My new bees hanging out at the hive entrance.

The honey bees that I ordered last January arrived in the mail today – actually 4 weeks ago – but that’s when I started this post.  As soon as I picked them up at the post office I misted them with some cool water – they were definitely thirsty – as soon as they got out of the box later they started lapping up water wherever they could find it. Since it was a little bit cool today the bees rode in the cab of the truck to keep them from being chilled on the ride home.

A 3 pound package of bees as it comes through the mail.

The first thing I did to get the bees into the hive was to take out 4 frames to make a space for the bees – then pry the plywood cover off of the package.  The bees will hopefully build nice neat comb in the frames.  I’m using wooden starter strips instead of wax foundation and this is my first ever hive of bees  so the frames are completely empty.

The package contains a can of syrup with a few holes in it for the bees to eat as they move through the mail system.

I'm holding the metal tab that the queen cage is hanging from as I very slowly remove the syrup can. Everything has bees clinging to it so you have to go slow and kind of wiggle things around to keep from injuring them.

After removing the can I kept the bees in the cage by laying the little piece of plywood back over the hole.

Notice the white wax that the workers deposited on the queen cage while they were in route. They really can't wait to get to work. You can't see the queen in this picture, but she's been marked with a spot of florescent green paint to make her easier to find.

The queen is confined in this cage that comes hanging in the package.  The queen and worker bees were collected from different hives at the commercial apiary where the bees were produced, and don’t immediately accept each other – although the bees that are clinging to the queen cage seem to have because I could see them feeding her (I think).

Anyway, the queen cage has a cork that keeps the queen in for the trip, and under the cork there is supposed to be a plug made out of sugar “candy” that the workers will gnaw away to free the queen.  Unfortunately when I removed the cork there wasn’t any candy – so I put the cork back in and went and got a piece of bread to plug the hole with.  If the queen is still in the cage in a few days I’ll release her during the first inspection.  I should have prepared for this possibility by equiping myself with a marshmallow to plug the hole.  I’m not to worried though – if they don’t eat the bread and free the queen they will feed her through the cage, and she’ll be fine.  I hope.

Don't do this - When introducing a queen into an empty box without foundation just free the queen and put the queen cage in your pocket - seriously don't leave the cage laying around or the bees might cluster on it because of the queen pheremones on it. If you do what I did in this picture you will probably also have to repair the crossed comb that they will build.

After I removed the cork and improvised a plug I hung the queen and her attendants from one of the frames near the center of the hive.  I’ve seen pictures of people having to bend nails and whatnot to improvise a hanger, but the strip of soft sheet metal that this package came with seems to be way easier to use.

I found out a few days later that this was a horrible mistake – the bees started building comb off of the queen cage instead of from the starter strips in the frames.  More about that later.

Usually in package bee installation how tos you are instructed to shake the bees out through the 3 inch hole left by the syrup can – lots of shaking involved which doesn’t look too pleasant for the bees.  However I just took the screen loose on the side of the box to open up the entire side as instructed in this beemaster video on installing a package of bees.

Then the whole bunch comes out with very little effort or trauma to the bees.

Now just carefully replace all of the frames – slowly wiggle them in to give the bees a chance to get out of the way.  It seems impossible from the way this picture looks, but I don’t think I killed a single one.

Now carefully replace the inner cover.  That piece of plywood with the round hole and screen is just laying over a corresponding round hole in the inner cover.  My idea is to feed the bees without them getting into the upper chamber.  We’ll see how it works.  By the way I made all of the hive parts except the frames from scratch.  I’m planning to use 8 frame medium depth hive bodies for everything.

Notice that the bees aren’t attacking me at all.  I doubt if I would have been stung even without the bee suit – but It’s going to be a while before I get that cocky.

The jar of syrup has a few holes punched in the lid and goes right over the screen.  If they drink that too quick I’ll use a gallon paint can later.

Now an empty hive body, and the outer cover.

If I had been on the ball I would have placed the entrance reducer before I started.

The stick that you can see is corking up the vent hole in the innner cover.  In just a few minutes the bees were all moving inside and flying around the yard orienting themselves.  In a few hours they were already bringing in pollen from the blackberry flowers.

This process might look intimidating, but after all of the waiting I really enjoyed the whole thing  – I didn’t get stung.  I had worried that when I dumped all of those bees out they would all just rise up and fly away if I didn’t do everything exactly right.  But the thing is they don’t seem to want to fly away.  It’s almost like if you had been cooped up in a greyhound bus for 3 days and then you were deposited right into a five star hotel with an open buffet – what they really seemed to want to do was settle in and make theirselves at home.

Photography by my lovely and fearless wife Shirley – who was not wearing a bee suit.

Yes, that is a Black Widow spider, no it's not photo shopped. Usually the red marking is shaped like an hour glass - but this one being extremely large and fat has a heart shaped marking instead.

Black widow spiders as everyone knows are poisonous, and not at all uncommon in the South East.  You usually don’t find them in houses fortunately, but it isn’t at all uncommon to see them in unheated garages.  Usually they will be under a rock or other debris, but I have seen them nesting 8 feet above the ground in the open – inside of my garage.  Usually you will run across these things in late spring and early summer.

Be careful where you put your hands, and teach children to be careful as well.  If bitten, don’t panic, but seek medical help.  If possible always catch the spider and take it with you (especially if you think you have been bitten by a brown recluse) for positive identification.  However, with it’s distinctive bulbous body and glossy black and red paint job nothing else looks anything like a Black Widow spider.

Usually the red mark will be on the bottom side of the spider and will be shaped somewhat like an hourglass, but as you can see when they get big the markings get stretched out of shape and move around – just like most of those tattoos you see on the young folks nowadays probably will.

My little greenhouse is cram packed in April.

I built my 50 dollar greenhouse about 6 months ago and I thought some of you might be interested in what I’ve done with it and how it’s performed so far.  I have not used any artificial heat in my greenhouse at all – so it does get cold in there – but the climate in the greenhouse is much more temperate than it is outside. I’ve found that even in the worst weather we have here in zone 6 cold hardy things like spinach and lettuce keep on growing all winter long – although at a slower rate than if it were warmer.

I haven’t installed any kind of automated ventilation system so far – I just watch the weather forecast and if it’s supposed to be a warm sunny day I open one of the doors in the morning, and close it in the evening.  This has worked pretty well, but I must admit that there have been times that it was already in the 90s before I got around to ventilating.  I’ve really been surprised that all of my lettuce hasn’t bolted because of it, but so far (April 15) none of it has.  I must admit that during periods of moderate weather the greenhouse is almost like having livestock in that it requires a little bit of attention every day.  Also, it should be obvious that you have to water in the greenhouse even if it rains outside – however your plants are protected from the trauma of snow, hail, and torrential rain.

In Middle Tennessee (zone 6b) you can’t grow tropical plants or produce fruits like tomatoes through the winter in an unheated greenhouse like this.  There are growers in our area which do grow “hothouse” tomatoes so I know that it’s possible to do it, but I don’t see that as being practical for me.  If you live in a warmer zone however it might be for you – check around to see what other people are doing in their greenhouses.

What I’ve Used My Greenhouse For So Far

Fresh salads all winter – Because I built the greenhouse so late in the fall I didn’t really get the salad greens cranking until after Christmas, but once they did get rolling I’ve had a steady stream of salad greens ever since.  I grew many varieties of lettuce, Teton (F1) spinach, and arugula (planted in mid February – arugula planted outside on the same day failed completely while that in the greenhouse literally grew like weeds) and they have all done great – despite single digit temperatures on multiple occasions these crops continued to grow all winter long, and I’m still picking greens from seeds that were planted in November.  Being able to eat home grown produce all winter long was one of my main goals when I built the greenhouse, and it looks to be easily doable.

Extra early broccoli – Broccoli is one of our favorite vegetables, so as soon as sets became available at the local farmers co-op I planted some in the greenhouse.  Well, I am getting broccoli extra early, but the plants are also bolting to flower extra quick because of the extra heat units that they are getting.  Next year I’m going to plant the spring broccoli under a simple poly tunnel row cover to get a fast start and then remove the cover when florets start to form.  Broccoli as well as the other members of the cabbage family are not freeze tolerant so wont grow throughout the winter in my greenhouse, but should produce extra late in the fall – I’ll see in a few months.

Extra early tomatoes – I’m still working on this.  I planted out celebrity and early girl tomato plants amongst the greens about March 15 – a month before our traditional last frost date – and they have grown very nicely so far.  I don’t know if I’ll actually get early tomatoes out of this experiment, but I have high hopes that I will.  I’ll let you know in a couple of months. Update – I am getting early tomatoes from the early girl plants that I planted out in the greenhouse, but they are only about a week ahead of others that weren’t in the green house.  However, I removed the cover from the greenhouse in April and a few days later we had a cold front go through that might have been a factor – I think I should have waited a bit longer, but the weather had been really nice.  I’ll try again next year.

Enjoy gardening on a cold winter day – This is one of the few things that you can do with a greenhouse that you can’t do in a cold frame.  Even when the sun isn’t shining the complete shelter from the wind makes a remarkable difference in your comfort level, but when the sun is shining it’s like a trip to the Keys.  I took this picture on a sunny day in January when it was 5 degrees outside -

5 degrees outside - 50 degrees inside.

Notice the ice on the inside of the greenhouse plastic – also notice the 70% relative humidity – on a 5 degree day the humidity outside is like zero.  It’s amazing how good 50 degrees can feel when the sun is shining on you and you’re out of the wind.

Garden when it’s raining or snowing – even if all you want to do is pick some lettuce or plant a few seeds – you are always in out of the weather.

Grow out bedding plants – We grew about 6 flats of pansies from seed last fall, but because we got that bright idea a bit too late they weren’t ready to set out until late winter.  The greenhouse was the perfect environment to grow out the tiny plants to a good size to set out.  By the time we had spring bedding plants that we needed to grow out we were out of room in the greenhouse.  Next year I’m going to try to plan for this a bit better.

Things I haven’t done yet

Extra late tomatoes – With some luck we should be able to pick garden fresh tomatoes until almost Thanksgiving.

New potatoes for Thanksgiving – Potatoes are a cool season crop, and I’ve read that you can have fresh new potatoes for Thanksgiving or even Christmas if you plan right.

Propagation – This year we had great success starting seeds indoors under lights by using a home made bottom heat propogating table.  If you have electric service to your greenhouse (I don’t) you could start your seeds in the greenhouse using bottom heat in a cold frame, and you wouldn’t have to have artificial lights.

Forced flowers – This isn’t something that I’m into, but you should be able to force tulips and other spring bulbs into bloom much earlier than normal by bringing them into the greenhouse.

Force strawberries – This is something that I am into.  Next fall when I transplant strawberry daughter plants I might put a few of them into containers so that I can try this.

Kiln dry lumber – in the heat of the summer, cover the floor to minimize humidity, stack stickered lumber, ventilate to remove humidity while elevating temperatures as much as possible.  If you have electric service in your green house you could also seal it up and run a dehumidifier – almost all of the water will be coming from your lumber.  I doubt if I ever do this, but it sounds like a good idea if you can’t use the greenhouse in the heat of the summer anyway.

I don’t know of anything that I would want to grow in my greenhouse in the heat of the summer (cacti?) and I intend to take the plastic off of the frame once the weather is reliably warm so that I can use the space for regular crops during the summer, and also to make the plastic last longer.

Weeds

It’s turned out to be a good choice to grow in raised beds instead of in containers – containers would require much more frequent watering, and would be much more likely to freeze than the soil in my raised beds.  However, next fall I’m going to add a thick weed free layer of enriched  soil to the top of the greenhouse beds to help suppress weeds.  Weeds haven’t been a huge issue in my greenhouse because it’s relatively small, and fortunately most of them have been chickweed – which is quite tasty.

Pests

Fungus gnats – These little buggers hatched out in early winter for a few weeks every time the weather would warm up for a few days.

Fungus gnats look like tiny mosquitos and hatch out in the soil to feed on organic matter.

Supposedly they damage your tender young plants by feeding on the roots in the larval stage, but I couldn’t really see any evidence of this.  They mostly just beat their selves to death on the inside of the plastic.

Moles – Our area has been experiencing a biblical type plague of mole for the last few years.  Some areas of my yard are solid with mole tunnels, and they have done some damage in the garden as well.  So far I haven’t found any way to control them that I’m comfortable with.  I’ve  seen plenty of evidence of moles inside of the greenhouse, but so far very little damage to what I’m growing.

That’s it – so far I haven’t really had any problems at all with insects, disease, or vermin in my greenhouse.  I’m probably jinxing it by saying so.

Now that I have a little bit of experience under my belt using my small greenhouse I see that this is a tool that I enjoy using and that can extend the productivity of my garden throughout the entire year.  I wish I had built it sooner.

Before farmers had the option of battling pests and diseases by applying petroleum based poisons to crops or tampering with genetic designs they worked out sustainable systems to manage  insects and pathogens by rotating crops.

The concept of crop rotation is simple – don’t plant the same thing in the same place year after year.  Most crop rotation plans  call for you to plant a crop in the same  place only every three or more years, and include a fallow year in the schedule.  Fallow means that no cultivation takes place during that period, although the land was often used to pasture livestock during the fallow year.

Crop rotation prevents the build up of disease and pests by denying species specific  organisms the hosts that they need to live and reproduce over multiple years.  It makes sense that during a year of cultivating potatoes, that potato problems – potato beetles, and late blight for example – would leave their eggs and spores in the soil, just waiting for you to plant potatoes next year.  You can imagine what an unsustainable problem this can result in if you farm hundreds of acres of potatoes on the same land year after year.

Fortunately the home gardener is usually growing a variety of crops instead of the same one over and over and isn’t at the mercy of the commodities market when deciding what to plant where. If you are an organic gardener then crop rotation along with feeding the soil, companion planting, and other sustainable methods can allow you to maintain a balance between the beneficial and non-beneficial organisms  in your garden so that losses are kept to a reasonable level.

Simple Crop Rotation

Crop rotation also helps to manage soil fertility – legumes add nitrogen to the soil, heavy feeders like tomatoes use lots of nitrogen – so you see that your plants can actually help to feed each other.

So – Don’t plant the tomatoes in the same place as last year – Simple.  Right?  Not quite that simple actually.  The thing is that tomatoes, potatoes, tobacco, peppers, and eggplants are in the same plant family, and should be treated as one thing when planning your crop rotation. So, don’t plant any of those in the same place that any of the others occupied previously in the rotation schedule.  This takes some planning to pull off effectively. If you haven’t already, you should start a garden record – go ahead and write down whatever you can recall from years past.

A list of some common garden plant relationships:

• Leguminosae: Legumes – bean, pea, peanut, clover
• Solanaceae: tomato, eggplant, pepper, potato, husk tomato, tobacco
• Brassiceae: cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, broccoli raab, pak choi, mustard, kohlrabi, Brussels sprout, turnip, radish, rutabaga, collard
• Cucurbitaceae: Cucurbits – cucumber, squash, pumpkin, melon, watermelon, gourd
• Umbelliferae: carrot, parsley, celery, parsnip, dill, fennel, coriander, Queen Anne’s lace
• Liliaceae: Lilly – asparagus, garlic, onion, leek, shallot, chives, ornamental lillies
• Chenopodiaceae: beet, Swiss chard, spinach, lamb’s quarter, amaranth, purslane
• Asteraceae: chicory, endive, salsify, dandelion, lettuce, sunflower, marigold, Jerusalem and globe artichoke.

Being aware of these relationships will help you to work out a system of management that works for you in your garden.  A 3 (or 7) year rotation that includes a fallow year may or may not be doable for you, but if you do the best that you can with the resources that you have you should be able to produce more without having to spray poison on your families food.

Recommended additional reading:

Edible Landscaping with Charlie Nardozzi :: National Gardening Association.

actual size believe it or not

Sooner or later you are going to encounter this little beast – the Tobacco Horn worm (Manduca sexta) munching on your tomatoes or peppers. He has a close relative called the tomato hornworm which for all practical purposes is the same thing, and despite the names they can infest a variety of your garden plants. For example that tobacco worm in the picture is on one of my celebrity tomato plants – you might also sometimes see them on eggplant, and potato plants. They can do a lot of damage in a short time so keep an eye out for missing foliage like this…

… or worm poo like this…

If you see those things then a horn worm is somewhere on that plant rapidly defoliating it. Despite the jumbo size they really blend in well – they take on the color of their diet, but if ye seek ye shall find. Tip: they thrash around when sprayed with water and are easier to see.

Organic Control of the Tobacco HornWorm
The best way to control this little monster is to just stay alert and pick them off and squash ‘em. Despite the large size – commonly up to three inches long – and ferocious looking red tipped stinger thingy, they are completely harmless. Usually hornworms don’t occur in large numbers, and hand picking really is a practical control. If you happen to come across one that looks like this -

Just leave it alone to die in peace, those white things are cocoons of parasitic wasps, which will hatch out and do your work for you if you let them. Yet another reason not to blindly spray insecticide around your garden. Parasitic wasps are common just about everywhere even though they are so small that they mostly go unnoticed. As long as you don’t wipe them out by spraying every thing with pesticides they will naturally be attracted to your yard and garden by many kinds of herbs and weeds with tiny flowers – clover, mint, fennel, Queen Anne’s Lace, Joe Pye Weed, etc. Unless your yard is a chemical soaked golf-green-like monoculture of bluegrass and azaleas you’ll have parasitic wasps around.

If you simply must spray something for life to be complete then Bt – Bacillus thuringiensis – is a completely safe biological control that is effective against all kinds of caterpillars – especially Bacillus Thuringiensis Kurstaki or BTK. When caterpillars eat foliage that has been sprayed with BT their digestive system shuts down and they’re unable to eat and they die within a few days. Compost tea apparently has a similar effect. BT can be found in most serious garden centers under various trade names in both dust and liquid concentrate forms. Our local big box doesn’t have it – I guess they didn’t have room for it once they stuffed the shelves with petrochemical poisons.

If you feel experimental you might try this trick that my Dad used to do – liquefy some of the worms (or Japanese Beatles or whatever the pest du jour is) in a blender along with a cup or so of milk (Yum yum!) and dilute with water, and let it ferment for a few hours before spraying with a garden sprayer. I’ve never actually tried this, but it makes sense that it could work by growing a culture of worm disease pathogens, and basically making them sick with some kind of horn worm Ebola. Or it could just be so disgusting that they move on. I’m sure if someone did that to me it would have one of those effects. In any event during the process you pick off some of the worms and get to play with a kitchen appliance.

Once the caterpillar has eaten it’s fill it will burrow a couple of inches into the ground to metamorphose into the adult phase. Cultivation of the top layer of soil to expose and damage the big brown pupae before they can emerge as moths to lay eggs and restart the cycle is also an effective control reportedly resulting in up to 80% mortality. If you use a no till gardening method (Ruth Stout, “lasagna”, or other deep mulch method) and experience problem levels of hornworm infestation you might consider a preemptive program of spraying BT starting in early summer to hit the larvae while they are still young and relatively weak. Once the caterpillars get big they are much harder to kill, and inflict damage at a much higher rate. I bet that free range chickens would pretty much keep them under control by scratching out the pupae to eat. No wonder free range eggs are so tasty.

Common paper wasps prey on hornworms among other garden pests so think twice before destroying wasp nests near your garden. You might even consider intentionally providing a nest shelter near the garden, but safely located for people.

Sphinx Moth Photograph by: John Capinera, University of Florida

In case you were wondering – when they grow up tobacco hornworms become Carolina Sphinx moths, a large brown nocturnal visitor to porch lights all over the south which is actually an important pollinator of night flowering plants. Interestingly enough (if you are a nerd as I am) Sphinx moths, humming birds, and a bat (the name of which escapes me) are the only creatures adapted to hover while sipping nectar. Sphinx moths are sometimes mistaken for nocturnal humming birds. A minor nuisance in the Garden, but beautiful in their way.

This excellent photo of a Sphinx moth dining on a moon flower (a night blooming variety of morning glory) was shot by JohnnyBigFish

The entire hornworm/sphinx moth life cycle can happen as quickly as 30 to 50 days and several cycles may occur in one season given proper conditions. Later in the summer an increasing number of pupae will go dormant in the soil – a phenomenon called diapause. These pupae will overwinter to emerge as adult moths to restart the process next year.

Happy Gardening!