So last night at 12:11 am, we witnessed the first honey moon (also known as strawberry moon) that happened to fall on a Friday the 13th, in almost 100 years. I stayed up until around midnight to try to take some pics of the moon hoping to see its yellow tint, the reason it is called a honey moon.
The full moon nearest the Summer Solstice is at its perigee or the time when it is closest to the Earth and lowest in the sky. Since it is low in the sky, it appears to be much larger than normal, due to a trick that our brains pull on us…it’s called the moon illusion (see possible explanation here). Add to that the effects of pollution and dust in the atmosphere which reflect light differently, and you end up with a larger-than-normal yellow colored moon.
Full honey moon
So I wandered out late last night in my boxers and gum boots to take a few pics. They aren’t high def amazing shots, but I think they came out pretty neat in a creepy-cool kind of way.
Right before our real honeymoon
The other fun fact is that today, Emily and I are taking a sort of get-away weekend to celebrate (a little early) our 20 year wedding anniversary…so we have a honey moon kicking off a second sort of honeymoon! It must be a good omen!
This week, Emily and I are MANKs….Married Adults, No Kids! The kids went home with my parents last weekend after a visit here in WV. We have done that several summers but this year is a good bit longer…all told, they will be in PA for 12 days! Emily and I do not know what to do with ourselves!
My lovely kids!
Of course, we love the kids and love being with them, but we have had very little time for just the two of us. It seems like there were just two of us when we got married, but that was a long time ago so it is hard to remember! It’s a little weird, but it sort of feels like when we were first married! We went out to eat a time or two, saw a late movie, stayed up too late, went grocery shopping in peace, ate without breaking up a fight, took walks, and talked about whatever we wanted to, whenever we wanted to.
While it is fantastic having kids and being with the kids, I gotta say, being a MANK again is a nice change…but just for a little while…
We have had chickens for a little while now. They aren’t quite old enough to lay eggs so really they are free-loaders at this point, but they are some of the most hilarious freeloaders I have ever seen. If you have never seen chickens behave, you are missing a true treat!
Hunt and peck!Crazy chickens!
We have a coop that is apparently adequately sized for holding the number of birds we have. They do seem quite happy inside and are safe and healthy. Still, we especially like to let them roam about our fenced yard. I cannot leave them there all the time as the neighborhood cats are ferocious hunters…they leave dead stuff on our doorstep all the time. So we let them out often to roam about but we sit with them all the time. Abigail and I dragged a couple of lounge chairs over by their coop so we can watch their antics a few weeks ago. We go and sit with the birds pretty much daily. At least one of us gets their daily, but it is so much fun that we usually hang out together.
Lounging in the chicken yard!
We were talking the other day as they birds pecked and scratched about…Abigail declared that watching the birds was relaxing and, “Almost as good as a day at the beach.” Indeed, sitting on a lounge chair in the back yard with one’s daughter watching chickens is a great day!
Probably a rooster!
One day in the somewhat near future, I expect that we will get eggs so the chickens will get out of freeloader status. Until then, they get marked in the budget solidly as entertainment and team building expenses!
I mentioned last time that there was more swarm news over a very busy weekend. Of course, the first swarm settled itself in a tree and I captured it in the usual fashion. During a part of the process of catching the first swarm, I witnessed two other swarms leaving two of my other hives simultaneously!
The pine tree swarm. It grew quite a bit as the bees settled later on
Rats! I failed in preventing uncontrolled swarms! I had looked in on each of the colonies several times in the weeks prior to the fateful weekend and saw no clear evidence of crowding, queen cells, lack of new eggs…the stuff that sort of signals that a swarm is eminent. I supered up the hives with extra honey supers and went on my way without splitting the hives that eventually swarmed. You see, a split is a sort of controlled swarm where I take a number of the bees, brood, honey and pollen and start another colony. Typically, a split will open up some room and avoid wild swarming. I usually have pretty good luck in catching the right conditions and avoid swarms…but not his year.
So, as I trudged across the yard, I watched as two hives poured forth bees in great number. A swarm coming out of a hive is pretty impressive. Imagine 10-20 thousand bees per colony in what appears to be flying chaos! I watched as the swarms buzzed around and settled nearby and low.
Click to see a video I took of the swarm starting to collect on the pine tree
The first swarm settled in a pine tree 20 feet from the apiary in a pine tree about 4 feet off the ground…easy-peasy. The second swarm was just a few feet from that swarm, but they were far more gravity-challenged. It’s fairly weird, but the second swarm plopped right down on the ground under a bush.
Now I have talked about getting swarms out of trees by shaking them into a hive box and that’s how I handled the pine tree swarm, but how does one shake a colony off of the ground? Well, I didn’t…luckily I had a screened bottom board with large screen in place such that the queen and bees could crawl up through the bottom board (floor of the hive) and into the typical white box. I just set the empty hive right over the swarm-on-the-ground and let them be for a week. When I returned, the swarm, queen and all had migrated upward into the hive body!
So, while I am not thrilled that three colonies swarmed, I am always delighted when I get a chance to catch swarms and I would rather catch one of my swarms than let it get away. Assuming they do well, I will have more colonies than I have ever had before which may make things interesting…and may make a lot of honey…next year!
We were all out at the deluxe deer stand working on drywall last weekend when a few of the neighbors came by on atvs. One neighbor asked if I was busy and if not, whether I could help him with something. It was clear it was something urgent so I jumped on the back of his atv. He drove me over to his brother-in-law’s place…another neighbor, to see a huge swarm of bees!
A huge swarm of bees!
Dang it! It was a huge swarm, undoubtedly out of one of my hives. A number of people asked me why bees swarm and why I was mad they were my bees. Bees swarm usually when their hive location becomes unsuitable…usually when they run out of room. In those cases, the worker bees prepare a number of new queens by feeding royal jelly to fertilized larvae. When the time comes, the old queen and half (or so) of the original bees strike out on their own to find a new place. That is how bees naturally propagate and it is not unusual. I don’t like when my bees swarm, however, because that leaves me with two colonies, neither of which is probably big enough to make much honey. I like having more colonies, but I prefer when they make me honey too.
My hand in a huge swarm of bees! Look Ma…no gloves!
I usually try to intervene before the bees decide to swarm. I usually make a split…basically, I take a number of bees out and sort of make my own controlled swarm. By controlling the size and the timing, I can usually prevent swarming and end up with plenty of honey.
Some of the ladies held on…
So, the neighbors called around and a bunch of folks gathered to see me hive this colony that was 7 or so feet up in a tree…that’s a perfect height. I showed off some of course. I stuck my hand up into the swarm. I got super close and took pics. I sang the song of the bee people…well, not that part. Anyhow, I brought my new hive box in and shook the bees into the new box…easy-peasy…except not.
Swarm in the hive box
The next day, the bees had decided the new box was not acceptable. This time, they decided to swarm again about 20 feet up in the same tree. I didn’t have much of a way to get them up that high so I did what any young (?) strapping(?) American (check) boy (check) would do…I tied a rope around a hammer and threw the hammer up in the tree so I could use the rope to shake the swarm out. That worked well and I re-hived this swarm again. We’ll see what happens. It occurs to me as I ponder the process, that throwing a hammer over my head into a tree might not have been all that smart, so don’t try that at home. Still, it worked and hopefully I still have my bees!
Click for a video of the swarm in progress…with audio!
Well, this is long enough…I have more swarm stories to tell so I will put them off until Part II
Last year, I had a brief but special relationship with Gordon, the girl turtle. She was a beauty and came to live with us for a time at our house. I had picked her up at the deluxe deer stand and always wanted a pet turtle. After I read about the plight of turtles in captivity, I returned her to the wild figuring I would never see her again…but at least she would be free and able to breed, live, do what turtles do.
Ming the Turtle
Last weekend, I was weed-eating around the bee yard when I grazed across the top of the weirdest looking rock I had ever seen. I bent down and saw a turtle shell buried in the grass. I didn’t bury him/her in clippings…the turtle was actually down in the grass and seem to have been that way for a little while at least. Anyhow, I figured it was an empty shell so when I picked it up and a turtle peeked back at me, I was delighted! “Gordon!” I screamed. Of course, the turtle retreated back into the shell and I nearly dropped him as well. After I settled, I realized this wasn’t Gordon, but was almost assuredly kin to Gordon…or maybe her beau.
This Turtle, who I named Ming, is a boy I think and was pretty good size! I was so happy that the turtle population at the farm is still apparently alive and well and that my girl-turtle Gordon may be responsible for at least some of that!
I wandered the grocery store awhile back, probably hunting for something important. That’s why I found myself in the snack food aisle. I hadn’t noticed it in a long time, but before my eyes, hidden on a low shelf, was a Jiffy-Pop popcorn pan! I didn’t know they still made Jiffy-Pop! I really thought pretty much all popcorn had gone the microwave-bag route…an American tragedy I say.
Jiffy Pop! It’s still a thing!
Well, I was so excited that I just had to buy the formerly-metal-now-space-age-fireproof-cardboard pan of popcorn. Of course, with this magical new pan, it recommends not cooking over a grill or a glass-top range…but that’s all I have so I dared the popcorn fates and fired up the glass range (which we hate). Heck, we use a huge canner on it breaking that rule too! I ain’t skeered….and darned if it didn’t pop just fine!
It’s alive!
I was so excited to hear the sizzle of the faux-butter and the first pops. I dragged the kids in to hear, fully expecting they would be as delighted as I was when we made Jiffy-Pop at home when I was a kid…it was a magical time, the 1970s. My kids were less inspired by the magic. It’s a shame I guess…they know Led Zepplin, Rush and Jim Croce. They know how to dial a rotary phone and have seen all episodes of the Dukes of Hazzard! They now know Jiffy-Pop but are not as enamored with it as they should be…or as they are with the Duke boys. I don’t understand kids these days I guess…Oh wait…did I just say that?!
There is a special bond that a father and son sometimes get to share…when building a siege weapon, for instance. In one of Isaac’s classes, the final project was to build a siege weapon of some sort to throw a water balloon as far as possible. Wen Isaac mentioned the project, I immediately though of building a catapult or a trebuchet.
Isaac and members of the class had done research though so there wee a number of other weapons that he learned about which are more unusual (to my mind) and a lot more fun for their uniqueness. Isaac decided he wanted to build a ballista. A ballista is basically a crossbow on steroids. That’s perfect!!!
Dry-run testing the ballistaFor Pride…for honor…for goodness sakes
Original Greek ballistas used two arms that were wrapped with twisted sinew, leather, who knows what to produce tension. Regular bows use flex in the arms to produce tension that ultimately dives the projectile forward. In the original ballistae, the torsion in the sinew generated tension to launch the projectile.
From behindThis doesn’t look safe now that I look back on it
We decided to modernize/pervert the old design to use flex in the bow arms to provide tension to launch our projectile. PVC pipe to the rescue! Isaac and I cut, hammered and cussed this thing into existence this week and launched a tennis ball several times…our max shot was 20 yards. We had one somewhat serious design flaw for which we had no time to remedy. We ran a single rope from bow-end to bow-end passing through the projectile cup in the middle. The rope went through the back of the cup so when we released the tension, the rope had to push the cup which often caused it to flip as it tried to push so hard and fast. A better design would have been to attach a rope tot he leading edge of the cup on each side so the rope would pull the cup rather than push…I suspect we could have easily thrown a tennis ball 50+ yards.
Click to watch our first launch!
Isaac’s event went well and he got his credit. I see more design enhancements in the coming weeks…this project isn’t over for me yet! And that’s the best part in my mind…sure, the grade was the main driver for this project, but the best part was shared time and cussing with my son!
It’s swarm season and swarm season is my favorite time/part of beekeeping! Swarming is a natural part of a bee colony but one that is pretty unsettling to folks who see it happening. In the last 10 days or so, I have gotten two good calls about swarms of bees in Charleston.
An easy swarm on a bush in Kanawha City
The first call was from a postal carrier who was walking in a neighborhood delivering mail. He came upon a swarm hanging low in a bush. The homeowner initially wanted to call an exterminator, but the postal worker pulled out his phone and found my contact info. I was delighted to come and take care of the “problem”. Most people are terrified and also fascinated/curious about swarms so I try to describe what happened, what I am going to do and why it is so important to save bees rather than kill them.
Shaken, not stirredTraffic jam…
So this swarm was easy. I placed my sheet on the ground and my nucleus hive box on top. With a quick shake and a giggle, most of the bees dropped into the box and my work was done. It’s unusual, but I actually saw the queen on the top of the pile of bees. I watched as she marched into the box whereupon I put the lid in place and waited for the rest of the colony to catch up with her!
Large swarm on a concrete wall
A few days later, Charleston’s 911 dispatch called me about a large swarm in the middle of the city in a fairly public area. When I arrived, the fire department was in place keeping people away. They had taped off a large area and were waiting nearby patiently. I whipped in and saw a very large swarm stuck to a solid concrete retaining wall. Luckily, I brought along my handy-dandy-bee-swarm-retrieving dustpan. I am pretty tough but I cannot shake bees off of a concrete wall so I just used the dustpan to gently scoop the bees into my hive box. Easy-peasy!
I wish I had a banana for referenceFull house!
I am pretty vain so I figure that is most of the reason why I love catching swarms so much. I always get an audience and lots of oohhhs and aahhhs. It’s usually relatively safe and pretty simple to catch a swarm, but I look brave and tough. It’s a vain man’s dream! And on top of that, I get free bees which will (hopefully) make me lots of wonderful sweet honey. Heck, the world needs more bees as well as more sweet honey so it’s a win all the way around!
For as long as I can remember, my family has grown pink peonies. My great grandmother had a substantial stand of them at her old home place and it has been a tradition that a few toes go with family members as we move about so we can propagate the blooms and share something in common no matter where we are. My grandparents had them planted at their place and my parents have them also.
To me, peonies are about as lovely a flower as they make…secondly only to daffodil I expect. Both flowers have the most wonderful fragrances of anything in the world too. I could honest-to-goodness start every day for the rest of my life smelling daffodils and peonies and be a happy man.
We planted our peonies a few years ago when we bought our home in WV. We waited and waited and nothing really showed the first year or two. In fact, I sort of forgot that they were in the ground until last year when familiar shoots started up through the ground. I do not think a single bloom grew but I knew the leaves and was hopeful.
This year, the flowers came on strong and we have buds waiting to open! I took a few pictures of the ants that always go with peony blooms which I thought was pretty cool. I always heard that without the ants, peonies would not bloom. Apparently that is an old wives’ tale. Ants just like the sweet nectar the blooms produce. The blooms will be just fine without the ants though.
So, ants and aphids are welcome…peonies now grow in my yard as they have in my family for at least 4 generations!
