I received a somewhat frightening email from Marilyn yesterday while I was at work.
I quote: "No cow help. The cow left first and then the bull – about 1/2 hour ago.
I’m not counting on blueberries next year . . . "
So, I immediately thought that the neighbor’s cattle had trampled and eaten all of our blueberries!
Fortunately, it wasn’t quite so devastating. Yes, the neighbor’s bull and one cow were stomping around in the garden beds and blueberry areas. Yes, we may have lost a blueberry or two.
All part of living in the rural areas of Northern Kentucky. We were planning to expand the blueberry patch into a small blueberry orchard, anyway. We intend to purchase another 30 plants, and take cuttings off of each one, including the 30 we already have (well, I guess that’s 28 or 27 we now have). So, we could have 120 blueberry plants by the end of summer next year, when we will again take a cutting from each plant. You get the idea …
We had a low in the mid-20′s this AM. That should kill any eggs/larvae for wax moths in the frames I left outside in empty hive boxes. I intend to leave them outside for at least a week or two to freeze the little bugs off. Then I can store them inside the garage until spring.
I intend to add some more bee hives, both Langstroth hives (conventionally used in the US for bottled honey production, bee pollen, and transporting for pollination) and 2 – 3 top bar hives . Top bar hives are good for wax and comb honey, and they are a more "natural" environment for the bees. It allows the bees to build more comb, in the way <em>they</em> want to build it, instead of in rigid frames, precut and designed for use by the humans that want the honey. — We’ll see how that turns out