A BEE thread....for those interested in beekeeping.

[Leahs Mom]

@Bine

Do you seed wildflowers?

I'm considering trying to over-seed 1/2-3/4 acre just by broadcasting seed. Not sure if it will yield much if the ground isn't abraded somehow.

 

[CherMoz]

Not directed to me, but we created a "lasagna garden" in the fall and broadcast native wildflower seeds into it. We are continually enlarging the area by suffocation of the lawn around the wildflowers and letting those wildflowers drop their seeds.

I plan to attend a seminar on Successful Prairies without Herbicides this weekend at a garden show. I'm hoping it is informative...

 

[Bine]

Yes, I seed wild flowers every year and annuals like Borage, Phaciellia, Calendula, Marigold, Buckwheat, Flax, Cornflower, Poppy, Cosmea, sunflower... into the meadow between the perennials and the grasses. If you have patches of bare soil you can broadcast most wildflowers... but the chickens have really good eyes for seeds and seedlings, so I wait for a week with much rain and try to work the seed in a little bit, so the chickens are not right behind me, eating the seeds. And this is how it looks in July:



The starter mix with the perennials, the grasses and clover I drill in with the help of the farmer next "door" who owns the fields. The basis of the mixture was 1 kg "hunter's forage mix for deer heath" from our distirict hunting consultant, 500g sunflowers (bird feed) and two flower mixes from the supermarket for around 4 €. My garden is less than a quater of an acre and first the farmer thougt that it was way to expensive with around 25 € for all seeds but the result was worth it, I think. Not only bees and butterflies made themselfs at home but in the fall almost every week a different bird species shows up to pick seeds. I only mow strips and around the chicken coop b/c my tiny chicks have problems to trample down the high grass. The hay goes into the chicken run. It keeps the chickens entertaint when I am working.
I think most of the plants you can buy as cover crops and , at least here, every seed dealer and hunting consultant has a b'n'b mix, herbal lay or a soil health mix and he can help you to choose the best seeds for your soil and your situation. If you want to inproof your pasture and your soil is not too heavy, I recommend sainfoin. It is not easy to grow in the first year but all kind of ruminant animals go nuts about it.

 

[Bine]

Lasagna gardens are great if you have no voles. I have lot of voles in my garden, maybe it is b/c they find more to eat on my allotment than in the fields and hay meadows around it. This is not a big problem for me. I want attract wild life to my allotment and I hope my single tiny ermine will find a partner this year and produce lots of little vole eating ermines. I confess that it is a little risky to plant a wild garden and have chickens but so far the only unwanted preditor that did harm my hens was a feral house cat. I hope that my coop and chicken run is now preditor proved.
Oh, and did you see the vids of Paul and Gabe Brown? I love when farmers discover that soil is a living thing.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Thanks everyone! Good info.

 

[noble]

Hi noble

I think it's absolutely fantastic that you are cutting these colonies out of the trailer and even more so, when you have no previous experience with bees. It is far easier to fix a cut out comb into a frame than try to attach it to a top bar and I've got no real gripe with framed hives as such other than that they are expensive and unnecessary for the average person who wants to keep bees. I have made hives from all sorts of different things, including an old corner cabinet, an apple crate and I made a nuc box out of that plastic tongue and groove bathroom cladding, that someone had stripped off and was throwing out. Bees happily live in anything including "old trailers" as you have discovered.

My comments regarding top bar hives were directed towards Leahs Mom who was asking about them and in no way a criticism of your use of a Langstroth, which was probably the best hive to use for that particular job. It will be great if you can get either or both of the other two out. If you can't get in to cut the third one out, you might find a "trap out" possible.... it will take a little time but any bees that you can save that way is better than nothing and now that you have comb with brood, you have everything you need to do a trap out... you will find info on You Tube. 

It is a totally fascinating hobby and I can tell that you are getting a real buzz out of it, which I can totally relate to. Your location sounds great although I'm hoping that those orange groves are organic. Wide scale agricultural use of pesticides is one of the major problems facing our bees....It's great that you are already thinking about planting some healthy forage for them on your own land.

Best of luck with them.

Barbara        

thank you so much.

 

[Bine]

My mix this year (translated by google

: Field pansy, Columbine, Alpine Forget-me-not, sweet williams, phacelia, bitter candytuft, Blue Flax, Collinsia, Dyer's Thistle, Dyer's tickseed, flax, Common Evening Primrose,Echium vulgare, Common dame's rocket, Common Catchfly, Common Tansy, Common Yarrow, Common chicory, poppy, dog tongue, Nigella, poppy, Large cartilage Carrot, Wild Carrot, Ephemeral Blanket, cornflower, corn cockle, soapwort, common tickseed, love grove flower, wild snapdragon, Silene armeria, marigold, larkspur, red campion, Linum grandiflorum, gypsophila, Iberis, Yellow Cosmos, Siberian Wallflower, Clarkia Amoena, almond florets, purple coneflower, alyssum, steppe sage, star mica, mallow, buckwheat, sainfoin, sunflower, summer vetch, sweet lupine.pheasant's eye, Resede, borage, Calendula,Scabiosa with strips of waldstaudenroggen, it's a bi-annual old rye that can be cut up to three times this year and hopefully re-seeds next year. Seed costs for around per 1000 sqft around re-seeding 4 Dollar, Overseeding I will get around 5000 sqft out of it.

 

[Lowery Gardens]

I don't know how to subscribe to a thread without writing...
New on BBC, new to Washington and chickens and bees and small town life. Digging in quite happily!

 

[noble]

I don't know how to subscribe to a thread without writing...
New on BBC, new to Washington and chickens and bees and small town life. Digging in quite happily!

welcome. And it's tons of fun

 

[chicapee]

Built the hive stand and the bridge crossing the stream to get to the hives.After clearing out a tremendous amount of brush. Expecting bees April 6th. Possibly sooner. Our guy says he can possibly bring the date forward. Very excited.