a few rainy days. I don't want many leaves on my slips — they just create water stress, in my view.

I always cook my mixed beans together. It would take a long time to sort them by color and shape. My grex includes about 10 different phenotypes. I suppose if I really wanted to select for the finest details of taste and texture, it might be worth doing. But time is precious and my palate just isn't very sophisticated.

I bought the 5-gallon kit from tea labs 4 or 5 years ago. I brew a few batches per year and everything is holding up fine. The aerator produces such a vigorous bubble that I wouldn't worry at all about too much stagnation in a straight-sided bucket. In fact, the pump moves so much air I've figured I could upscale and put the thing in a 55 gallon drum. I haven't tried it, but it looks viable. Four gallons of tea diluted for foliar application goes a long way.

I've never tested my teas, so my continued use of them is faith-based.

I can't confirm that it is true, but a friend told me that a friend told him that bananas need to produce 31 leaves before they will fruit, so in a marginal climate you need to cut off the leaves to get the tree to the needed leaf count and then it will fruit. This is 3rd hand info, but I'm going to try it because I've been growing big healthy looking banana trees for a couple years now without any fruit.

I live in the other LA, i.e., Louisiana. Once a friend was sending me a package from Malaysia. I provided the address with the state abbreviation. My friend thought it would be helpful for the courier if he spelled out LA, so he sent the package to Baton Rouge, Los Angeles... Thankfully, it arrived anyway. I guess that's what postal codes are for. I wonder why we even need to write out the city and state.

For those of us in warmer climates, this is actually the most intensive time of year. There's a lot to harvest from long season hot weather crops (winter squash, cowpeas, okra, and sweet potatoes for me), but there's also an urgent need to get the fall vegetables (mustards, beets, carrots, brassicas, peas, Irish potatoes) in the ground. I am often conflicted about whether I should leave the summer plants in to continue producing at the risk of being too late getting the fall plants in. This year I compromised by harvesting half of my sweet potatoes to make some space. Anyway, my point is that there is no rest season for the garden here, so adding compost, mulch, etc happens at various times throughout the year. I add mulch in the form of poultry bedding or lawn clippings under growing plants or a few weeks before planting heavy feeders. I also chop and drop crop residue at harvest time and this can be a lot of biomass for things like sweet potatoes. It's a constant churn.

Am I naïve to expect that poultry feed should be very cheap in the USA right now? American farmers are stockpiling their crops of all the major commodity grains because prices are so low with the loss of international buyers. So when does the price of a sack of all flock in the USA go down?