17SEP2022 – OCF Update – This’N’That

Busy day.  Had lots of yard work to get ready for the end of warm weather.  I even cut the grass today.  I didn’t notice how long the grass had grown on account of all that rain.  Man, what a mess the clippings made.  But soon enough all that will be done with.   It was nice to get out and look around the fields.  There were tons of honey bees on the goldenrod.  Now that I’ve renewed my interest in keeping bees, I was looking at the varieties of bees that were on the flowers.  And I noticed they were almost exclusively Italian bees.  These are a southern bee and they don’t fare well in cold winter areas.  But they’re the kind of bees that people get when they buy a package of bees from one of the big breeders down south.  So most likely these bees aren’t feral bees but some beekeeper’s hive.

Funny, I got a little annoyed that someone was encroaching on my goldenrod.  What the what!  The only advantage of the Italian bees is their mild tempers.  They’re the least likely race of bees to sting you even if you’re in their nest messing around with the frames full of honey and brood.  So, knowing there are a lot of apiary hives around me was a little bit of a downer.  I’m hoping to catch a swarm next spring.  But if there are a lot of apiary hives in the area chances are that the swarm will come from one of them.  That means the bees will be southern bees and most probably also bees that have been living under a regimen of chemicals to ward off varroa mites and other plagues.  I won’t be using those chemicals so the bees will have to depend on their natural robustness to survive.  But since they’ve been dosed with various chemicals, they may be quite weak.

That makes me think that I may as well purchase a bee package from a breeder who keeps northern bees under a natural beekeeping regimen.  I know there are several breeders in Vermont who have this type of bee.  I’ve read about these northern bees.  They’re known either as Russian bees or dark bees.  They are extremely cold hardy and are specialized to collecting a large amount of nectar in order to survive the long cold northern winter.  Of course, that might mean a very long drive back and forth to Northern Vermont.  That’s a hike.  It’s possible they’ll mail the bees but maybe not.  Anyway, interesting things to think about today.

While I was working on the garden, I saw both grasshoppers and katydids that were so worn out that I was able to go up to them and pick them up by the wing covers.

Even the few butterflies I saw, some fritillaries and painted ladies, were flying very slowly.  And they were much less skittish than normally when I approached them while they fed.  Of vertebrates, there were some turkeys in the yard, a few small frogs and a vole that shot out of the garden and headed into the blueberry bushes when I approached.  I managed to get some shots of the turkeys as they noticed me and retreated into the forest.

Then I walked over by the swamp.  It was looking very beat up.

But this time of the year has its charms.  A good day out in the air.

Mid-October Walkabout

I have said a lot of bad things about New England weather.  Winters here are too long, too cold and involve way too much snow removal.  And all the other seasons are too short and too weird because of the winter bias.  But there is a little slice of Autumn in the middle of October where if things happen just right there are some very cool things moving around in the yard.

 

For instance, we haven’t seen a water snake around the yard all year.

But here at the point where the water snakes will soon head underground for the winter one of them has taken to sunning himself in front of one of the gardens.  He looks as if he’s been feeding extraordinarily well.  I assume all the rain has resulted in a bumper crop of frogs and fish.  He shows up in the afternoon and basks in the sun soaking up the heat he needs to metabolize the food in his stomach.  The temperatures are predicted to start falling into the 30’s at night.  That probably will send this snake underground for the winter.

And when all the other flowers in the yard are almost completely gone two flowers reach their peak in October.

Here’s the Montauk Daisies with two visitors a hover fly shows up for some pollen and nectar.

And a katydid gets to work devouring the leaves.

And the other flower I always look forward at this time of year is Wolfsbane.  Also known as Monkshood, the appearance of it’s bright purple flowers tell me Halloween is right around the corner and time for me to dust off my classic monster movies and quickly finish up my fall yard work.  Snow in late October is far from unheard of.

 

Here’s a salamander who was doing some fall foraging for his last meals.

And here are some interesting shots of milkweed seed pods.

 

I was disappointed not to have any candid shots of the local werewolf community.  Perhaps next week.