Summer winding down?

My red delicious apple trees are loaded though they won't be ripe for another month or so.  There are probably over-loaded --I should have thinned them early in the season.

My Jonathan apple tree is producing a usable crop for the first time this year.  I look forward to pies from this tree's fruit.

The Concord grapes continue to ripen.  I can smell the sweet ripening grapes when I walk between these rows.

The Norton wine grapes are also turning purple and red as they ripen.

I have several of these large "birdhouse" gourds growing in the ornamental gourd patch.

There are also several cantaloupe growing in my melon patch.

Here a large future jack-o-lantern is growing among the pumpkin vines.  Its still green but will start turning orange soon.

The silks on the sweet corn are turning brown as the ears ripen.  These should be ready soon, if the raccoons don't beat me to them.

Cherry tomatoes continue to ripen in my tomato patch.  These only lasted a few seconds after the picture was taken.  These little tomatoes often don't make it into the house as I sample them as I work in the garden.

These Burpee Supersteak tomatoes are ripe and ready to pick.  We have enjoyed a lot of tomatoes over the last week and have had bacon lettuce and tomato sandwiches for supper several nights -- a favorite summer treat.

I intended to plant sunflowers this year but never got around to it with the late wet Spring and the rush to get all of the vegetables planted.  However, I had two plants come up volunteer from last year's plants.  Here one of my bees gathers pollen from this large flower.

My bees continue to do well.  This is my "weak" hive that continues to thrive since raising a new queen.  Here there is capped brood (the tan covered comb) and uncapped brood (the white looking comb full of larva).

A frame with lots of capped brood, and a little honey on the ends.

Another frame full of capped brood.  This is a beautiful sight when I think that this hive was without a queen only six weeks ago.

There is some capped brood (the tan cells in the center) surrounded by pollen filled cells (the bright yellow and orange) and honey on both ends.

Here is a frame nearly full of pollen in its bright colors of orange and yellow.  Perhaps some of this comes from the big yellow flowers on my melons and gourds that the bees have been visiting over the past several weeks.

And last but not least, a frame full of capped honey from the ends of hte to

Mid-August -- Garden harvest under way

We have started harvesting from the garden in a big way.  I harvested about 18 peppers a week ago and then went out on Friday and brought in a large basket full of produce --zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers.  These are some of the cherry tomatoes that we have coming on -- I picked a bowl full of these on Friday and picked my first batch of full size tomatoes.

Some of my pole beans are about ready to pick.

This is one of the big purple blossoms on my eggplants.  The plants have gotten quite large and there are a few small fruit on them.

My gourds are starting to produce a lot of fruit under the mass of big leaves.  It is a bit hard to find them at this point, but here are a couple that were visible through the leaves.

And here are a few of my full size tomatoes, in varying stages of maturity.  The tomato plants are very bushy and its a big hard to find the ripe fruit underneath.

The Norton grapes are starting to turn red and purple and ripen up.

The Concord grapes are also ripening.

The bees are also doing well.  This is the second frame of the first honey super on my weaker hive.  There isn't much wax on this frame but there are a lot of bees at work.  They seem to be working on bringing their numbers back up after being queenless for almost all of July.

This is a frame from the other side of the box showing a lot of bees on a fairly bare frame.  You can see a lot of bees in the box too.  The bees were calm during my short inspection today so the new queen doesn't seem to have brood that is any more aggressive than the original queen.

Here is a frame from the weaker hive--second frame in the first honey super, I think, that shows about 2/3 of the frame with capped honey.

This is the outside frame of the top brood box that is completely full of capped honey.

This is the third frame of the brood box almost full of capped hone, with some uncapped honey at the bottom of the frame (right side in the picture).

This is the middle frame of the top brood box that has a little capped brood and a lot of uncapped brood.  It is hard to see at this size, but almost all of the comb that appears empty here has larva of varying sizes when I enlarged the picture to look.  I didn't look any deeper than the top brood box so as not to disturb the hive any more, but confirmed here that I still have a strong new queen in this hive.

I opened the South healthier hive just to see how they were doing with filling the top (sixth) box with honey.  This frame from the middle of the box is nearly full of honey though its not capped yet.

I took this picture on Saturday morning looking out my front door.  This doe and twin fawns were feeding in the front yard in front of the garden.  The fawns are getting bigger but still have their spots.

Back in business with a new queen!

I had mentioned in the past that my north bee hive had lost its queen and I had given the hive brood from the healthy hive hoping that they would produce a new queen.  I left them undisturbed for three weeks, and went into the hive this weekend.  I found exactly what I hoped to find --lots of brood, both capped and uncapped.  This tells me that I have a new good laying queen in the hive.  This picture shows the tan capping on brood in the middle, and the white colored cells around the edges hold uncapped larva soon to be capped.

This frame from the middle of the hive shows almost a full frame of capped brood.  This hive seems to be working on building up its numbers as quickly as possible.  There is some capped honey -- the lighter cappings, on the top and bottom of the frame.  I checked all three brood boxes and found capped and uncapped brood in all three.

This hive isn't all brood though.  Here is a full frame of capped honey from the honey super on top of the three brood boxes.

The south healthy hive is still doing well.  Here is the end frame of the second honey super, showing that the frames are filled out completely to the ends with capped honey.  I have put on a third honey super that they have started to fill, though slowly, as there isn't much nectar to gather this time of year.

This shows the bridge comb that the hive had built between the honey boxes.  Previously, this comb had been filled with honey that was dripping all over.  They have cleaned out the honey, but the wax comb is still there.  I really should scrape it off but it is hard to do without scraping up some bees with it.

I pulled a frame out of the middle of the top brood box on the south hive just to make sure the queen in that hive was still healthy.  Here there is lots of capped and some uncapped brood, so this hive still seems to be going strong.

The garden seems to be going strong, too.  We've had rain when we need it so far.  The gourds and pumpkins are blooming, which the bees like.

Here a pumpkin is forming already.

The zucchini are growing quickly and I have picked several in the last week.

Here the ornamental gourd patch is filling in with vines, and trying to invade the grass.

Similarly, the pumpkin and melon patch is filling in.

The first planting of sweet corn is finally starting to tassel.

The cucumbers are starting to produce and I will be picking some very soon.

I have picked my first tomatoes this week too as a few of them are ripening up.