Back from Fargo ... Mark Twain and Zebulon Pike

We are back from Fargo ... we attended the NHSACA convention in Fargo this last week for the Coach of the Year finalists and the selection of National Coach of the Year.  I was a finalist and one of a half dozen coaches representing Kentucky in various sports.  The softball winner was Don Menke of Iowa ... 950 wins over a 35 year coaching career ... pretty impressive ... he actually played industrial league fastpitch softball back in the day.  A great person and well deserved.

Sue Neal and I had several stopovers on the way to Fargo ... Hannibal MO to see Samuel Clemens boyhood home on the Mississippi ... we took a boat ride on the Mississippi River and visited the museums.

http://www.marktwainmuseum.org/

We stopped by Pikes Peak State Park in northeastern Iowa for some great views of the Mississippi.  It seems Zebulon Pike was there earlier before moving west ...

http://www.iowadnr.gov/Destinations/StateParksRecAreas/IowasStateParks/ParkDetails.aspx?ParkID=610141&idAdminBoundary=203

We stopped by Seed Savers and they were having the annual conference on heirloom seeds.  Lots of interesting projects and plants.  We also went to their orchard where they are saving and protecting rare apple varieties include a red (inside and out) Geneva apple.  They have a great catalog you can get for your parents or the gardener in your family.

http://www.seedsavers.org/

More later ...

Lynx Prairie and Crested Coralroot

Yesterday, I sprayed Roundup on the fields I am going to no-till later, including Burl's Big Turnip Patch which will include mustard and creasy (upland cress).  I will have to order my seed from Stokes soon to plant the traditional Labor Day sowing.

http://www.stokeseeds.com/product.aspx?ProductID=40344&search=upland+cress

I went through all our hives yesterday and added to supers to two strong hives.  Goldenrod, Wingstem and Ironweed are all coming into bloom and should start a nectar flow soon ... especially, since it rained over an inch last night.  All hives seem to be doing well with the exception of the one down by Long Creek.

I was able to destroy the european hornet next at Aunt Nell's but the one in a maple tree in our yard is a different story.  It is about 20 feet up in the tree and is difficult to get hornet spray up that high.  I will try again today.

Two pictures from our trip to Lynx Prairie in Adams County (OH) on Monday.  Below is a picture of crested coralroot. This plant is saprophytic, living off nutrient via an underground fungus that gets those nutrients from an adjacent plant.  An underground highway of nutrients which I need to research ... sounds like something from Avatar.  The second picture is of a spider web we avoided on our walk that day.  The middle part of the web was about 6-8 inches and the webbing was so close, it looked like an old vinyl record.

E. Lucy Braun - Thanks!

Back from visiting by father and sister in Ohio.  While there, my sister and I went to the Lynx Prairie ... a prairie remnant left over from before the last ice age.  Lots of prairie plants were in bloom (some pictures below).  My Thomas Barnes Wildflower book in hand, we identified: pale-spiked lobelia,  rattlesnake master,  gray-headed coneflower, prairie dock, rose pink, meadow phlox, purple coneflower,  blazing star, green milkweed,  crested coral root, crane-fly orchid and several I am still looking up.  (also, hoary mountain mint and slender mountain mint which we have on our farm).  It was still cool enough to take our time in the morning and it was a lot of fun.  The flowers were beautiful!

Link to maps and description of Lynx Prairie in Adams County, Ohio
http://www.cincymuseum.org/sites/default/files/guidebooktrailmapsfinal.pdf


Lynx Prairie honors University of Cincinnati professor E. Lucy
Braun (1889-1971). Prominent ecologist of the mid 1900’s, Dr.
Braun was the earliest advocate for the formation of the Edge of
Appalachia Preserve (EOA). The U.S. Department of the Interior
plaque just beyond the entrance recognizes the exceptional natural
significance of Lynx Prairie and Buzzardroost Rock Preserves.

Queen Cells In and Fritz Muller!!!

Friday morning. in between showers ... Gordon, Mike and I put in nine queen cells in our hives with the oldest queens.  When the queen cell (they are all Carniolan) hatches out, one of three things I hope will happen:

1. The new queen kills the old queen (she is running out of eggs) and the new queen will fly off to a local drone area where she will mate (hopefully with some of my Buckfast drones), return and be good to go for 2-3 years.

2. The old queen will kill the new queen and I will have to replace her when the hive shows signs of weakening.

3. The two queens will kill each other and the workers will recognize they need a queen ... make a queen cell and raise their own.

Worse case scenario, I lose the queens and they do now raise a new queen and the hive becomes queenless ... we will know in a few weeks!

I learn a lot each time I am around Gordon!

Also, I received a book from Dr. David A West (Virginia Tech), Fritz Muller: A Naturalist in Brazil.  During the rain we have had, I have been able to read about half the book.  It is a great book and even more interesting since Sue Neal and I have been to that part of Brazil.  I am so appreciative of Dr. West for sending me a copy!

Buckwheat and Requeening

Yesterday, I planted buckwheat in the field back of our house ...

I had to rent the county's conservation department's drill (below) and bushhogged some places ... Southern States said the buckwheat would be here on Wednesday,  However, they only got 150 pounds of seed instead of 300 so, I only no-tilled a little over 3 acres.  The drill worked well except, it only covers seven feet which mean it takes some time to plant any large amount of acreage.

Took back the drill this morning and had the alternator replaced on our truck.  Spent the rest of the day getting ready to requeen some hives with Gordon tomorrow.  He has some extra queen cells so we are going to try to put them in some hives with old or weak queens.

Also, while picking up my hives I was using to try and capture swarms, I found two European hornet nests (the first I have ever found).  I sprayed one of them but will have to get some more supplies to spray the second hive.  They were both in hollow limbs of maple trees.  They are predators of honeybees.  I have seen them catch a honeybee in mid-air.

Bybee Pottery and Kings Mountain

Rain finally today ... Sunday.  However, our corn is damaged beyond repair of a good rain.  It is suppose to rain tomorrow and Tuesday also ...

Friday, Sue Neal and I went to Frankfort to check on her retirement.  Afterwards, we drove up to Port Royal ... stomping ground for Wendell Berry that lives closeby.  We ate at Rick's Farm Center and missed the Kentucky author by about a half an hour.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Royal,_Kentucky

We then went by Larkspur Printing near Monterey, KY and had a good visit / good conversation there.

http://www.larkspurpress.com/

On to Shooting Star Nursery near Georgetown to get some native plants but, they were closed.  John picked me up some basswood trees a couple of years ago there for me.  Then, a quick tour of Georgetown College ... they are adding more housing.

http://shootingstarnursery.com/catalog/

Stayed in Lexington that night and visited Bybee Pottery the next day.  We found they had closed some time ago and Sue Neal was devastated!   The owner ran our of family and help to keep it going.  Pictures are of store front and pottery left unfinished.

We took the back roads to Berea via Estill and Jackson Counties through the Daniel Boone Forest and over some mountains.  At Berea, we went to several craft stores and ate lunch a Boone's Tavern.  Saturday afternoon we snaked our way home through Garrard, Lincoln and Casey Counties.

We went through a little town called Kings Mountain in Lincoln County that had a colorful history involving a mile long tunnel and a circus train disaster.  Now that is a great story!

http://www.myhubbardmtn.com/Kings%20Mountain.htm

Bees and Hornets

Today was hot with no rain in Holland.  This morning I watered some of our plants around the house.  I took some pictures below of the bees cleaning up the cappings (wax that is removed from the top of the comb when removing the honey).  First picture below are of the finches that come up to behind the house each morning to eat sunflower seed.

There are many kinds of bees, hornets, wasps and ants that try to get a free meal from the cappings and the comb we put out.  Lots of bumble bees ... large and small.

I saw a couple of what I think are bald faced hornets ... Dolichovespula maculata.  I have not seen these before or mistaked them for a mason wasp, Euodynerus bidens  ... which I often see while on walks or bushhogging.

There were several European Hornets at the feeding this morning ... this one seemed interested in the honey but I saw on grab a honeybee in mid-air and take it off to their hive.  The European Hornet is just above center.

I am glad I had my bee suit on !!!

Honey Harvest - last day and ethnobotany

Last day of honey harvest 2012 ... unless we take off some in the fall (which is doubtful).  It has taken Sue Neal and I five days to harvest our honey.  We extract about 200 pounds (90 kg) each afternoon, six frames at a time ... usually 5-7 medium supers. Above is a frame of capped honey before it is decapped (skimming off the wax from the top of the comb) and extracting (spinning the frames in a large centrifuge called an extractor).

Finished reading "State of Wonder" by Ann Patchett (Nashville author) this weekend.  Rachel and Sue Neal had read it before me.  It was interesting ... ethnobotantist blot near Manuas in Brazil ... lots of sub-plots with personal drama.  I am not the reader that my wife and daughters are but, I liked the book and it reminded me of the time Sue Neal and I spent in the Paraquay River basin / Pantanal.

The ethnobotany was a little thin.  My favorite naturalist / ethnobotanist is Richard Schultes.  I read an article in the New Yorker years ago about is exploits in the Amazon. Wow!  The real pioneers for exploring the Amazon are in the mid 1800's (we only really know the ones that weren't killed or died of yellow fever) ... Alfred Russel Wallace (did he beat Darwin to the theory of evolution?), Richard Spruce (the real deal in exploration and botany) and Henry Walter Bates (remember Batesian mimcry, he thought was a proof of evolution)  ... what a wonderful time for science ...  and my favorite Brazilian explorer, Candido Rondon (he saved Teddy Roosevelt's life when Teddy was showboating down in Brazil pretending to be an explorer)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cândido_Rondon

It rained about a 1/2 inch yesterday ... settled the dust but did not help the drought situation.  Rained about 2" just north of us ... hit or miss this time of the year with thunderstorms.  As Sue Neal said ... at least we know it can rain ... and, it cooled us down.

Bats were right on time last night just after 8:00.  More than usual ... maybe 10-12.

Bats, Fireflies and Coyotes

I try to sit on the porch in the evening after the sun goes down.  Just after 8:00 in our back yard and in the field behind our house, bats make their appearance,  hunting and diving after insects.  Usually about 20-30 feet above the ground.  We are about a mile or so from Carpenter's Cave and there are many other smaller caves nearby.  I don't particularly like bats, but I enjoy watching them flying around.
About the same time, the fireflies and tree frogs get busy, a few deer will come out of hiding ... usually the finale is a coyote yelping chorus and by that time, it is dark.

http://www.batcon.org/index.php/media-and-info/bats-archives.html?task=viewArticle&magArticleID=952

This afternoon, I attended the farewell party for Vivien as she prepares to go home to Germany.  I know her family will be thrilled to see her!

Still hot but a small chance of rain tonight.