Beehive Part Two

Good news, I found a beekeeper interested in my bees. He came last night from Homestead Florida about 30 miles from my home. Alfredo keeps several beehives in his small farm; he also teaches beginner classes for those interested in having bees.
May be I’ll take the class some day when I retire from my day job.

The process of taking the bees was surprisingly simple, he came around 10pm when the bees were all home and sleep. All it took was a little smoke from the smoker and the job was done. The poor bees woke up this morning in a totally different place; I hope they can find their way around.

I want to thank you for all your suggestions and comments, I am relive that these bees were saved, this time I was determined not to use an exterminator.

White Angel’s Trumpet

My white angel’s trumpet bloomed this week and I am delighted. This plant looked sick a couple of months ago and I thought it was a goner; the leaves were yellow and drooping. After some fertilizer, plenty of water, and some magic from Mother Nature--this is the result!

I love this plant. I have three of them, this white one, a pink, and a yellow. The yellow plant is currently on life support after being attacked by snails. According to a book I have, all parts of the angel’s trumpet are poisonous, even the smell but I don’t think that is true or I would have been dead by now!

I am not the only one that loves these plants; bees go crazy when it blooms. I can hear the

buzzing around the flowers.

My secret life as a beekeeper

This weekend I was looking for a book to read in my library and I picked up “A Country Year” by Sue Hubbell. This is the second time I read this book since buying it three years ago in a yard sale. The book is about the author’s life in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri, living off the land as a beekeeper. Her description of the land, the people of the Ozarks, and her bees was riveting; I could not put it down. After reading the book I told myself this is the life I want.
And so it started, my fantasy of moving to the country and become a beekeeper. Of course, I did not share this fantasy with anyone because I couldn’t take what I knew would have been everyone’s reaction—probably, “You--a beekeeper. HA HA HA!!!!”

A few months later, I was working in the garden and I noticed an unusual number of bees around me. I looked up and “Oh my God,” a beehive had moved into the top corner of my roof, the bees going in and out through a small round hole in the wood on the roof overhang. “It must be a sign,” I told myself. My wife, of course, freaked out. Everyone I knew would tell me “you have to get rid of those bees” and that made sense to me but no one knew of my fantasy, my thinking that this could be the first beehive of my bee empire!
After making sure that the bees were not getting into our attic, I decided to share my garden with these hard working insects and for about a year harmony reigned at the DragonFly Garden. I was fascinated by the hive and would watch the activities at different times of the day such as the parade of worker bees hauling water from my pond to the hive: nature at its best in my garden. I would secretly take trips to the Redlands looking for land for sale where I could establish my beehive business. The Redlands is an agriculture area in extreme southern Miami where most of the winter vegetables are grown and many commercial beekeepers operate. Maybe my fantasy was not such a fantasy after all!

One day, while I was working in my tomato plants and unbeknownst to me, there had been a management change at the hive and the new queen let it be known to all her workers that she was not interested in sharing the garden with the bold guy and his dog below. She sent a squadron of her best fighters after me and it was like Pearl Harbor, unprovoked and unexpected. I made a straight line to the house while my poor dog ran in circles and tried to fight back.
For days our family could not venture outside for every time we would go anywhere near the hive, the kamikazes would come out. It was clear the bees had to go. I called several beekeepers to see if they would come out and get the hive but none were interested. The only option left was a bee exterminator. I found one near Orlando and the day he showed up, I could not bear to see the massacre. I am told the man came dressed in a full hazmat suit and equipped with an electric chain saw. By the time he finished, part of my roof was destroyed and he claimed that this had been one the biggest beehives he had ever exterminated. The hive was about 8 feet long! After all was said and done the exterminator cost me $600 and fixing the roof another $400

Today I have a newfound respect for bees but I admire them from a distance. I continue to have my fantasy of moving to the country and living a simpler life but maybe I could raise Alpacas--they are cute and furry and don’t sting!

Time to update the Bees and Butterflies section.

This weekend I took time to clean up and update what I call my bee and butterfly corner.
I pulled weeds, added some Pentas, cut back the Blue Porterflower, cleaned up the stones around the bed with my water pressure cleaner and added some mulch.

In this section of the garden I have, Cat’s Whiskers (not in bloom now), Blue and Pink Porterflower, Starburst Pentas (the Bees and Butterflies favorites), Shrimp plant, White Periwinkle and a few bromeliad type plants as fill in.

I also have many Lantanas (another butterfly favorite plant) in other parts of the garden where there is full sun all day it is not too wet.

The weather was perfect for gardening this weekend. The temperatures were in the mid 70’s with a nice breeze and sunny days.

It won’t we like this for much longer the heat humidity of the summer is coming, I can feel it.

Are honey bees the new canary in the coal mine?

I was reading this weekend in the local paper how Florida beekeepers have lost around 40% of their bee hives to something called CCD or “colony collapse disorder”, in a mater of days the entire hive disappear. Experts believe the disorder compromises the bee’s immune system and inexplicably they flee the hives and die, they have no idea what is causing it. The cost to agriculture is going to be tremendous and that can be measure in dollars but the cost to human kind and Mother Nature remains to be seen.
What are we doing to our space ship Earth?????

The following are pictures from my quite garden.

Some of the plants I have in the quite corner are Fire Dragon, Variegated Ginger, Tricolor Ti, Foxtail Fern, Bougainvilleas, Impatiens and many more.