In the last year I became aware of mason bees and how they can help with pollination. If you haven’t read about them it is worth looking into.

http://www.amazon.com/Davis-Wireless-Leaf-Moisture-Sub-Station/dp/B000WBLFC4

1. Storm chasing with Gilbert
2. Buying hot tub for Gilbert
3. Buying one million watt dual-pole radar for Gilbert

I’ll find room for the hot tub. As for the radar, just put it in the commons area behind the house. I’m sure the association and my neighbors won’t mind.

Glad to hear you’re coming! We’ll see you there.

Lynn

Looks like it could be another one of “Paul’s excellent steak and BBQ restaurant eating tours”.

Eat,and be well!!

Jeff

Ended up in your blog with a garden question and saw this – so could not help to write. I am married toa Scot and lived in Edinburgh for about 5 years. So here are places you need to see: Edinburgh (much nicer than Glasgow) – castle, gardens,Royal mile, Isle of Skie (if you have time it is beautiful), Inverness so you get to see Loch Ness, a whisky tour (depending on your taste – choose the one you like), Ranoch (tiny little town but so nice to be at – Ranoch train station is the begining of many wonderful hikes). September is a good time you may be lucky with the weather and not get too much rain. In july the Edinburgh Festival is bar none one of the best art festivals around.

You should eat Haggis, tatties and nips, pies from the pie maker in Edinburgh

Good luck and feel free to ask me more questions at http://www.p-art-y.blogspot.com

Back to my garden!

http://www.totallytomato.com/

this is another good one…..they have ALL SORTS.

http://www.seedsavers.org/

Thank you so much!

you might also consider some perennials that flower early in the year, as that’s when bees start to build up their hives.

eric

Eileen

Bald-Faced Hornets….:)

you will need a sugar feeder right away. when you hive the package, the bees will be without any food supplies nor any honeycomb. they have a lot of work to do rigth away, and you need to provide them with food until they get the hive set up.

as soon as you hive the package and put on the supers, put the sugar feeder on top of the super. drizzle a little of the sugar syrup down into the supers so the bees can follow it up to the feeder.

there are many styles of sugar feeders, and i’ve found you will get some drowned bees in your feeder. ( bees can’t swim )
When you are pouring the syrup into the feeder, you will get some bees flying around you and some may land in the syrup. lift them out with your hive tool.

the top mount sugar feeders with wood floaters in them work best, i’ve found. i don’t have these kind, and i get drowned bees when i use the feeder.

for honey extraction, we borrow an extractor from a beekeeper in a nearby town. you’ll only use this a few times a year, and if a neighbor already has one, ask. its proper to return the extractor cleaned, and with a jar of your honey.

love that one.

we just finished our first year of beekeeping, and here’s what i’ve learned:

• the hand crafted hive parts are not necessary. all my woodenware is from a supplier and it is all good and works well. the bees will use propolis to seal up any gaps they dont like, and they will use it to coat all sorts of stuff inside the hive. i think the most important thing is to paint them well. don’t paint the insides of the hive bodies.

• the assembly of all this is easy, it just takes time. a nail gun or brad nailer is handy.

• you don’t need the heavy duty gloves. I use those blue nitrile gloves, they allow you to have much better feel, and i have not been stung thru the gloves. car mechanics use these gloves. a friend of mine has those big gloves, and after he worked with me once and saw the blue gloves, he now uses them.

• instead of a separate veil and coveralls, i’d suggest a veil jacket combo, and the round veils have better visibility, no blind spots.

• for people who want to come watch, i have a few simple mosquito veils you can buy at camping stores. this allows people to stand right at the hive and watch. the visitors need to wear long sleeve shirts and tuck their pants into their socks, just like i do when i work the hive. Your visitors, or family are not going to get stung unless they do something to aggravate the bees, like step on them. ( i have done this )

• i use all medium supers, or hive bodies, which are the 6 5/8 height ones. The regular supers, or hive bodies, are real heavy when they are full of bees, pollen, brood, and honey. I have a back injury, and even the mediums, when full of honey are quite heavy.
for the brood, i use 3 medium supers in place of the 2 large supers.

• plastic frame foundation is one of those things that people have many opinions about. I use wax foundation for the brood supers, and plastic foundation for the honey supers. This system has worked well.

• i suggest a screened bottom board with a wood slide that can be put under the screen, this allows mite counts and allows you to close up the hive in winter. You want some air flow, but the wood slide will allow that.

just my 2 cents here, others will have completely different thoughts.. thx, eric.

I’m probably not going to try to grow any in my garden since they did so poor. Although, I think I will grow some again next year in the community garden where they did so well.

Cheers.

They are on twitter as GlenPrairie. If you are into twitter you could drop a note and ask!

That is ridiculous. I only have one or two in the garden every year. I can’t imagine having “thousands” of them around.

Where are you in Wheaton? North Side or South side? We’re northsiders, near the train tracks.

MrBrownThumb @ Chicago Garden

I am surprised that they designers of the mower did not take height into consideration and supplied an adjustable handle.

I know of one garden center north of the city that comes to me very well recommended…

Meinke’s Garden Center on Touhy Ave. in Niles, IL