Preparing for Spring and bees

The hives are ready to go and rumor is that bees arrive on Friday.  I put the initial hive configuration together just to see how it looks.  The bottom box will hold frames where the bees are to start building honeycomb and the top box conceals a a feeder.  There are so few flowers out yet with the late Spring that the bees will need to be fed sugar water for a while.  I bought a big bag of sugar this weekend.

This is the spot where I plan to set the hives, after I cleared out some multiflora roses and a little brush.  I plan to set the hives on landscape timbers on top of concrete blocks to get them off of the ground.  There is a pond about 80 feet to the right and our lane is about 80 feet to the left.  I plan to clear some more so I can drive closer to the site.  I will spray and mulch to keep grass and weeds from coming up among the hives.

These crocuses are up as the first flowers of spring.  These have come up for several years.

These are newer crocuses that I planted last fall coming up against a backdrop of some the the lingering snow from last weekend's snowfall.  That heavy wet snow broke several old branches in our lilac bushes that I trimmed out this afternoon.  Those bushes need some pruning of the old wood anyway.

These tulips are coming up in a corner of the garden where I planted them a few years ago.

The setting sun shines through the orchard with grape vines behind.  The days are finally warming and growing longer and I'm looking forward to getting busy in the garden.  I cleared some of the stuff off of last year's garden plots -- something I should have done last Fall -- but there's more of that to do as well as pruning and, if I get ambitious, dormant oil spraying of the fruit trees.

Springtime in western Illinois

We came home from a weekend away to find a heavy wet snow cover.  The snow seemed 8 or 9 inches deep in the road next to the garden.  Our van became stuck in our lane and we had to walk the last 200 yards to the house through the deep snow.  I guess we will need to hire someone to plow the lane free of snow, though the snow will probably all melt by Friday when we are to have temperatures finally approaching normal and into the 50s.

It was a heavy wet snow that stuck to everything.  Very pretty, but I'd rather have Spring.

Snow covers the grapes and the woods behind the garden.

Snow covers the young lilac bushes that border the garden fence on the East.  Several of these bushes had buds that were starting to show green.  Hope the cold weather and snow doesn't bother them.

Snow covers the tractor and equipment and forest trees.

I did receive my last packet of tomatoes -- one variety was back ordered -- and got it planted this evening, though two weeks after the other tomato varieties which are already up and starting to develop their first true leaves.

2013 Garden Mistake No. 1 -- Forgetting to check the plant light.  When I planted my first seeds, I plugged in the timer on the plant light and assumed it was working.  It wasn't, and didn't come on, so those first seeds sprouted without light and became rather leggy before I found the mistake.

The weather has been unusually cool for March so far.  Our average temperature is in the low 50s but has hit that temperature only for a day or two so far -- mostly its been in the 30s and 40s.  The snow is gone though.

The crocuses that I planted last Fall are up and blooming today.  A first early sign of Spring.

The garden remains brown and lifeless.  The buds are swelling on some of the fruit trees and on the row of lilacs East of the garden.  I'm anxious to start working there.  I do need to start pruning my fruit trees as soon as it warms up a little.

The tomatoes and eggplants that I planted about 10 days ago are up.  The  peppers aren't up yet, but I did notice one stem just starting to peek out of the soil.  I do have one empty row of tomatoes as the seed company failed to send one packet, saying it was on back order.  I didn't see this until I was planting.  I have a terrible feeling that I received another envelope from the seed company and threw it out thinking it was an advertisement.  I guess I can pick up another variety at the hardware store.


2013 Gardening Mistake No. 2  --  Forgetting to check the seed order when it arrived to see that everything was there.

We had more snow earlier this week on Tuesday.  We didn't get as much as expected but enough, with the wind, that the township road to our place was drifted shut when I tried to get home at 5:30 p.m.  I went back to town and had supper and when I came back at 8 p.m. the road had been plowed and I was able to make it home.

It has warmed up this weekend though with lots of rain that has gotten rid of a lot of the snow on the ground.  I went to a pruning workshop on Saturday morning and learned what a terrible job I have done in the past in pruning my fruit trees.  I need to get out and start correcting my errors later this month.  I took these pictures today showing the mist rising off of the melting snow as the rain fell.  Temperatures were are in the low 50s.

One of my new projects this year is trying beekeeping.  I spent several evenings in February putting together these hive parts, including the frames to go in the hives, and temperatures were high enough today to start painting.  This is the first coat.  I will have two hives and have ordered two packages of bees which should be arriving in early April.

I had planted some of my seeds last weekend -- broccoli, brussell sprouts and cabbage--and they were up by Friday.  I plant to plant more of my seeds -- tomatoes and peppers -- today, about a week earlier than past years.

We had several days of light snow last week as a large storm swirled around us.  I think we got 7 or 8 inches on the ground all together.

We did manage to keep a passable track in the lane as the snow fell without having to have it plowed again.

The tracks of a fox are in the snow just west of the garden.  In the past, I've seen his tracks pass through the fence to hunt mice under the snow in the garden, but this time he seemed to just be passing by.

I caught some pictures of this pileated woodpecker working on a deep hole in a sassafras tree along the edge of our front yard.  I had seen him before and noticed several of the typical large oval holes in the tree.

He's excavating quite a hole, as he here has his whole head inside the tree.  These woodpeckers are about the size of a crow.

The top hole is the one that he was working on, though there are two fresh holes here and another around to the left side that this picture doesn't show.  The top hole is four or five inches high at the entry and the tree appears to be hollow in the middle.  Oddly, there was mud inside the hole on the bottom, like a floor.  I don't know if the woodpecker put it there or some other animal trying to make a home.  The hole is about five feet off of the ground.

Large chips of wood are scattered on the snow beneath the tree from the excavation.