December 2010 Archives

The weather forecast mid-December 2010 was for more snow and record low temps.

As a first-year Missouri honey beekeeper, a week of temps below zero had me worried about how well my two honey bee hives were doing without insulation so I bundled up the hives.

There apparently are at least two schools of thought about winterizing honey bees; one says honeybees will be fine, the other one says they need help keeping warm.

I also read honeybees will gather at the center of the hive and literally die from starvation because it's too cold for them to eat honey from the edge of the honeycombs. We're having record cold temps. I decided my honeybees could use a little help.

Right before Christmas, I added bales of straw around the two backyard honey bee hives.

It was a first for the driver of the MFA truck making the delivery; he waited patiently as I found flower pots to use as footings to keep the stray bales close to the bee hives.

It's easy to think of tropical hibiscus as only a summer plant or fall sale gift plant.

In Missouri, where winters can stretch for months of gray skies and below freezing temperatures, blooming tropical hibiscus can be a very welcome winter plant.

With a little extra care to make sure they stay watered inside in dry winter conditions and get some sun, tropical hibiscus plants will bloom through winter and come spring, be ready to go out on decks and bloom all summer.

Don't the peach tropical hibiscus blooms like nice against the snow background?

Tropical hibiscus are cousins to another favorite outside perennial, Rose of Sharon.

Charlotte

Gardening to Distraction on a MO Hill

One of the wonderful things about winter in my Missouri garden is seeing animal tracks in snow.

This was outside my front door:

It wasn't until the weather forecaster called for temperatures in Missouri to be -15F that I decided I needed to bundle up my two honey bee hives.

I'm a first year backyard beekeeper, taking care of two honey bee hives from Don Moore's honey bee farm in St. James, Missouri.

None of my bee books show how to keep honey bee hives warm; one talked about storing the hives in a dark cellar or basement, which I didn't think I would ever have to do.

Another book  suggested packing barriers around the honey bee hives like straw, which I didn't have handy.

So here's my solution, hopefully to get them through the next few record cold days:


Cotton quilts lined with mattress pads doubled over themselves and tied up with rope.

Don Moore warned me about this.

As a first time beekeeper in 2010, I was thrilled to have Don Moore's "mutt" honey bees in two hives in my yard and not happy to find my first little dead honey bee. Worker bees live about six weeks.

After honey bees have a productive summer, Don said bee hives get ready for winter by kicking out the drones, which are the male honey bees. The job of drones is to mate with the queen, which happens in spring.

Honey bees have the ability to make male and female bees by what they feed their young. By reducing bee hive populations through winter, there's more honey to go around.

A honey bee hive needs about 60 lbs of honey to make it through winter.

I boarded up hive entrances earlier this fall, leaving about an inch opening.

Before the December 11, 2010 winter storm, I checked on the hives to make sure they were ok.  There on the concrete slab deck, under the hive opening, were the drone bodies.

 

 

 

 

Charlotte

Gardening to Distraction on a MO Hill

 

There's something about hearing a major winter storm is coming that drives me into the garage to check for leftover bulbs.

Not that I don't participate in the Missouri tradition of talking about how much Missouri weather changes, and what we should, or shouldn't be doing about it as I filled my car with gas and stocked up on hot chocolate and cat litter.

The impending storm marks the official end of Missouri's growing season, promising no more single sunny days where we can sneak in another day or so puttering in the fall garden.

I found a little pack of left-over tulips in a red mesh bag tucked inside a flower pot, and the rest of my red onion sets still in a brown bag, dried into paper thin husks.

Onion sets are one of the first things I buy in spring, a pack each of red and yellow onions. Once the ground warms, they get planted around rose bushes as a natural bug deterrent; and this year, in my first formal vegetable garden, where I like to let them bloom.

It was a little sad to hold these leftover onion sets, small enough to hold only enough energy to make them through half a year. 

They held such promise when I brought them home in early February, their little bags resting on the kitchen counter as a reminder warm days were just around the corner.  Missouri winters sometimes wear on me;  weeks and weeks of gray skies, frigid temperatures and nothing green for miles besides cedars, not to mention ice storms that sometimes literally bring down mature trees.

Nature's way of pruning, I suppose. 

I found one baby red onion with some energy still left inside. 


It's now tucked safely inside my flower pot in the dining room, with left-over rosemary and parsley from this summer's potted deck garden. This should be enough to keep me energized  until I can get back outside again next spring.

Charlotte

Gardening to Distraction on a MO Hil