New Mason Bee Condos

Last week we welcomed Hartley and Brian from the Environmental Youth Alliance to the farm. They are running a native pollinators program with organic farms in the Lower Mainland. this includes a visit to each farm, doing an assessment of how the farm can better provide habitat to native pollinators and providing homes for mason bees and ground-nesting bees.

In the first photo, Hartley is assembling a mason bee housing frame. In the photo above, Brian is taping together trays for the mason bees to lay their eggs into.

A stack of trays, ready for placement.

After the housing frame was installed and the trays were in place, I got to place to mason bee cocoons behind. They placed one bee unit near our orchard and another unit in our fields.

Also part of the project is the building of nests for ground-nesting bees. Those aren't ready yet, but I'll post photos when we get them. Brian pointed out numerous, tiny holes in the ground where bees are nesting -- something I walk by and over every day without noticing!

Native bees are an important part of the diversity we have in our environment and a crucial part of the pollination puzzle we have on a farm. Honey bees are, by far, the most important pollinators for commercial crops, but they often overshadow the importance of native pollinators and their importance to many crops.

For more information about native pollinators, I recommend The Forgotten Pollinators by Stephen L. Buchmann and Gary Paul Nabhan.

Home Sweet Home

One of our Co-operative shareholders, Tricia Carpenter, started keeping bees on the farm this year. Although she didn't get the bees until late in the season, they seem to have taken to their new home. We won't get any honey from the hives this year, but the bees have been busy pollinating our crops.

Mid-August farm round-up

Mid-August means the harvest is picking up and the days are still long and hot. Our sunflowers are in full bloom and the bees are busy, as you can see above.

We planted three beds of sunflowers on the edges of our fields this year. They attract beneficial insects and are an incredible sight.

Jeremy has hung garlic to cure in various locations around the farm. One of my favorite views of the farm is from the dairy barn where one batch of garlic is curing. You can see the red roof and vines of a farm residence in front of the pastures and fields below.

I was happy to spy some of the pumpkins and squash sizing up and even ripening in the fields. Squash are one of my favorite crops, both for their taste and aesthetic in the fall.

A Red Kuri squash is looking pretty nice amidst the vines.

Part of a bed of cilantro has gone to seed, right next to our pickling cucumbers. I was harvesting cucumbers today and heard a hum the entire time -- thousands of bumble bees, honey bees, wasps and various insects all pollinating the flowers. It's absolutely amazing to overhear flower sex!

The Crone's Cottage in our meadow is another good place for curing garlic. You can see that the cottage has quite a lean. It might not be around in its current state for much longer.

For the meantime it makes a great place to cure garlic and butcher goats (to come later in the fall).

That's my photo documentation for the day.