Dreaming of Beeez

It happens to me every year. Usually as soon as the gardening magazines start arriving I begin to look outside and think that yes, perhaps there is still hope for tomorrow. Yes, perhaps spring will someday arrive.

And I have really been awful for at least two years now when it comes to my garden. All is hope and light and warmth in the spring but as I have been having increasing amounts of mobility issues, I have basically lost interest by June and when August arrives, my garden is an exercise in Darwinian horticulture. I have better things to do, things that don’t involve bending and digging and overdosing on ibuprofen.

But this year just might be different and I’m alternately skeptical and excited. I’ve just sent in my membership to the Minnesota Hobby Beekeepers Association and I’m looking forward to the Beekeepers short course in the cities on March 8-9. I’ve even started looking over what hives and equipment I might be interested in.

I think the skeptical part comes in when I start to consider what I would like to do to my current vegetable garden. Although I am hoping to put up my hives outside of Duluth, I think I would like to turn my present vegetable garden into a bee specific sanctuary. I am already rocking with the feral bees in my flower garden. (That last sentence is pure nerd gold!) But I would like to plant some recommended bee specific plants and maybe put in a small water feature so that the bees will love me even more.

I didn’t do anything about the hornets in my railroad ties yet, I’m still ruminating on introducing a non organic spray into my garden. I’ve been gardening there since we moved in and I have yet to do anything with chemicals. And my bees wouldn’t like chemicals. And perhaps hornet stings are also good for arthritis?