The Winter That Wasn't, The Spring That Isn't, and Zombies

Too Soon

      So far this season is a mess.  
      After a ridiculously tepid winter, lacking nearly all the icy shimmer and blustery cold snaps that my romantic heart is fond of, we were met with, ahead of the actual equinox, temperatures in the 80's. My cats were on the floor with their tongues lolling out like high it was noon in Death Valley.
     What a disappointment. Spring should unfold gently, revealing hints and clues to its forthcoming splendor, not hammer us like a bomb. In view of this current disaster, I've officially declared 2012 to be the War on Spring. Bill O'Reilly has not returned my emails, but I suppose he's too busy polishing his forthcoming book on climate science, I Only Believe What I Say (Well, Maybe that Foxy Ann Coulter, Sometimes.)
     Maybe it's my age, but I can't remember ever feeling so doomy-gloomy about the state of the environment, and this is from a guy who predicted in grade school that earth would end in smoldering ruins by our own hands, with everyone screaming, "How did this happen? I put a brick in my toilet tank!"
    Our weather ship now sails into unknown waters, raising numerous, unsettling questions. On March 21st the BBC science news reported on a study published in the journal Nature: "Experts warn that the [warmer temperature] changes will lead to a breakdown in symbiotic relationships with ecosystems, such as plants' dependence on pollinators."
     Crikey, this scares the dandruff off my scalp. "Pollinators" means the whole massive lot, including bees, beetles, flies, wasps, moths, ants and a slew of vertebrates such as bats and hummingbirds. It's bad enough that these organisms have already been in decline since the mid 20th century, thanks to a host of injurious assaults ranging from habitat loss to pesticide use. 
     Soil temperatures here are already in the 60's. My roses, which normally begin pushing tender buds in very late April, are flushed with bright green leaves. The elms in the woods are far ahead of schedule, bursting with bronze foliage. My early variety daffodils are already kaput. I've mowed the field, twice.  
     I once read how important it is for us to slowly transition ourselves through the season changes because it's healthy for our circadian rhythms--wearing shorts on the first warmish day of March gets the brain in a tizzy. Sure, when the first warmish day of March is 60 degrees, it's exhilarating. Even people who don't golf rush out to buy a set of clubs. But when I'm sweating buckets and cursing the heat before I've sowed my first crop of salad greens, it's ominous. I half expect the dead to crawl from their graveyards.  
     March is the now the new May, and if our future gardens become too hot for peas to germinate, at least we'll have an endless supply of zombies to hand pollinate our banana crops and pick our coffee beans.  
     Until the apocalypse arrives, here are a handful of pretty, and untimely, things from my garden.

Golden Throated Species Tulip

Deep Purple Species Tulip

Pale Daffodil, Looking Up

Pinky Pink-Pink Hyacinth

Narcissus, Unashamed

Flamin' Species Tulip

They Look Like Lotus!

Hella B.

A Circle of Dainty Dancers

Hortense Hellebore

Red Flash Species Tulip

For. SIGH. Thee. Uh.

Spare. Gus. Tips.

Ari Muscari

MOLES ARE COOL!  GET OVER IT!

Shane VanOosterhout is The Passionate Gardener.  

For more garden inspiration, you can follow him on Facebook. 

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All Time Bee Time in the Hive

*Illustration by Fredy Santiago

     A hobby beekeeper is a bit lonely during the winter.  He sometimes sulks and worries about his bees, and he wakes up shivering on a blustery night fearing that his bees will freeze to death when the temperature dips below 32 F.  He routinely visits his hive every day, although there is nothing to see because bees don't fly when it's cold.  He asks his chickens, who live alongside the hive, if they know anything.  They do not.  They only want grapes.  

     Sometimes the beekeeper gently taps on the side of his hive and shyly inquires, "Hello?"  But he is only disappointed by the lack of response, and he wistfully remembers the good times: last summer, when his bees never failed to greet him.
     So what exactly do domesticated honeybees do to pass the time during the cold season?  Play checkers?  Tell ghost stories? Take up knitting?
     A for-profit beekeeper tends hundreds or even thousands of hives and ships them someplace warm during the winter, such as Florida, where he leases his bees to citrus and nut farmers for crop pollination.  (Sadly, it's not in a bees' contract to receive paid vacations, so there will be no side trips to Disneyworld to see famous animatronic bees reading the Gettysburg Address.)

     However, a picayune apiarist has no need to truck a single hive down south, so he is hanging tough with what's left of his hive after the Great Swarm of 2011. 

     Honeybees stay warm in winter by clustering together in the middle of the hive at the top of the comb, contracting their chest muscles (they have no Pilates instructors in the colony) which keeps the center of the cluster at a constant 93 F. 

     Inside the cluster the workers all point their heads facing inward. The queen of course luxuriates at the balmy nucleus of this big bee snuggle, pampered by her devoted workers.  If she needs an extra pair of socks or someone to bring her a mug of honey, she gets it.  The workers continuously rotate their location within the cluster--those in the middle eventually move to the sidelines and vice versa.  The division of labor is surprisingly democratic.

 My Insulated Hive

     When outside temperatures are above freezing, bees can comfortably move about inside the hive.  Below freezing, the bees are immobile, with nothing to do except stare at each other's butts.  In fact they cannot even walk two inches to eat honey.  The longer and colder a winter is, the more a colony is at risk for starvation, especially if they did not have a good supply of pollen and nectar to forage from the previous spring and summer, or if the size of the colony is small.  
     Any amount of additional insulation helps the hive retain heat, thus boosting the colony's survival rate.  In a warmer hive the bees will shiver less and can conveniently access honey reserves without risk of freezing to death. 
     Apis mellifera are meticulously domestic. They don't poop indoors they and they prefer not to have corpses piling up on the living room floor. On a mild windless day, dead bees are dragged to the landing board and then dumped overboard.  This behavior indicates that the colony is alive and organized around their queen.

Bring Out Your Dead

     If all goes well and the bees survives until daytime temperatures are consistently over 50 F., the queen begins laying eggs.  Lucky surviving workers will by now have reached an uncommonly ripe old age of nearly six months (during the busy season a worker may live only 60 days) and without complaint these old ladies begins to raise brood and nurse them to adulthood. This will be the beginning of the success of the colony for another summer.  Only then will the anxious beekeeper breathe a sigh of relief.
     

A Worker Laid to Rest

*A special thanks to the very talented artist Fredy Santiago for creating the queen bee illustration specially for this post.  I love Fredy's drawings for their clever humor and incredible use of line and color. He is for hire!  Be sure to check out Fredy's ultra cool website: www.imsugarcoated.com

Shane VanOosterhout is The Passionate Gardener.  

For more garden inspiration, you can follow him on Facebook.