Tulips the whole spring. Indeed, what a blast of joy.
Iām not sure the expensive tulips will be worth it, maybe the longer blooming or special colors? Better question, what kind of more expensive tulips are you thinking about?
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We have a small ranch in the hills just east of San Diego, CA. Plenty of food for the beesā¦ there are citrus groves and alfalfa fields nearby, and plenty of nearby farming to keep them busy.
The first year, the queen died. There was no new queen ready to hatch, and all the worker bees died or flew away. I bought a new swarm with a new queen, and they lasted a while, but then the hive got taken over by a wild swarm of Africanized bees. I had a local beekeeper take them away, and he also brought me a new swarm. That swarm started to repeatedly hatch new queens and kept splitting the swarm. Eventually they all swarmed away and the hive was empty. I got another new swarm, and that one did okay, but the honey yield was disappointing. Lots of comb but not much honey.
I had the USDA agent out and she couldnāt give me any guidance. The hive is in the right place, thereās plenty of food and water and shade. The bees just donāt seem to like it, and I donāt pay as much attention to it as I probably should.
This probably isnāt a good hobby for me.
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I have to let it go for a bit on my home machine yet.
Something with the firewall or plugins make it not work when I am at work.
Good gravyā¦ heckās a-poppinā alright!
Weāve had a queen die or go missing, and in Texas we have plenty of Africanized bees around, all the time. So I sympathize. Health of the hive can also be affected by whatever is getting sprayed on those citrus and alfalfa fields as well. Even if youāre not seeing full collapse (like CCD), bees are affected by a lot of things you havenāt any control over. It can be maddening.
@frauenfelder has advocated some years back for the leave 'em alone approach, I thinkā¦
We have had to do far more monitoring (like, weekly, or every other weekly, max) than Mark, because weāve had a lot of splits over the years.
Of course the bees donāt like getting disturbed, having their hive opened, etc. The Africanized ones are quite a chore to pacify and they will pursue you a good long way when you leave. We try to check midday when highest percentage of workers are out foraging. It takes a bit of practice to notice how many brood cells are holding new queens, when you pull those frames and stare, hard, preferably with bifocals or cheapo āreaderā magnification glasses if your eyes arenāt good at fine details seen through smoke and a bee veil.
We have benefited from the human hive-mind by frequenting the monthly meetups held by our regionās beekeeping group. I donāt know if you have time or inclination, but in case you want to shorten your learning curveā¦
ā¦ these folks could probably save you time and agony. Sometimes I go just to commiserate.
Even if you take it for a total loss, and just walk away from your hives forever, itās worth noting that a hive that smells of beeswax will often lure a swarm to come live in what youāve set up. They will provide pollination services for everything nearby, and in time may be willing to play nice/be productive/share honey.
Good luck, RatFolks, either way. And thank you for trying. It counts!
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In fact, his adventures in beekeeping were part of what motivated me to get a hive. Iād read his articles about the ādo nothingā philosophy and I thought āyeah, thatās a hobby for me!ā It seems to be doing well this year though. Lots of bees on my own crops, which is the real motivator.
I donāt think we have chemical issues here. These are small neighborhood yards, farms, and ranches around here, and weāre all pretty obsessive about staying organic. Several of our neighbors sell their crops at farmerās markets, and the ācertified organicā label is a real big deal.
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I actually let the regular honeybees sting me quite a bit. I wear a hood and gloves when I have to open the hive but otherwise let them extract their revenge. There is considerable anecdotal evidence that bee venom may help with arthritis, and I wanted to try it out. [*] Itās an interesting effect but it doesnāt last. While we had the AHBs, we were all getting stung a lot and so they had to go.
[Edit: Do not do this unless you know for sure that you are not allergic to bee stings. If you are allergic, doing this will kill you. Seriously. People die from this. I am not your doctor, this is not medical advice, blah blah blah.]
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Last yearās garden was rushed because Iād just bought the house and there were other things taking precedence with my available time, but this year, oh my. The biggest beds are already dug, but even the little ones take forever to double-dig because of the freakin belt of clay about 8-10 inches down. Removing the top layer of soil isnāt super easy, but breaking up that clay layer isā¦tiring.
This is the start of a ~21 sq.ft. digāitās the new flower bed. The lighter colored soil isnāt soilāitās that devilish clay.
But this is my favorite part: Drinking beer by the garden, reading my favorite gardening book, and enjoying the day.
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I recognize those cats from Neko Atsume!
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Ooooh, yes.
I can scarcely think of a spring that gardening didnāt go with beer. 
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Maybe building this kind of thing is useful for you. Grelinette
What I hear about it, its helps great with working clay and other heavy grounds. I want also one, but did not made time to build and buying is way to expensive in my opinion. 
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Weāre cursed with various clays in Michigan, I use one of these to break it up:
Not as expensive as your grelinette, and can get into smaller spaces.
@wrecksdart: My garden plot has some heavy brown clay mixed in. It took many years of tilling in peat, compost, mulch, etc. to get it fluffy. Donāt expect great yields if youāre doing any veg, but tomatoes often do pretty well even in reasonably crap soil.
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[quote=āIronEdithKidd, post:175, topic:51767ā]
Not as expensive as your grelinette, and can get into smaller spaces[/quote]
I donāt have one 
And bent a vew of those, and ones bentā¦ , you know probably.
The last one seems to hold it, but maybe indeed because of the same extensive adding of other stuff to the soil.
Did you do, or thinking about, green vertilisers? And/Or not turning the ground anymore? Thinking about experimenting with that.
Weāre supposed to build more of those large raised beds this year. I offered up that we probably donāt have to till this year if we donāt build the boxes, but my dear SO poo-pooād the notion.
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Once stung, be prepared to be the object of much Hymenoptera attention, as the pheromones from the sting(s) site(s) last up to three days.
The pheromone marks you as an intruder, a threat, etc. and some folks get stung by wasps, bees, hornets et al. even when not acting like intruders. The pheromones can also build up in the fabric of beesuits, which can agitate a hive even before the first smoker has been lit, the first lid lifted or frame inspected.
Touchy wee things, the beesā¦
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Hehe, yes the āsupposed toā. Also a long list?
Also known as a U-bar. Mother Earth News DIY plans for a ābroadfork garden toolā. I considered buying/building a u-bar for exactly this issue, but my garden spade is doing pretty well so far (the new one, and not the one I broke a few days ago). I spade-shovel the top level, then use the garden spade to break up the next 8-10 inches of clayāwhile the garden spade doesnāt offer the leverage of the long handle, it is thin enough to fit into the initial trench.
Last year was my first gardening experience in this house, and I began the process youāre talking about with relatively good results. I keep the beds mulched and began, last year, to fertilize on a weekly basis with weaker fertilizers so as not to overload the garden (something like a 5-5-5). I also double-dig at the beginning of each season.
Tomatoes did very well, but I did notice a few veggies that grew a lot of leaves, but little fruit. In any case, Iām continuing to compost, mulch, and fertilize as best as possible, and Iām guessing it will show in the yield this year (I hope).
The Double Dig: Working in trenches perpendicular to the widest part of the garden, remove a trench of the top 8-10 inches of soil and place elsewhere for use in the compost pile; break up the underlying 8-10 inches of soil with the garden spade and level. Dump in an appropriate amount of cured compost/mulch/peat moss/sphagnum/etc. Move up and start the next trench parallel to the one that was just dug, moving the top 8-10 inches of soil back to fill the first trench.
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