California Gardening: Crown Fire - The Aftermath, 1 by SingingWolf

SingingWolf wrote:
The bees were moved out from those locations the day I took the photos. (last Thursday) We normally have to put a new queen in at least once a year to make sure the hive doesn't turn Africanized. The worker bees, don't live very long in the first place. DH said that aside from them being more docile than normal, they were fine. In the long term, I don't think it'll be a problem for the bees.
The only thing I know of besides insecticides that hurts bees is a tree that causes genetic mutations. Drat, I forgot the name of the tree. Wait, I remembered! It's a Buckeye tree? It's a really pretty tree, but the bee larvae that eat the nectar/honey from the Buckeye tree, don't develop wings, or have other abnormalities. These guys are going to be fine, the smoke just makes them docile. They have plenty of food in them hives, they just need water to cool the hives.
DH has been moving them up to Bakersfield and points north of that for the Blue Curl crop. The buckwheat crop was almost over anyway.
I am sending you a photo of a blue curl plant. It is not currently blooming. They have such a strong odor, that nothing will eat the plant. Well, except the bees eat the nectar. Once you smell blue curl, you'll never forget the odor. It's medicinal use among the NAI was as an astringent.
For such a noxious weed it sure makes fine honey. The sugar content is so high that it has to go into a "honey pool" or it will start to sugar up almost immediately. Putting it the honey pool, just dilutes it enough so that it doesn't crystallize or sugar up so quickly.
Since blue curl is really picky about it's growing conditions, we don't always get a crop of honey from it, but we will this year! : - )
This blue curl is very short right now, a couple of inches tall and not bushy. When they are very happy, they can get about 18 inches tall and about a foot in diameter. These be sprigs.
Most of the wild life that could, left. I didn't see any other dead things except that one bird, and the cow that was already dead. Some flew or ran before the fire, others burrowed deep, and some took shelter under and inside of some of those bushes (like where the hawk was), because they didn't burn.
FIL says it'll be a couple of years before the buckwheat comes back. Maybe only two years if it rains a lot, more if not.
We have to wait and see.
Meanwhile, I just showed MIL the photos I took. She was so amazed that we didn't loose more hives, after seeing the photos. She's even going to make that a topic for her church blessing this week. That God is present with us today, and still performs miracles. She intends to use the bees and how they survived to illustrate her point.
Thanks to the Creator and Thanks to the CDF Firefighters that we still have our bees.
Thanks for the compliment, QG, but really it's the camera not me. LOL!
Okay, enough, here's the photo of the blue curl.
WIB~
SW

This message was edited Aug 10, 2010 5:57 PM