The Garden and Such

Over the past few weeks, much has happened in the garden! Along with my weekly composting which I have kept up at school and at home, I have managed to get a lot going in my garden. In the garden at the side of my house, there are several potato plants and 2 very large chive plants which are returning from last year. My garlic plants, started much earlier in the school year, are flourishing and the fruit trees are looking healthy and happy! I transplanted all my broccoli plants and lettuce from inside out into the garden. Very sadly, when I went to check on my broccoli the following day, most of them had been taken by animals! From what I can tell there are only about 2 broccoli plants left, however, the lettuce was a little better off and I still have quite a few lettuce plants. I noticed very recently that many tomato plants are popping up everywhere and that it must be from the compost that I have spent a lot of time turning into the soil. So I've decided to let them grow in the place of the broccoli. My onions and shallots are doing fairly well too and were not stolen by animals. Some beets have been planted along with an artichoke and some swiss chard. I went by the Maple Leaf Garden Centre and picked up some flowers to attract the good bugs and planted them throughout my gardens. I tried to space them so that all my plants will benefit.

Pesticides Turn Bees into Picker Eaters

A certain pesticide has been discovered to strongly effect bees even in small amounts. It is not completely clear from this article, although it seems like the pesticide to blame is imidacloprid from a group of pesticides called neonicotinoids. This pesticide is causing bees to ignore flowers that are slightly less sweet, but that they would normally feed on, and only feed from flowers with sweeter nectar. The pesticide is also effecting how the bees communicate with the other works as to where good food is. An experiment done with honey bees being exposed to a small amount of imidacloprid, shows that the treated bees waggle dance less or even stopped dancing all together. In this same test, the treated bees were much less willing to eat low concentrations of sugar water compared to those that were not treated. The danger in this is that the more picky bees are over the sweetness of food may mean a drastic reduction of the amount of resources that can be brought back to the colony to keep them alive and healthy. This could potential explain the increase of colony collapse disorder across North America and Europe since 2006, as beekeepers have lost one third of their colonies every year. This article makes clear that, although the main culprit for the decline of bees is not known, imidiacloprid was the sixth most common pesticide sold for agricultural and home gardens in California in 2006 and is very likely a contributor.

Although it is very worrisome to learn that even very small doses of these pesticides could have a huge impact of bees, it seems beneficial to be finding this information. Hopefully, changes can now be made to stop the decline of bees and change it to increase of bees. Likely, this group of pesticides is not the only thing to blame, however, every step that can be taken to help bees prosper is a good step. I wonder, if these pesticides were eliminated from our environment, how much of an effect it would have on plants, not just bees?

Salmon Farm Quarantined

Another salmon farm has recently been quarantined in BC due to the threat of a virus spreading after 560,000 fish were already culled due to this virus called IHN. It has also caused 3 other salmon farms to close in B.C. over 10 days. A site near Tofino has had to cull all their salmon and the same company (Mainstream Canada) found the fish at their Bawden Point to be "weak positive" for the virus. Since the virus does not have any effect on humans, the company is going to sell the fish as they are mature and ready for market. More tests are being done on other farms; one came back negative at a farm near Sechelt.
I recall earlier in the term I read an article discussing a virus found in many fish markets in B.C. I am curious to know if this is the same virus and if so, it sounds like it has escalated a lot. This article states that it is harmless to humans yet what effect does it have on the salmon specifically and what is it doing to other organisms in contact with the farmed salmon. It is very worrisome to hear of such a virus in farmed salmon as it is possible that the virus could reach the wild salmon who are even less likely to be adapted to fight the virus. Hopefully things will not reach that point.

Syngenta Settles Herbicide Lawsuit

And the Syngenta discussion continues! On Friday, May 25, in St. Louis, Il Syngenta agreed to pay $105 million. This is to settle a lawsuit that has been in progress for almost 8 years of the herbicide called atrazine that has supposedly found its way into the water systems of over 300 communities. SOme claim that the chemical now found in the drinking water causes low birth weights, birth defects and reproductive  issues. Runoff after a rainstorm can wash the chemical into water supplies, however, Syngenta argues that nobody could consume enough atrazine from the water to cause any effects. Apparently this deal will be good for Syngenta as they will still be able to sell their herbicide to U.S. corn growers and continue with their retailers, distributers and partners. No official court date has been set, however the federal lawsuit will include water providers in Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Indiana, Iowa, and Ohio and approximately $34.9 million of the payment will go to attorneys as fees.
Having learnt about Syngenta briefly already, it is very interesting to see them being sued again for another chemical. However, they do not seem to be effected very much by what seems to be a large amount of money since they are still allowed to sell their product that is the issue at hand. This seems rather unproductive as whatever water systems are re compensated for, just as many will be infected with the chemical if it continues to be distributed. I wonder if it is worth it to agree to this deal if the long term benefits are non-existent.

Using Queen Cells

According to this reading, you will often end up with an excess of queen cells compared to the number of mating nucs available. In this case you can either give them to a neighbour to use or save them for yourself in a Queen Bank. The queens must be mated and not stay virgins or they will not be very useful. If there are still to many queen cells they can be used to make a queen pheromone lure used to make bees swarm. Do this by placing the emerged queens into alcohol and let them sit for several months in the jar with alcohol. It can then be used as the swarm lure.
THis article seems very smart. It has several ways of dealing with extras which is a very good way to avoid more waste on the planet and aid others or yourself in the process. Out of the 4 readings from this website I fount this one the clearest and easiest to follow.

Finishing Queencells

This article is based on conditions in the UK. It states that a strong stock can finish one or two frames of queens and to not overload the stock or else some queen cells will be undernourished. The cells only need to be in the starter colonies for 24 hours and then are moved to the finisher colonies. Feed the finisher colonies with honey diluted with water so they can feed the queen cells. Make sure not to feed to much and let the diluted honey ferment. Also make sure to hold the frames with queen cells on them up right and stable. Place them in the uppermost box with a queen excluder between the other boxes so the queen stays bellow. Make sure there is lots of pollen with a central frame of young brood. If repeating the process in the same colony, replace the centre frame with another frame with brood from the bottom box or from another colony. Once the cells have been sealed they can be removed at any time and put in an incubator or left in mating nucs for 24 to 48 hours.

This reading gave a very detailed description on how to finish the queen cells yet I am still slightly confused. If so many queen cells are being produced in the colony, would that not cause the queen bee to swarm? Having read this, I have a better understanding as to how queen cells work, yet it left me with that main question.

Clipping and Marking Queens

This reading goes into how to mark and clip queens. One way to mark queens is with a Baldock cage, which traps the queen while the other bees can fit through the mesh. This allows you to mark her with paint or cement let it dry, then release her. To remember what colour corresponds with which year ending you can use What You Rear Green Bees? and 1,2,3,4,5. White =1,6 Yellow=2,7 Red =3,8 Green =4,9 Blue =5,0. You can also used numbered discs to mark queens but it is much more precarious. To do this you must capture the queen in a tube cage. Trap her against the mesh at one end of the cage and mark her. You can also twist the plunger a tiny bit so one wing pops out and you can clip it 4 mm or so. Then let the glue dry and allow her to walk back onto the comb.
To clip the queens wings, pick her up by the wings with forefinger and thumb.Then, point your left forefinger at your right shoulder and offer the queen this finger. When she grabs on with all legs, gently close your fingers on her legs. Then mark her and clip her, cutting about 1/3 of the wing completely perpendicular to the wing's surface. To make sure the cut is clean and not ripped, make sure the scissors re very sharp. Also when marking the queen, be sure that the paint gets all the way to the carapace so the workers cannot slowly chip away the paint, resulting in no marking in later years.
This article had a lot more information than the last however it does not explain the reasoning behind why marking and clipping is important. I'm not sure what clipping the queen's wings does. Otherwise there seem to be many methods of marking and clipping, which allows a good selection if one doesn't fit your skills. That is very useful since beekeepers vary a lot.

Queen Cell Starting Methods

This article explains how to start queen cells in several different ways. First is by using the swarm impulse and is known as the Skep beekeeping method. It can be done with the Miller method. In this method a zig-zag edged comb is used in a level hive and allows the queen cells to hang vertically on the frame. This can also be done with the Alley method, which involves strips of cells with one day old larvae being placed downwards in a frame with lots of spacing for queen cells to grow effectively. Every second and third larva must be destroyed in this method
Supersedure impulse will hopefully help improve bees in the future instead of just selecting for swarming hives as Skep beekeeping methods do.
Emergency impulse should not be used consistently for breeding programs as splitting a hive is meant to be a last resort for the bees.
There is another method called Swarm Box method however, this article did not go onto explain what this method involved.
I found this article quite confusing. It was a little all over the place and not very specific or clear. I'm curious as to if there are any benefits to the Alley method vs. the Miller method or vice versa.

How to Perform an Artificial Swarm

In this video the artificial swarm is discussed. For the first method the old colony is placed in a new site more than 4 feet away. He then took 3 frames with 2 or 3 queen cells on each and a new brood chamber into a new box put in the same location that the old box had been in before being moved. So when the field bees return to their location that used to have the old box, they find that their queen is gone but there are queen cells so they stay. You must eventually narrow the queen cells down to just one in each box so there are not secondary swarms. For honey production, you can combine the two colonies and keep just one queen.
The other method is to take a brood chamber full of foundations and put the chamber right on top of a strong hive, making sure there are no queen cells already existing in the hive. This means the whole hive can draw out the whole foundation and expand the colony. As soon as you find a queen cell in the new chamber you can split them.
Both methods seem quite reasonable especially since you do not need plenty of space such as a distance of three miles as seen in the last video. The second method seemed very easy and would be great for new apiaries to increase the hive size and apiary size.

Splitting a Hive

This video is meant to inform the watcher of one of the ways to split a hive. Splitting a have is done to prevent a swarm in an overcrowded hive or to make more hives in your apiary. He takes three frames out of the five frame nook box and set them aside to put save room for the new frames. Take a frame that has food and pollen for the nook box. FInd the queen bee and put her in the new box while leaving the frame she was found on in the original box. There should be only 2 frames from the original box in the new box as to not take too much brood out of the original box. Wait 3 days before putting a new queen bee in the original box so the hive knows they are queenless and will accept her much better than if she is put in immediately. Mark the hive so you know which hive to put the new queen into.Move the new hive at least 3 miles away or the field bees will go back to the original hive and the queen will die.
This seems like a simple yet effective way of splitting a hive except it seems rather inconvenient to have to find a place to keep your new hive 3 miles away. I wonder if there is a way to split the hive without having to separate them for a time.

A Guide to Queen Rearing

This video covers how to produce your own queen bee. According to the video you do not need to graft and anybody, no matter who or where, can make a queen cell. First you must take out the frame that has eggs in your hive. Then make a frame that has a piece of wood running across the middle as a bar. Drip hot wax across the whole bar as an adhesive. Then take a utility knife and cut a 1/2 inch thick full strip of eggs/larva and set the strip on the bar. Press down at the beginning and then every inch press down so it sticks. It is then a vertical cell that goes back in the frame. You can get about 10 queen cells like this for free.
This sounds like a fantastic way of saving money and being environmentally friendly while still getting the queens that you need. Especially for people who cannot afford or are not willing to pay a large amount to bee keep, this would be a perfect way to get the queen bee.

Food Scrap Recycling Program Is Underway

A new program has been started in Delta called the Green Can Program. It is a program that will allow single-family homes to dispose of foods such as fruits, vegetables, coffee grounds, teabags, meat, fish, dairy and bread in a more environmental way. Containers of food waste will be collected from the curb every week just like recycling or garbage. Food waste is a big per cent of waste that is disposed and added to landfills. This program targets that problem.
This new program seems like a fantastic idea to me. Many people still do not compost and end up throwing away a lot of food. Just like several years ago, most people did not recycle. Now that it is a weekly curb side collection program practically everyone recylces. Why shouldn't food scrap recycling be the same. The city could save a lot of landfill space by spreading this program around.

http://www.delta-optimist.com/technology/Food+scrap+recycling+program+underway/6470854/story.html

a few more pictures

Transplanted some plants that I started from seed and started some more.

pictures!

Although I did a lot of pre reading on how to prune different types of fruit trees, I still felt unsure of what I was doing. Hopefully I see good results in the summer!

New salmon virus spreads to Vancouver markets

This article, released on April 13, 2012, brings a light to a Norwegian virus that appears to have made its way into the fish markets of Vancouver. There is no proof that any of the 44 out of 45 salmon that were bought and tested from several different stores were farmed or caught in Canada. It is possible that they could have come from Norway, Chile or Eastern Canada. The biologist who discovered the virus, Alexandra Morton, believes the cause of the virus must be found and contained, then destroyed. She also pointed out that wild salmon will likely be affected more significantly than farmed salmon if the virus appears in Canadian waters, as wild salmon use all the energy they have in completing their gruelling life process. They would likely not survive and be able to reproduce if infected with the virus. It is still unknown if consuming the infected salmon will cause human harm.

As someone who enjoys fishing for salmon and eating it for dinner, it worries me to hear of such a potential threat to the salmon that thrive in our aquatic backyard. If this virus continues to appear in the Vancouver markets and reaches the ocean, it could impact many people and the environment to an unthinkable degree. Hopefully enough research can be done to find the cause and a solution.

http://www.theprovince.com/news/salmon+virus+spreads+Canadian+markets+biologist/6457629/story.html

Home gardening

Over the last 3 weeks I have done an hour of composting (combining school and home). I have started broccoli and two types of lettuce from seed and checked on them every day. they should be ready to be planted this coming week. I tidied up the yard from the pruning debris and plotted out where the new plants will go.

Use of Common Pesticide, Imidacloprid, Linked to Bee Colony Collapse

This article reveals a new theory for the cause of the bee collapse worldwide. Researchers have found strong evidence that a common pesticide called imidacloprid is responsible for CCD. After a study of four different bee yards over 23 weeks, 94% of the imidacloprid treated hives were dead and the hives exposed to the highest dose were the first to die. Unlike hives that collapse due to disease or pests, these hives had the same characteristics as the hives that collapse as a result of CCD. The hives were left empty except for food stores, some pollen, young bees and only a few dead bees around the hive. These results strongly support the theory that this pesticide, which is used to treat the majority of corn crops in the U.S., is the cause of CCD.

Just a few days before reading this article, my mom had mention that a new theory had been suggested for the collapse of the bees. Finding this article was interesting because I can now but a name to this theory. It is frightening to read as this pesticide, imidacloprid, is so common and bees are so easily exposed to it. Even beekeepers may be unknowingly supplying the pesticide to their bees through high-fructose corn syrup they use to feed them. If this theory is correct, a solution is going to be needed extremely quickly or else we will have an enormous problem on our hands.

Gardening make up

I have fallen behind in recording my gardening so over the past 4 weeks I have composted every week at home and 2 weeks at school. During this spring break I have been taking advantage of the good weather. I turned the soil in all my gardens and am preparing to plant the onions that I started inside. I am also in the process of pruning the Peach tree, Plumb tree, and Fruit salad tree. I will also be starting several new seeds indoors. I will upload pictures very soon!

a corn free day

A Corn Free Day

Breakfast:

• Smoothie with
• Frozen bananas
• Blueberries
• Cantaloupe
• Water

Lunch:

• Whole foods Earth and Sea Salad

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• 2 mini oranges
• Cantaloupe
• A home made carrot, cranberry, whole wheat cookies
• Carrots

Dinner:

• Flaked light tuna
• Salad with ^ and olive oil dressing
• Fresh butternut squash risotto

Week of Feb 9th

This week I found that new chives were trying to break through the old dead chives! I spent 20minutes pulling out dead chives. I also spend 25 minutes composting and 10 minutes maintaining the newly planted seeds and cleaning up the garden a little.

legalizing chickens mock letter

Dear West Vancouver Municipal Counsel,

It has come to my attention that residents of West Vancouver are not allowed to keep chickens and I urge this counsel to consider the legalization of backyard chickens in West Vancouver. I realize there are several objections that people may have with this law, however there are solutions for many of these issues and I believe the benefits out way the negatives.

First off, in areas that have already passed the bylaw for backyard hens, they have promoted food security, health food production and practice, sustainability, urban permaculture, education, community building, companionship, and supported the environment. There are many benefits of the actual eggs of the backyard chickens. The eggs from backyard hens are healthier and tastier. Unlike farmed chickens, backyard chickens are allowed a natural diet, hunting bugs with soil under them. They have 25% more vitamin E, and a third more vitamin A. Factory chickens get unnatural diets and the eggs we get from the stores are several days old if not more. However, the eggs from backyard hens are fresh daily, making the taste fresher and more flavorful. Chickens are also great for the environment. They are natural composters as they eat table scraps and their manure is great for adding to the garden soil. Chickens love to eat garden pests and weeds that we’d otherwise have to take care of. While looking for these snacks that they love, backyard chickens also aerate the soil in the process of scratching around. Chickens can also be great pets, with personalities of their own just like dogs and cats. Providing lessons on responsibilities and knowledge on where our foods come from. Those who own chickens within a community, share information, resources, supplies, and friendship from something they have in common. Overall backyard chickens get to live a more humane life while supplying the owners with healthy eggs, and reducing costs and greenhouse gas emissions that come from transporting factory eggs.

Along with many benefits, there are some objections that must be addressed. The threat of bears is of course a worry. However, bears are not attracted to the raising of chickens themselves, but the chicken feed that is easily accessible. The feed is very high in protein and bears love it. To prevent bears from attacking chickens, the best defense is not to tempt them in the first place. Lock up chicken feed and make sure no garbage is lying around. It is also important to have a proper coop to prevent other animals such as raccoons, coyotes, hawks, owls, skunks, or dogs from attacking the chickens and disrupting the neighborhood peace. This is very easy to accomplish with the vast variety of coop designs and therefore is not a huge issues. Another issue that has been brought up is sanitation and noise. As long as the coop is raised and has the correct regulations such as in Vancouver’s bylaw, cleaning the coop is not a hard task and is the responsibility of the owner to take care of. Different varieties of chickens have different attitudes and make more or less noise. This along with the regulation that roosters are not allowed the noise issue would not be a problem.

Considering that many of the problems that have been raise in the debate for whether to legalize the bylaw for backyard chickens have a solution, I strongly urge you to allow backyard chickens for residents of West Vancouver. The positive effects that these animals will have on the community are great enough that any disadvantages could be dealt with. Thank you for your time.

catch up

This week I did 40 minutes of composting combining home and school. I also started my indoor seed planting by planning where I would transplant to several weeks, mixing some soil, and sowing the seeds. It took me in all about 2 hours. In the process of checking out the garden, I found that the garlic I planted earlier has popped up!

week 2 & 3

I'm a little behind on my gardening work due to a nasty cold! I have done 30 minutes of composting over the past 2 weeks and plan on catching up on my work in the next week or so.

New year week 1

Composted for 30min this week and spent 45 minutes researching and ordering seeds from "West Coast Seeds".

Over the winter break I trimmed down the artichoke plants, covered them with leaves, then covered everything with pots and more leaves. Hopefully they will survive the snow to come.