I asked Kiera O’hara, the composer and pianist of the background music, “Song for Earth Day.”
“I’ve got the melody replaying itself over and over again in my head. Since you wrote it can you describe the background of it? I’m always curious how a person comes up with music, probably because I’m so NOT musical.
There’s that little voice towards the end (at 3:10) that says to me, “But why can’t I?” or “but what about this?” It’s definitely a question. That’s how it sounds to me. :-)”
Her reply…
You’ve got it, exactly! That ending was meant to sound tentative–the vulnerability of the earth asking for help, and the question lingering for us humans, will we help?
In July I noticed honeybees were pollinating these bushes in the cemetery. I took photos so I could show them to knowledgeable people to ID them. I asked quite a few people who had no idea what those bushes were. Jim, the volunteer at the cemetery, said at first he thought they were planted, but later he realized the birds must have dropped seeds where the mower couldn’t reach and they just grew without being cut.
July 1, 2013 Bees love this bush. Circle shows the color of pollen.
October 26, 2013…we suddenly realize this is a cotoneaster bush. It’s just so obvious with the red berries. Thanks to the bees the birds will benefit.
Blackberries are considered to be Oregon’s largest nectar flow, starting mid to late June.
If you have clover in your yard, you have a ready excuse NOT to mow the lawn…“I’m just helping out the bees!”
We see hedges of Escallonia on our morning walks. If I bring a camera, it’s easy to get pictures.
It looked like this bee was ‘biting’ the pollen grains off the anthers. I slowed down the video to see better, but it’s soft on focus. Then the deer found it, now it’s gone.
Wallflower, (Erysimum) blooms all summer…and the Bumblebee, honeybees, and butterflies can be seen sipping nectar.
It took us a while to identify this moth. It’s a Ctenucha multifaria, appearing on our Echium tree, June 28, 2013. I couldn’t find any videos on this, so mine might have to be the first one.
This is actually a fly…I didn’t know that while I was filming it, but I kept it in the movie so you could see the tongue. I’m wondering if it inspired ‘Alien.’
This is the tail end of the kale flowers. In April, the bees were so busy on the kale you could hear the happy humming. In June when I’m finally posting this, the kale has been pulled and hung so the seed pods can dry out.
We’ve worked up a flower garden near the bee hives. This honeybee is working an Echium which was given to us by Shigeo who was very helpful with his “Big Dog” chainsaw carving out my Bee-atrice log hive.
Last year I discovered a new bee-loving flower. My wife and I were visiting with Hal and Patti when I spotted a bunch of bee activity on some reddish blossoms. Patti said it was Sedum. I had heard of it, but I’ve never paid much attention to it. Now that I’m keeping bees, I’m all ears when it comes to flowers that attract bees.
So we bought some from our friendly nursery…bees started working it as my wife was carrying the potted plants out to the garden.
The plants will winter over, but protect them from the deer which will eat surely eat the blossoms as we found out.
This sedum has wintered over and is on it’s way to flowering in September. This time I’ve got it inside a deer fence.
I shot some video of the bees working the sedum. It’s a good time to plant some now hint, hint…:-)
On a hot day in late March, the bees step out for some fresh air and dancing.
It’s unusably warm on the Oregon Coast today.
The lower bee has been fanning for awhile. While I was photographing, this other bee came out and fed her? I don’t know if that’s what it is, but from here, that’s what it looked like.
Pat’s next log hive progresses…much work still to be done before ready for bees.
Some bees are still outside the hive, at 10 pm. and 49 deg. F (9.4C)
After I added a frame of sugar on top of the single brood box, October 25, 2012, I figured that would do it for the winter. But at the bee meeting in January, we were advised to keep feeding into the spring. It was important because the bees would be flying more and using up the last of the honey stores…if the weather was bad, they wouldn’t be able to fly and could starve and all our efforts would be wasted. Just to make sure I ask the natural beekeeping forum. I was advised to super another box.
We opened the hive on a sunny February day, adding more sugar on top of the brood box, then added an empty box on top. Inside the empty box hung a bit of comb on two top bars that measured about 2 inches (5 cm) down. I figured the bees would come through the slits, eat the sugar which would give them energy to build more comb.
Feb. 15, More sugar added. Slits cut through newsprint to allow bees access to sugar from bottom box. The chunks of sugar on the right of center was all that was left of the batch we placed in October.
February 17, 2013 Bees feeding on new sugar above brood box
The bees came up through the slits no problem, ate at the sugar, but stopped there. They would overnight on the sugar…soon it was covered in bees. They didn’t have any desire to build on the comb slightly above their heads. Meanwhile the bees were crowding out the single brood box.
March 3…This box is getting very crowded…
What to do??? Okay, here’s a plan…if they like the sugar so much, let’s place the sugar frame above the empty box. They’ll sniff out the sugar, climb up the comb to the sugar, and build out their comb.
March 9…Adding more sugar to the frame and placing it above top boxes
We waited a few days before we realized the bees were NOT going up to the sugar and certainly NOT building up more comb. Meanwhile the bees were getting even more crowded in the brood box.
I go back to the beekeeping forum and notice that Bernhard has added some info about using ‘ladders,’ along with some very excellent photos taken with his expensive macro lens.
Should I try to buy foundation for the Warre…I don’t want to use plastic in my ‘natural’ hive, and I don’t want to use wax that might carry disease, but I do have a bit of comb left over from a failed hive last year which had swarmed late, not queened successfully and was finished off by the wasps. I piece it together.
Comb ‘ladders’ attached to bars. This pathetic looking comb has been in the freezer for 4 to 5 months. I don’t have much left so I hope this will encourage them to climb upstairs.
March 24…Adding the first ladder
And the second ladder…”Honey, how about trimming the grass in front of the hive?”
Could this be pollen from the laurel bush? It’s been blooming since Jan. 22. I know that you can’t tell by color alone, but at this time I don’t have the microscope or capability to properly identify pollen.
This is the first year I’ve had bees into winter. I was curious about all the types of pollen showing up on the bees entering the hive. I was sure some of it was gorse since we seem to have so much of it growing thanks to Lord Bennett of Ireland.
I made a 9 minute movie showing the bees on different types of flowers and Shigeo of the local bee association demonstrates how to transplant an Echium. I realize that some people can’t spare the time, so I’m offering ‘screen saves,’ as well.
Laurel blooming by Bonnie’s house
Bee on laurel, tannish-colored pollen…January 22, 2013
Bees on rosemary, at City Hall, February 8, 2013
Willow catkins blooming near our hives…sun comes out…bees love it. February 8,2013
Gorse pollen is orange…I had been hoping it was the yellow pollen I had seen going into the hive. February 13, 2013
The video shows this bee in slow motion working the pollen back to it’s pollen sac. I didn’t see it at first until a more experience bee keeper showed me. February 13, 2013
Bee on heather, 2-14-13, right up the street from Joe and Karen’s house.
Bee on acacia, 2-15-13…Shigeo showed me this place to get some video. By the time we got to it, the bees were returning to home so I only got a short clip of it.
Shigeo shows how to transplant an Echium Tree.
Echium for 2013…I’m hoping this plant will shoot up 10 feet (3 m) starting about April or May. The tarp protects against freezing weather.
These are the plants that Shigeo demonstrated in the video, how to transplant. They are my hope for 2014
We planted this echium in late October 2011. It just stood still for several months. About April or May we noticed it had grown to about 10 feet. The bees worked it for 3 solid months.
The video shows the bees in action on the flowers. I used the Canon SX-50 (50x optical zoom) on the laurel as well as the willow catkins. My little pocket camera, a Sanyo Xacti performed admirably for the rest of the close ups…I love the ‘super macro’ feature.
This little patch of land is going to be the hugel kulture bed
My son started looking at perma culture ideas. “Hey Dad, I was thinking about building a Hugelkulture bed. You put in logs that are loaded with mycelium and plant in them. You don’t ever need to water.” “That’s interesting,” I said, “but you don’t have any room for something like that.” “No, but YOU do.” That’s true and I’m always game for trying out a new idea. My son has helped me so much. He installed my solar projects, roofed my house and shop, and repaired a bunch of rotten siding on the house. Why NOT try this out? I’ve got lots of rotting logs too.
Pick and shovel work. I don’t think I’ll go down any deeper because I’ll hit water at this time of year.
This will be a little experiment. I’d like to plant bee-loving flowers like Nasturtiums, Wall flowers, and other flowers which the deer won’t eat so I don’t have to fence it in.
The next weekend I was working on a burn pile of accumulated storm debris. This had been piled up for a few months. We wanted to get the place cleaned up for visitors, this weekend it wasn’t raining, so it must be done NOW! Everything was so wet it, it was going to be an all day affair. As the fire got built up, I started pulling out branches to burn and starting seeing wonderful mushrooms and examples of mold. I didn’t want to destroy this beautiful living organism, so I started collecting it for my hugelkulture bed.
White tinged dusty pink mushrooms on log. It would be a shame to burn it…toss it into the bed.
Yellowish mold on branch…into the bed.
White mold on stick
Whitish pink mold on branch, save it for the bed.
This log is saturated, look at the moss growing one it. Good candidate for the bed.
I figured the mushrooms and mold grew because it was in contact with the wet branches and bamboo leaves, so I better add them to the mix.
Double split-pea soup made from scratch by my sweetie, so we could eat while I tended the fire.
Not as neat and tidy as the Hugelkulture web site, but hey, let’s face it, nature is messy.
Rotting firewood, mold all over it…into the bed
Are these drops of sap? Are they feeding the mycellium? I don’t know, but it’ll be good for the bed.
What it looks like so far
Added more rotting logs this end
Centipede roaming around in the power wagon…into the bed!
Adventures in Natural Beekeeping 