Learning Beekeeping

The most awesome field manual out there for Beekeeping missions on the continent.

http://teca.fao.org/resource/basic-beekeeping-manual-pam-gregory-and-gay-marris

Another Spring upon us. The winter was inconsistent with periods of cold and warm, thus most of my fruit trees didn’t get enough chill hours to bloom.

In the front yard, I got a Celeste fig planted near Biff Polywog, our sea dragon.

Celeste Fig and a sea dragon. Fig has a anti-deer cage.

The front yard swale now has 2 Jujube trees (Honey Jar and Li?), 2 Pomegranates (a Wonderful and an Eversweet?), some family purple Irises, and soon another Fig from Dad’s place I call a Center White as it is a white fig with closed eye.

So I really don’t *need* a honey house. Really just a shed to store beekeeping stuff and other projects I have. Plus, I really want a workshop to be honest.

After a few months of on and off excavation, the pad has been poured.

The excavation in the limestone was around $1800, the form $200, the concrete $1700, and the pumping $500. Not cheap, but I wanted a strong foundation.

I don’t use rebar in concrete, as it is overused in construction in places it does more harm than good, like foundations. Once rebar goes into a foundation, it can take a 500 year lifespan foundation and damn it to only last 65 years. This is the problem with reinforced steel, it tempts engineers to save a few bucks by cutting corners on concrete volumes. Roman foundations didn’t have rebar, and their bridges are still in use today. The modern solution is adding fiberglass threads in the concrete, which I did. Plus, I made my foundation 2x as thick as normal. This structure will outlast my house by hundreds of years, hopefully.

May 30 – Here is how the garden looks. We’ve survived 7 inches of rain and a flood so far.

The no-till corn patch is not as high as its raised bed neighbor.

Raised bed corn and tomatoes with deep pipe irrigation of 1min every 2 days.

The watermellons are doing well in the raised beds in between the corn.

The Arbequina tree is still only 1 foot tall, but new growth is happening. Deep pipe irrigation.

This pluot tree gets more shade, I don’t know why it has grown most. In the background you see the solar wax melter.

This tree also gets some shade, but it isn’t a vigorous as the others.

The far left grapevine in the most sun is doing well. The idle hydroponics is in the background.

Finally picked the winners of the T-shirt contest, then realized as soon as I announced the winners I would have people wanting shirts. So I’ve already got the shirts set up on Printfection! Now, I just need to finish the video and post!

I was in a museum near Monterrey, CA over the holiday break.

I was out in a field north of Houston and saw Indian Blanket blooming on Dec 8.