Kentucky Flat-backed Millipede

Went for a long wildflower walk today ... it was hot and windy.  Not much blooming in the woods now but did run upon this millipede.  I should have taken time to get a better picture.  It was about 4" long.

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

http://www.uky.edu/Ag/CritterFiles/casefile/relatives/millipedes/millipede.htm#cycle

Hundreds of bumble bees ...

This weekend, I tried to get some pictures of bumble bees working the fields of hairy vetch behind our house and in a field near Granny's.  It was difficult because they were on the move spending only a second or two at each flower and they are so large, they are upside down when on the vetch flowers.  I am sure to get better pictures later when the milkweed and cone flowers are in bloom.  Some of the bumble bees I have seen were probably queens.

Below ... I think the one on the left is Bombus pensylvanicus (American bumble bee) ... the one on the right ???  There were hundreds still foraging the vetch even in the late afternoon and their pollen baskets were loaded!  Other bumble bees in our area in very south central Kentucky are:  Bombus impatiens (Common eastern bumble bee / a lot of these this weekend working), Bombus bimaculatus (Two-spotted bumble bee), Bombus griseocollis (Brown-belted bumble bee) and maybe Bombus vagans (Half-black bumble bee).  The range of a couple of others are nearby.  There are over 20 species in the eastern part of the United States.

http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/documents/BumbleBeeGuideEast2011.pdf

Below, one of several milkweed patches we have not bush-hogged for several years.  This colony is about 100 feet long and sixty feet wide.  They are heavily budded and should start blooming by next weekend!

Field daisies (probably ox-eye daisies) are still blooming and in abundance in several of our fields.

Hey Gaye ... a tulip poplar bloom!

Hey Gaye ... I was walking in the woods last week and there were several blooms from a tulip poplar tree on the ground.  Just thought you would like to see the bloom since you are an expert in tree identification!  Hope you are having a good summer vacation!

Grafting Queens ...

Yesterday, I had a chance to watch Gordon and his son Mike Vernon grafting queens.  I don't think I will be ready to roll on raising queens this year ... I have Successful Queen Rearing ... Short Course by Dr Marla Spivak and Gary Reuter but, I believe it will be a "next year" project.  The Vernon's have a great system and it was fun to watch them work through setting up a frame using a grafting tool to transfer larva to queen cups (36 per frame).  Gordon says it takes 400 nurse bees to finish one queen cell.

Picts of Mike working below ...

Pollinator Oasis and Last Day of school...

Last day of school for teachers today.  I was able to get nearly all the lab equipment from the last month put away and my room is order for the summer.  Second Law of Thermodynamics is always an issue in my classroom.

I was able to plant seven pollinator oasis plots today.  These areas are scattered across our farm.  Most are about 15' by 15'.  I killed off the existing vegetation about three weeks ago with Roundup.  Existing vegetation was mostly blackberry briars and fescue.  I was able to transplant a few common milkweed plants, big blue stem, butterfly weed and purple coneflower at each site.  In addition, I seeded each site with bee balm, grey-headed coneflower, illinois bundle flower, cup plant and partridge peas.  It is suppose to rain tonight and tomorrow which should help.

We have several patches of milkweed on the farm.  I have bush-hogged around them for the last three years and they have spread out by rhizomes to form large colonies.  I saw a couple of the milkweed plants that have flower buds.

I have yet to see a monarch butterfly migrating ... but, now that school is out I will have more time for observations.  

Prairie cup flower below is one of the seeds planted in our pollinator oasis today ... www.illinoiswildflowers.info

Ragwort, Ox-eye Daisy and Musk Thistle - Invasives

Still raining today ... it seems to rain every weekend.

Below are some of the local invasive species that are blooming ... will get back in the woods this week.  Last picture is our garden ... a work in progress slowed by ... rain!

Luna Moth and school is out ... for students.

Sue Neal and I went to graduation Friday evening.  We had just under 200 students graduate.  We got see a lot of our former students at graduation and it was good to catch up.

Today,  after raining last night, we were able to catch up on things around the house and yard.  Sue Neal mowed the yard and I push mowed the trim.  I checked all our hives and there are a large number of bees in the hives but, this raining weather has reduced honey production.  Our new hives and splits are coming along well.

While checking hives, I spotted a newly emerged Luna Moth (Actias luna), I believe a male.  It was hanging on a small cedar tree about a foot off the ground.  We have many of the trees of choice for their larva ... hickory, persimmon, walnut, sweetgum and sumac.  Adult moths only live 7 days for the sole purpose of mating.  During this time the moths don't eat and do not have a mouth.

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

Last Day tomorrow and a Wildebeest!

Wrapping up the school year.  Lots of paperwork and finals continues tomorrow.  Teachers will return to school on Monday and Tuesday before heading out for summer vacation.

Below are the winners of our review board game tournament.

Third Block Champion was Brooklyn pictured here with her #1 fan, Titus!

Fourth Block Champion was Evan Day ... with his fan club!

This morning ... a practical joke from my colleagues in the science department.  At my desk a wildebeest and as students a deer and impala with appropriate notes.  Ha Ha Ha ... payback is tough!

Awards Day!

We had awards day second block today ... hundreds of class awards.  There were not many parents there today but then, it is during the middle of the day.

I spent most of the day putting in grades ... senior grades are due tomorrow.

We had the final round of the review game today ... picts tomorrow ... congrats Brooklyn and Evan!

I got home in time to bush-hog around the barn and house ... afterwards tilled the garden.

Tomorrow, we will continue our dissection in Selected Topics and in AP tie up some loose ends.  It is almost over, graduation is on Friday.  For those taking the AP History test tomorrow, good luck!

AP Biology - Tomorrow is B-Day!

Prom and Class Night this weekend before the AP Biology Exam on Monday morning.  We only had 5 students in for review late this afternoon ... I know, Mother's Day.  Also, this is the first Exam with the revised curriculum ... 2013 - All organ systems out except for immune, endocrine and nervous ... only angiosperms and plant communication in plant science ... new grid-in questions this year (can you say math) and six short free response questions take the place of two of the four long free response questions.  Preparation was really a crap shoot ... we had to prepare for calculating standard deviation, standard error with error bars, Gibb's free energy equation and much more on an 2 page equation sheet.  It has been tough in 85 days (not even that with the many distractions at our school ... club schedule and more) ... we have a few students that have a chance for a 3 or better.   Good luck to all!

In Selected Topics, we started our amphibian dissection ... picts below.

AP Biology winding down!

This week of review is about over for AP Biology.  We have concentrated on the 13 labs.  Tomorrow several students will be out of class for other AP tests ... PROM on Saturday ... Mother's Day on Sunday and test on Monday ... For those left in class tomorrow, our review will continue with practice questions, grid-ins and FRQs.

My Selected Topics class have begun their amphibian dissection ... it will continue into next week.

We had AP Bio review after school then I checked my new splits feeding the bees some sugar water.

Last day of testing!

Today was the last day of testing with the exception of AP tests.  Today's K-Prep - On Demand Writing until lunch.  My sophomore home room had two prompts and worked very hard on their pre-write and their response.

My two AP Bio classes reviewed again today ... sample questions, sample grid-in responses, photosynthesis/respiration review and our review game.  Tomorrow the review continues and we will have a session after school.  AP Bio test is next Monday after PROM and Mother's Day ...

Selected Topics did not meet today but will finish our human organ system tomorrow.

Hail Storm in Holland!

Today at school, AP Biology continued to review ... lots of sample questions and starting over on a Cheat Sheet again ...  We have testing AM in the morning but our AP classes will meet.

Selected Topics working on bones and muscles of the human body.  We will finish our organ system review on Wednesday before starting our amphibian dissection.

I stayed after school an hour in an AP Bio review and afterwards renewed the license on our cars.  On the way home it start hailing and was really bad after reaching the bridge across from Long Creek.  When I got home, the ground was cover with dime size hail.

Wild columbine and last AP Bio review session ...

On Saturday, was the last AP Bio review session.  It was held at Bowling Green High School, we had 39 students attend in three AP Science area.  It was a rainy day so, a good day to spend in review.  Sessions in AP Biology included Hardy-Weinberg,  Evolution and the 13 AP Investigations.  The AP Biology test is a week from tomorrow ... CRUNCH TIME!

Our children and their spouses were in for the weekend.  Hannah heads back to California next week.

We were able to get in a walk on Sunday morning between rains.  It rained all weekend.  The wild columbine was blooming along with several jack-in-the-pulpits.  Snails were abundant in the wet weather ... took a picture of one stuck on a limestone cliff.  I plan to return for some drier pictures this week.

Busy week ... AP review underway!

We are in the middle of our AP Biology review ... tomorrow we are coming in before school at 7:00 for reading gels and plasmid mapping.  Tomorrow is also our lab review.  Several students are going to
Bowling Green HS on Saturday morning for the last AP Kentucky review session. I am driving the bus and doing two sessions.

We have missed a couple days of Selected Topics because of EOC testing.  Tomorrow we are back together and working on organ systems ... muscles and reproductive systems.  Next week, we start our vertebrate dissection which will be our last big project.

I had three queens from BeeWeaver arrive today and made splits with strong hives using these queens.  I checked all our hives after installing the queens ... added supers to two hives.

Hannah I planted in the garden until dark ... seeds from SeedSavers and Johnny's Seeds.