Swarm Stories

One of Nature’s most interesting reproductive behaviors is honeybee swarming. Honeybees are very social animals and some experts have even suggested that a colony of honeybees can be more properly thought of as a “super-organism”, collectively, rather than individual bees. Honeybees cannot exist for long on their own. They must belong to a colony. Of course, reproduction of individual bees does occur but always for the purpose of restocking the colony with functional individuals who play a role in the bigger “organism”, the colony.

Reproduction of the colony occurs by swarming. One egg-laying individual (a queen), several thousand workers (sterile females) and a few fat fellows (drones) split off from the established colony, leaving behind a new queen and most of the workers. The swarm is seeking a new home, preferably a high and dry hollow space. Hollow trees, chimneys and voids in walls of buildings are fine.

Swarms always make a brief lay-over after leaving the hive and before arriving at their final destination. This is usually a tree limb, shrub, mailbox, car bumper or fence post. That’s when it gets interesting, even for people who usually don’t give insects a second thought. There is nothing like a 3 pound mass of bees to get folks excited. And the take-off and landing is bizarre… a cyclone of stinging insects, moving with purpose.

Most people who get to see a honeybee swarm arrive or depart feel fortunate to have witnessed it. It’s hard to describe. You kind of have to bee there to appreciate it.

Practical matters… honey bees in a swarm are not inclined to sting. They are most interested in getting settled into a permanent home. Most swarms remain at the lay-over spot less than a day.

So, if you encounter one, just enjoy it and soon they’ll be gone. If they end up staying more than 2 days, find a beekeeper to remove it. In fact, beekeepers are almost always interested in picking up swarms, provided they are reasonably close to the ground (less than 10 feet high). Beekeepers provide good homes to wayward bees. Usually, by the time you contact the beekeeper and he makes his way to the swarm, it has moved on. In any event, swarms are generally harmless and temporary. It doesn’t do much good to try to make them do what you want unless you are a beekeeper or trained exterminator. Certainly spraying them with water or insecticides is not productive.

Swarm season in Pennsylvania lasts from about mid-May until mid-June. Enjoy it while you can. Click on swarm picture above for a close-up look.

A Bit Nippy?

I heard a familiar sound Tuesday morning, May 19, at about daybreak… someone scraping frost off of a windshield. I pulled up the covers and went back to sleep. My tomatoes and blooming strawberries were also nestled under warm blankets, protected from the cold. Later, I read my min/max thermometer and saw that the overnight low was 30 degrees… enough to kill bloom and flatten tender vegetable plants. My farming friends confirmed that it was below freezing. They protected acres of tender plants with row covers or sprinkler irrigation. Areas west of here reached 23 degrees by some accounts. Wow!

Row covers are a great way to get a few degrees of frost protection. Most garden catalogs sell them now. They are very light weight blankets made of spun-bonded polypropylene. Got my tomatoes thru the night and protected blooming strawberries from crop failure. Easy to apply and last for years. Add a wire hoop and you have mini greenhouse. Pictures above show a farm field with a more advanced version of row covers as well as the lightweight version in a garden bed.

Was this late frost the nasty side of Mother Nature? Maybe…its but not unexpected. Official records tell us that frosts have occurred throughout Bucks County until the last week in May. May 13 is the “frost-free” date for southern Bucks and May 28 in Northern Bucks. “Frost-free” means that after this date, 90 % of the time, there will be no further temperature below freezing. So, in fact, some of us have to sweat it out for another week, given the 1 in 10 chance of frost. But the weather woman says we’ll be OK. Summer temperatures are predicted for the rest of the month. Some folks use Mother’s Day as the green light to plant tomatoes another tender crops and that is a good guideline… but I always check the 10 day forecast about Mothers’ Day and plant accordingly.

And frost is not the whole story. Tomatoes do not thrive when night temperatures are in the low forties or colder. Peppers and eggplant are even more cold sensitive. And those folks seeding cukes, zukes and melons before June 1 are asking for trouble. There is a difference between surviving and thriving.

Want to get a jump on the growing season with the cukes, zukes and melons? Start seeds in peat pots or other small containers NOW. Plant in 10-14 days. You’ll have healthy plants with a leaf or two and minimal window-space disruption. In fact, start the plants on top of the fridge or any other spot that provides bottom heat. Move to light as soon as they germinate. Plant about June 1. Then watch out for cucumber beetles. Nobody said gardening was easy… they just said it was fun and interesting.

A fungus among us

Cedar apple rust is is full bloom. OK not bloom; it is shedding spores from its "telial horns" if you want to get technical about it. Folks brought lots of samples into the Extension office last week.

If you look at our native Eastern Red Cedar, (which is actually a juniper, Juniperus virginiana)you'll see these nifty orange, gelatinous masses of fungal tissue. The warm, wet weather we had recently was ideal for them to burst into maturity. The spores that are released from these slimy galls are carried in the air to the alternate host for the disease... apple. In fact there are several related rusts which affect hawthorn and quince as well. The deciduous, alternate host (apple, etc) will develop bright orange spots on leaves later this spring and fruit on these plants may become rusty, russeted and malformed.

So, cedar-apple rust and it's relatives are very interesting plant diseases. Two unrelated plants sharing a disease. And for most of us, that's all there is to it.. an interesting disease. It sometimes causes damage to Junipers in landscape settings; unless you are growing apples to eat, the leaf spots it causes are not a big deal. Backyard fruit producers have a couple of options. Spray fungicides (last week would have been perfect) or grow apple varieties that are resistant to this disease. There are crabapple varieties that are resistant, too.

No, there are worse fungi among I. Apple scab, anthracnose, powdery mildew.... spores of all of these diseases are thicker than pollen in our current atmosphere. Their signs of infection will be showing up soon. Stay tuned for pictures and horror stories from the world of plant disease.

Pretty Yellow Flowers

There is nothing like a splash of color in the landscape after a long dreary winter. So you’d think that folks would be excited and happy to see Lesser Celandine, Ranunculus ficaria which started blooming a couple weeks ago. It is still blooming now. You will most likely see it in low lying, moist areas such as stream banks. For a close look, go to the park in Edison along the Neshaminy Creek or the North Branch of Neshaminy Creek where it crosses Rt 611, south of Plumsteadville.

Besides the eight petaled, yellow flowers that rise slightly above the foliage, you’ll see that the very dark green, shinny leaves are kidney/heart shaped and somewhat waxy. Below ground you’ll find finger like tubers. Late in the season, cream colored aerial bulblets will form along the stems. You’ll only see it from March until June; then it fades away. It is often found in large, expansive masses. Once you have an eye for Lesser Celandine you’ll see it in other places. A friend’s entire small back yard is composed of it at this time of year.

This exotic (not native), invasive plant is called a spring ephemeral. It emerges before the hardwood trees leaf out, grows enough foliage to store energy in underground tubers, produces flowers and above ground bulblets and then fades away.

Ephemeral. But very invasive and does not play well with other plants. It will out-compete less aggressive ephemerals. The pretty tout lily is emerging now too and it does not appear to have a chance to win a battle for space and light with lesser celandine. That’s the problems with these invasive exotics. They are better adapted to their new home than the natives.If you see an isolated lesser celandine plant, kill it... or plan to enjoy it forever.


If this plant is getting the better of your landscape, you can apply glyphosate (Roundup, other names) now and get some control. If there are infestations near-by or if you live along a steam you’ll probably get re-infested via aerial bulblets. In drier, isolated landscape settings you might will the battle. Where very small infestations exist, just shovel it out. Be sure to get the tubers.

Horseradish

Some crops are ready earlier than others. Horseradish is the first thing my garden yields each spring. I dig dormant roots from the garden and join some fellows who have a spring ritual of grinding up the roots in a food processor with a bit of vinegar and salt. That’s it. You’ve got a very unique condiment. (oh, peel the roots first). Excellent on ham or beef. A friend says she puts it in egg salad. A staple at a Seder. You can take it neat for a cheap thrill.

We processed this year’s crop last week. The 2009 vintage seems to be a bit milder than 2008, but with fruity hints of plum and licorice. I’m kidding…but it does seem a bit milder this year. Maybe that’s because we had to resort to using some store bought roots.

Horseradish may be the least demanding of the vegetable crops. It will grow almost anywhere. I’ve got mine in a soggy back end of the garden. A place where nothing but weeds will grow because it is so wet. Since all we want are roots, even some shade is not a problem. I guess the only potential problem is that since it is perennial it may become weedy. It has creeping underground roots.

If you can’t find a friend to give you a few pencil diameter roots about 6 inches long, you can mail order them from the same places that sell rhubarb and strawberries. Make a planting trench about five inches deep and lay the roots in with the top near the surface, spacing individual roots a least a foot apart. Cover the trench. I have even established new plants from just the crowns of roots that were harvested. As I mentioned, horseradish is a weed. In a year you’ll have roots to harvest. The better they grow, the thicker the root. Warning: The plants are big, coarse and ugly.
There are a few subtle details to horseradish making. Not much more on the growing. I found more advice than I could use on-line.
Next up, rhubarb!

Grow Your Own Fruit

Interest in home food production is booming. Maybe it’s the economy. Maybe it’s an interest in locally produced food. Hey, even the president (or his wife and kids) now has a garden!
Most folks start with a vegetables and then graduate to fruit production. All of the fruit producing plants are perennial. This means more planning and more attention to site details. And complications such as cross pollination and rootstock emerge. Let’s face it… anyone can grow a tomato. It takes dedication and skill to produce your own apples, blueberries and peaches. But it can be done.
Before I get into details about some specific fruiting plants, here’s some good news. Penn State has produced an outstanding publication called Fruit Production for the Home Gardner. You can read the whole thing on line, order a copy from Penn State (814-865-6713) or stop by our office and pick up a copy for twelve dollars. Its 186 pages packed with practical fruit growing information.

If you are itching to try your hand at fruit production, here are some suggestions.

1. Start small. Make your mistakes on a small scale and add more if things are going well.

2. Make a realistic assessment of your site. You’ll need at least 8 hours of sunlight a day and soil that does not retain excess moisture. How can you tell? The sunlight part is easy. As for moisture… if your site has standing water for more than 24 hours after rainfall it’s probably too wet for perennial fruiting plants.

3. Think about deer. Deer will absolutely destroy new fruit plantings. If not in the growing season, then during the winter. Do not underestimate them. There are no shortcuts to deer control. If you have deer pressure only an 8 foot fence or hot lead will stop them. Don’t think about fencing individual plants. Think about fencing the entire fruit planting. Not always a pretty picture. If deer pressure is low to moderate, the odor repellents offer some temporary help.

4. Use dwarfing root stocks to control plant size wherever it make sense. Good size controlling rootstocks exist for apple, pear, and sweet cherry. Not so for peach and other tree fruits. I know, they sell them….but we don’t recommend them. You can control peach size by proper pruning.

5. Consider the brambles (raspberry and blackberry), blueberries, currents and strawberries before the tree fruits. They require less space, yield very well and come into production more quickly. They event tolerate a little shade.

6. Soil test, adjust soil pH and nutrient levels and work in organic matter into the entire planting site prior to planting. Dropping some amendments into the planting hole does not do the job. Spend the time and money to prepare the site well, even if this means delaying your planting one year. In the long run, you’ll be ahead.

7. Our local garden centers are great places to by many kinds of plants and supplies… but in my opinion, they are not the place to buy perennial fruit plants. Buy directly from the best mail-order nurseries (not those listed in the Sunday newspaper). The Penn State fruit publication has an extensive list of good nurseries.

8. Plant as early as possible in spring. Frosts are not a problem for the plants. Frosts will potentially affect bloom … but that’s down the road a bit.

9. Be realistic about pest control. Strawberries, blueberries, currents and the brambles have minimal pest problems and they are generally manageable with organic or low impact pest control measures. The tree fruits and grapes are a different story. Be prepared to make multiple pesticide sprays on these species or you will not be rewarded with anything edible.

10. Pay attention to cross pollination needs. There is not enough room here to go into the details. See references for guidance. Don’t worry about bees. Plant it and they will come.

Breaking New Ground

It was a wonderful thing to see First Lady Obama and some kids starting a vegetable garden at the White House. I can imagine her first garden journal entry…”Sure was fun starting the garden. Kids had fun. Need to get better gardening clothes… maybe some bib overalls and decent work boots. Also, sure wish I had access to this site last fall. I could have done something about that sod. Raking sod is no joke. That bald guy looking on and shaking his head got me wondering if that was the best way to go about preparing a new garden. I wonder why we didn’t start with raised beds. At least we sent off our soil test sample on January 2 and have our results back already. That Extension Service is a wonderful organization. I wonder if they have any ideas on this?"

The bald guy shaking his head was me and I was watching via newspaper pictures of the first lady doing battle with that sod. And I only hope someone told them about soil testing.

Personally, I’d have had the grounds keeper strip off that sod with a sod cutter and start the First White House Compost Heap with it. Maybe try a little lasagna-style prep (newspaper layers) on sod that will be planted later this year with warm season crops. I certainly would have lobbied for raised beds. Could have killed that sod right in place. When I toured the White House grounds some years ago I noted that the lawn was a well fertilized, tall fescue sod. It ain’t giving up without a fight. It was laughing at the rake. Oh well, I am sure Michelle is gagging on gardening advice by now.

I got to thinking about this right after I got a call asking me when the “first till” date was for Bucks County. You know, "when can I till the garden?" There is no “first till” date but what we talked about was waiting until the soil had dried enough that tillage would not make pottery out of the soil. Wet soil and tillage is a bad combination. Then we had the discussion about using a tiller on sod. Tough way to start. Reminded me of poor Ms Obama and that rake.

I have no doubt that the First Garden will be a success. Hard work will overcome novice mistakes…and teach many lessons. It will be an inspiration to many people and remind everyone involved what an interesting, rewarding and challenging thing it is to grow your own food.

Now on to the First Apiary…”Ms. Obama, I’d suggest three-pound package bees headed by Buckfast queens; ten frame, Longstreth hives with wax (not plastic) foundation. It’s a good idea to…”