The goldenrod is blooming, and I have never seen it bloom so early in the summer. The Joe Pye weed is also blooming, and the ironweed is breaking into bloom and looks like it will be in full bloom later this week. Both the wild and the domestic sunflowers are in full bloom. It is summer’s last gasp.
We had an early spring, and early summer. It was hotter in July than in August—the opposite of “normal”—and I can only wonder if we will have an early autumn and winter, or if we will have a long, drawn-out autumn. When it comes to weather, all we can do is wait and see. At least the drought is over.
The early goldenrod has ramifications for beekeepers. It is our last big bloom of the year, and by big, I mean there are acres and acres of it around here. The goldenrod grows along the side of roads, in electrical rights-of-way, and in any open space that was bush hogged or weed whacked within the past year or two, but not since May. We let it grow intentionally, but most people probably grow it by accident. Either way, the bees harvest a good deal of pollen from it.
Pollen Equals Protein
To a bee, pollen is its source of protein. Nectar gives them carbohydrates and energy, but it is the pollen that helps build strong, healthy bees with tough exoskeletons. When a hive doesn’t have enough protein, the bees eat their larvae and pupae, which means fewer bees in the next generation. Better by far to have enough protein to raise healthy fat-bodied bees for the winter and to help rebuild the hive in late winter.
That means goldenrod is important for overwintering bees, but I don’t know what early goldenrod means. We haven’t had it this early in my six years here, so I don’t have any experience to draw on.
While the bees usually get more pollen from goldenrod than they do nectar, that’s OK. I can feed them sugar water, which is a good substitute for nectar. While there are pollen substitutes, none of them are as good as real pollen. So we want the bees to load up their hives with it.
Time for Another Honey Harvest
Goldenrod honey is not the best tasting, so I like to pull my supers off before it blooms. I started putting escape boards in on Saturday and pulled all my supers on Tuesday. After consolidation, there were six supers worth of honey, although some frames had less than 100 percent. Now I am waiting for some of the uncapped frames to dry or dehydrate so the honey can thicken up. I’ll start extracting the honey this coming weekend.
When I had 220 pounds of honey, selling 24 pounds was a big deal. I have already harvested twice that, and have maybe another 140 pounds waiting. I’ve landed two new customers, and one has re-ordered, but it is not easy selling that much honey in a small town. Local stores will sell when people visit for the fall leaf season and again before Christmas. After that, honey sales slow down.
I might have to start making mead. Or feeding the honey back to the bees.
Pickles Galore
So many people around here have been making pickles that both Walmart and the local grocery store sold out of white vinegar. I guess we weren’t the only people who had a bumper crop of cucumbers. We’ve been giving them away to anyone who will take them. We’ve given away so many jars of pickles that I’ll have to restock pint jars.
The zucchini are not yet as prolific as the cukes, but their day may come. We’ve had a few dinners featuring zucchini, but my wife has not yet resorted to making zucchini bread. When she does, I’ll know we have too much zucchini. We may get tired of zucchini in the late summer, but no one complains when she pulls a loaf of zucchini bread out of the freezer in February.
Chickens and Veggies
The chicks are eight weeks old. I’ve started mixing developer feed into their chick feed, preparing for a gradual shift as my chick feed runs out. First, I’ll give them crumbles; then they will graduate to pellets, which I prefer. (Less waste.)
The chicks have been eating greens from the garden and plenty of weeds for a while, so we tossed them some corn cobs that had all the kernels cut or eaten off. They stripped them bare. If we end up with one of those zucchini that manages to hide itself in the foliage until it is bigger than my forearm, we’ll feed that to them as well. The chickens love squash, which is good when you have extra.
I also let them out of the coop for the first time so they could explore their chicken run. They peek out of the door and dare each other to go down the ladder. It’s funny to watch. They should go back into the coop at night, but I have to check in case one gets locked out when the automatic door closes at dusk. The first night, two of the Rhode Island Reds didn’t go back into the coop. One I caught easily, but I spent a couple of minutes chasing the other around in the dark.
The first eggs are still a couple of months off, but I am looking forward to them. I have been spoiled by eating eggs laid in our backyard. They are so much bigger than the eggs we are buying now.
Wrapping Up Summer
Goldenrod means the end of summer is nigh, but I think we’ve still got a month of warm weather ahead of us. The garden still has legs, with lots of beans, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, and eggplant to harvest. (My wife picked the first eggplant last week. I am not a fan of it but she and my daughter will eat it up.)
We are working to wrap up those summer activities and prepare for winter. When I pulled off the supers, I treated the bees for mites. Once the late-summer flowers stop blooming, I’ll start feeding the bees. The chickens should be laying by Thanksgiving, ensuring us a supply of eggs through the winter. We’ll be eating frozen, dehydrated, and canned food from the garden, and some honey, too.
