The honeybee hive is an amazing community. Most of the population, about 99%, are worker bees who are all female. They have many jobs to do from cleaning the hive, building honeycomb, feeding the larvae and foraging for nectar and pollen. Some will live only a few weeks, others will live several months to carry the hive through the winter until spring allows bees to forage once again. There are a few drones, male bees, whose sole purpose…
Gloria Pacosa can arrange just about anything, dinner parties, events, wedding flowers, pie baking, but when we got together the other day to shoot a TV show for Falls Cable in Shelburne Falls, I wanted her to arrange flowers. She had begun gathering material before I arrived. She had raided the flower garden for these dark scabiosa, the last of the sweet peas and gomphrena, as well as zinnias, sunflowers and . She said just…
I wasn't going to miss another Three for Thursday hosted by Cindy over at My Corner of Katy. Right now I have three pink natives blooming in my garden. I might be stretching a point to all this bee balm pink, but it is not brilliant scarlet so I am including it. Bee balm, Monarda, is native to North America as are the other two pinks in my garden. Bee balm is in my herb garden in front…
If Alma Potchke is blooming it must be September Bloom Day. I thank Carol at May Dreams Gardens for thinking of this wonderful way to keep a bloom record of my own garden, and to see what else is in bloom over this land. This beautiful achillea has bloomed beautifully all summer. It is at the end of the lettuce bed in the new Front Garden which means it has gotten watered along with the lettuce, including the…
Someone was talking about colchicums, autumn crocus, the other day and this morning I went out to look at mine. I stepped out onto the piazza, pulled out an armload of lemon balm and moved the inevitable shoots of wisteria, and there they were. Palely loitering in the shade, through no fault of their own. I planted the autumn crocus bulbs at the foot of the wisteria years ago when the herb bed was not yet full. Of…
Last week I set out the sprinkler to water the vegetable garden for 45 minutes. I have not NOT watered anything else for weeks. Then I turned on the hose to water the chickens. I heard the phone ring and ran into the house. When I got back to the hose - it was dry. I turned off the spigot, went into the house and turned on the taps. No water. We have a drilled well, and have…
Lots of sowing was done in the last two years to bring about the harvest of a strong renovated Roundhouse at our wonderful Franklin County Fair. I was glad to be present for the re-dedication - during which many people were thanked, too many to list here, but I was glad that one of my colleagues at The Recoder, Irmarie Jones was thanked for all her help promoting the renovation and fundraising. While the Fair is 162 years…
Dan Conlon, co-owner with his wife Bonita of Warm Colors Apiary, President of both the Massachusetts Beekeepers Association and the Franklin County Beekeepers Association, began keeping bees when he was 14 years old. He lived at the edge of a Dayton, Ohio suburb, close enough to farmlands that he got a summer job helping a farmer with haying and whatever needed to be done. “The farmer kept a few beehives, because many farmers did at that time, knowing…
Layanee of Ledge and Gardens came to Heath to see Elsa Bakalar's gardens, now owned by Scott Prior and his wife Nanny Vonnegut. I joined her, pleased to have an opportunity to introduce a new friend (we met at the bloggers July meet up in Buffalo) to the garden of an old friend. We got a private peek, but there is a tour on Saturday, September 19 being given by Jeff Farrell of Trillium Workshops. There are still…
Over the Labor Day weekend son Chris and his partner Michelle visited us. They gamboled on the lawn with their French bulldog Bibi, sat on the piazza with drinks - and we all drove to Williamstown and the great Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute and its wonderful exhibit about Pablo Picasso's (1881-1973) relationship to, and admiration of Edgar Degas (1834-1917). The exhibit was really fabulous. It was amazing to think that these two artists who seem so…