Brennah – Page 7 – Brennah's Backyard

Flying Ants

swarming ants — Ant workers and queens on a leaf

A couple of times this year, I have witnessed the ant colonies in the yard swarming. Or at least, that’s what I’m inclined to call it; as a beekeeper, swarming means colony reproduction to me. But the process is different for ants, and I’m not sure swarming is the right word for their colony reproduction. All the colonies send out their young queens and drones (is drones what it’s called for ants?) to mate and presumably hibernate and start new colonies next spring. The workers do not accompany them as honey bees do. Each colony sends out dozens if not hundreds of queens. The queens seemed reluctant to leave; it looked like the worker ants were herding them out, and appeared to be chasing and even biting the young queens. The queens have good reason to be reluctant; their odds for surviving their flight are terrible. There’s a reason each colony sends out so many.

ants swarming — A queen being herded to the edge of a leaf

By the time I started taking pictures, most of the queens had taken flight already, (this first part happens impressively quickly) and many of those that were left had damaged looking wings. They were trying to leave, and the workers were insisting, but their wings were causing them difficulty.

queen and worker ants — This queen is actually missing one of her wings

ant queens and workers — Ant queens and workers on a leaf. A couple of them have slightly battered looking wings.

ant queen and workers — This queen seems to have good wings

ant workers and queens

All colonies of a particular species of ant sends out their winged offspring at once, and for a few hours, the air is thick with flying ants. Not too surprisingly, any creatures that like to eat insects see this as a brief opportunity to feast.

jumping spider eating queen ant — This is how most of the flying ants will end up; as food, not necessarily for a jumping spider specifically, but for many different predatory insects, spiders and birds.

I have seen ant colonies sending out their queens in previous years, but this year, not only did I see it happen twice, it seemed like there were just a lot more ants. It seemed like every few feet was another clump of ants, sending off their young queens. ant queen and workers

Cool Weather Crops

Fall can be a very productive time for the garden. All the cool weather crops we’ve planted for winter are reaching maturity now, and it hasn’t yet become cold enough to kill the warm weather crops (which right now is mostly just tomatoes, since we weren’t able to plant much for summer due to the flooding this spring). Most of the cool weather crops we planted should continue to be harvestable into winter, and although options are fairly limited now, there are still seeds that can be planted. For the most part, though, plants grow very slowly during the dead of winter, so it is important to have most of what you want to be eating in the winter pretty much full size by late fall.

endive and escarole — Endive and escarole, but which is which is confusing with these varieties since they both look more typical of the other type… but it doesn’t matter too much, as they taste similarly. They are both the same species and are actually a type of chicory.

mustard green leaf — The frilly edge of a mustard leaf.

This is Tokyo bekana, a plant in the mustard family that is mild enough to use like lettuce.

The purple veins of a variety of flowering broccoli

Mizuna, another mustard/cabbage family crop. Sometimes we may rely on this plant family a little too much… it has a huge amount of variety, but many of the ‘different crops’ are actually the same species. This is the same species as the flowering broccoli and the Tokyo bekana, as well as other crops we’ve planted that I haven’t included here.

tomato flowers — Most of the tomatoes around just came up on their own, and this one came up pretty close to winter, but nobody wants to just pull it out…

Mushroom Gallery

Mushrooms are not my most familiar subject, especially as far as specific types go. Most of the ones I can specifically recognize are the distinctive looking ones (exactly the ones you’d expect). Mushrooms are undoubtedly worth knowing about, but so far I have mostly just been observing (and photographing) them. And I’ve been spotting some interesting ones lately.

bird's nest mushroom — This is some sort of bird’s nest mushroom, but these ‘nests’ are not open yet…

bird's nest mushrooms — Some more bird’s nest mushrooms, and these ones are very ripe (and smushed together pretty tightly).

These mushrooms were growing from a chunk of earth torn out of the ground by a fallen tree in the woods. This is the spot where they were thickest, which was in deep shadow, and it was dusk, so this picture is pretty dim, but it captures the scene quite accurately.

turkey-tail mushrooms? — These are the mushrooms I think might actually be turkey-tails. These were on the fallen cherry tree last February, and the only ones I’m including in this series that weren’t spotted in the last couple months.

Aster Season

The time of year when the asters and goldenrod are blooming (late summer to early fall) is the time of year when most social insects (insects that live in colonies) like honey bees are at their highest population for the year. The asters are one of the last major nectar flowers for the honey bees, and the asters are covered in them. At first glance it may seem to be all honey bees and other social insects (like hornets and bumble bees), but there’s actually quite a wide variety of pollinators drawn to them.

melissodes (longhorn) bee with pollen on aster — Melissodes (longhorn) bee with pollen on aster

probably an andrena bee, on an aster — This is most likely an andrena bee, but the andrena clan is one I’ve not gotten around to thoroughly figuring out yet, so I’m not quite sure.

Painted lady butterfly on new england aster. I often don’t have much luck photographing butterflies when I am specifically trying to, but while just photographing whatever I could find on the asters, this butterfly landed directly in front of me.

bumble bee on new england aster — Bumble bee on new england aster

Cucumber beetle on heart leaved aster. This aster is less common in my yard, and I’ve been trying to encourage it. These flowers are on some new plants found in the lawn this spring and preserved from mowing.

Hover fly (sryphid fly) on aster — Hover fly (sryphid fly) on an aster

Wasps and Hornets, Garden Allies

Paper Wasps

Social wasps like paper wasps apply the large workforce of an insect colony to a different task than that of the honey bees (although wasps are still pollinators): pest control. Adult wasps feed on nectar while their larvae eat other insects. The larvae aren’t able to catch insects to eat on their own, so they rely on the adults in the colony to hunt for them. Paper wasps seem to be pretty non-aggressive from what I’ve experienced, so these are the ones I hope will establish nests around my garden.

Paper wasp (polistes) on goldenrod — Paper wasp on goldenrod looking a little startled to see me

Paper wasp (polistes) grooming on goldenrod — Paper wasp grooming on goldenrod

Bald-Faced Hornets

Like paper wasps, bald-faced hornets hunt insects for their larvae, but they also have a reputation for being ferocious, and having very painful stings. I suspect though, that the temperament of individual colonies varies. For one season there was a colony of bald-faced hornets on the from of my house. No one got stung in the time it was there, even though I got pretty close to it a few times. Either way, the foragers (not by the nest) are fairly calm, most of the time. I’ve always thought they were really cool looking, but this is the first year I’ve been able to get pictures of them I’m satisfied with.

Bald-faced hornet (dolichovespula maculata) on goldenrod — Bald-faced hornet on goldenrod

Platydracus Maculosus Rove Beetle

I took these pictures of a spotted rove beetle (platydracus maculosus) at the beginning of this month, but I saw what I think may have been the same (individual) beetle again yesterday. My main reason for thinking that is that I found it in exactly the same spot as last time.

Rove beetles don’t seem to be very well known and it wasn’t easy finding any information that was specific to this species. I found out about them when this spring’s flooding drove them out of their usual cover, and now I seem to be keyed in to them because they’re very unique looking and I find them cute.

First Harvest

Over the last month, we’ve been working on planting crops for the fall and winter. Now we’re starting to be able to harvest our first greens from our efforts, but they aren’t the ones we planted! Those ones are still coming along, but aren’t ready yet. The plants we’ve been harvesting are weeds. Many of the weeds that commonly pop up in gardens are actually edible and nutritious, and if you know which ones they are, they can add variety to the harvest (and make it come sooner as most of them are very quick growing and are best harvested young). Here’s a look at what we’re harvesting.

Amaranth

Amaranth is not just a weed, it is a plant that is often grown as a crop, but it also grows wild and is often treated as a weed when it does. We have a wild variety, and we also have a variety that is a cultivar that has probably crossed with the wild variety, and just pops up in the chicken yard now (and wherever the soil from the chicken yard goes, like our garden).

This red amaranth is the descendant of a cultivar.

Wild mustard

This is one of our most prevalent weeds and as a stronger green, much more comes up than we can eat. Fortunately, the chickens love it, and we like to share it with them. Especially in the winter when greens are scarce, wild mustard growing in our hoophouse (along with bittercress and some greens from our crops) helps satisfy their constant appetite for greens.

honey bee in flight over wild mustard — Honey bee flying over wild mustard. Bees like to forage on the flowers of wild mustard, and it often blooms fairly late into the fall.

Wild Spinach (chinopodium album)

This plant has a lot of common names, many of which are also used for other unrelated plants. In other words, the common names of chinopodium album are a bit of a disorganized mess. I like wild spinach since it is fairly descriptive (it is related to spinach, although technically it is more closely related to quinoa), and I’ve never heard anything else being called that. Other names I’ve heard this plant called are goosefoot, lamb’s quarters, fat hen, and pigweed (this name is also applied to amaranth).

chinopodium album leaf — Young wild spinach leaf with mineral salt secretion. Young leaves look powdery, but with an extreme close up like this, it looks almost like water drops or little marbles.

Prepping the Honey Bees for Winter

At this time of year, honey bees can be reluctant to build comb. Comb takes a lot of resources to build, and empty comb is not of value to a colony heading into winter. (It is actually a liability.) So bees don’t want to build new comb if they might not be able to fill it with honey before winter, and usually this time of year they are focusing on filling the comb they have with nectar. Wax that the bees do produce is often used to cap cells of ripe honey or even elongate cells intended for honey so that they can pack the space they’re already using with even more.

honey bee making wax — Honey bee making wax. Honey bees secrete wax from glands in their abdomens after eating large amounts of nectar or honey.

At the moment, the little colonies I started this summer are still quite… little. They don’t really have enough comb to fit the amount of honey they require over the winter. I actually have a box of comb that I can give each of them as soon as they each finish filling the box they are in now. (The reason they have to finish filling the box they’re in is due to differences in hive part compatibility.) In the meantime, I have been feeding them ‘bee tea’, which is a sugar syrup made with herbal tea to help them digest the sugar. It is earlier in the year than I would normally feed them, since I only feed sugar if they are likely to starve if I don’t. The goldenrod and asters are still on their way; in the past, I’ve fed them after most of the nectar sources are done for the year and they haven’t collected enough. This year, I’m feeding them to produce the comb to be able to store enough.

honey bees on mint flowers — My view while harvesting mint for the bee tea. There were lots of honey bees foraging on this little patch of mint. The bee in the foreground is an older forager, as her slightly frayed wings and slight bald patch on her back indicate.

Herbs for the bee tea: yarrow, sage, mint, lemon balm, chamomile, stinging nettle. I also had hyssop, but I realized that it’s buried under the sage in the photo. The chamomile and stinging nettle are the dried herbs on the edge of the photo.

The recipe for the bee tea comes from the website of Spikenard Farm Honeybee Sanctuary.

https://spikenardfarm.org

https://spikenardfarm.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Healing-Tea-for-Honeybees-2_15_15.pdf

Willowherb

Willowherb is a plant with a very small pink flower, that I’ve always looked at with mild curiosity, but it wasn’t until I noticed its seedpod that I decided to identify it (there’s always a variety of things to identify, vying for my attention). I’d not seen a seedpod quite like it before, although I’d seen plenty of other interesting seedpods. Both the flower and the seedpods of willowherb are small and all these photos are larger than life size. The seeds are probably about the size of poppy seeds and the flowers about the size of a lentil. I don’t know a whole lot about them yet, but they did finally manage to catch my attention!

Queen Anne’s Lace, the Wild Carrot

wild carrot (queen anne's lace) flower — Wild carrot flower (also known as queen anne’s lace)

A very common wildflower (or weed, depending on one’s perspective) in my area is a plant known as queen anne’s lace, but it is also called wild carrot, because it is the ancestor of the carrots most people are familiar with eating. It is actually even the same species as domestic carrot. Its presence in large number in the area is a clue that domestic carrots can grow well here (and I have found that to be true). But ironically, its presence also makes it almost impossible to save seeds from domestic carrots grown here, assuming you want the domestic carrots to stay domestic; they will cross with the wild carrots and eventually revert back to wild carrots themselves.

wild carrot (queen anne's lace) — A thick patch of wild carrot by the woods

Tachina fly on wild carrot (queen anne's lace) — Tachina fly on wild carrot

At this point in the year, the wild carrots that are in their second year of life are flowering (carrots are biennials, meaning that they live two years). The flowers are food for many pollinators, but I’ve noticed bumble bees seem to especially like them. Bumble bees race around the flowers while foraging on wild carrot, somehow gathering up pollen while on the run.

Mud dauber wasp on wild carrot (queen anne's lace) — Mud dauber wasp on wild carrot.

honey bee with pollen foraging on wild carrot (queen anne's lace) — Honey bee foraging on wild carrot flower. Honey bees actually don’t seem to like wild carrot flowers all that much but they will forage on it when it is abundant and not much else is. Also, there tend to be a few bees in each colony that will do things differently from their sisters, like bringing home wild carrot pollen, while everyone else is bringing home oregano nectar (which is the case here; the nearby oregano was covered in bees, while this one lone bee foraged on the wild carrot).

In their first year, wild carrots produce a long taproot to store energy for overwintering. In their second year they flower, grow seeds, and die. Domestic carrots are pretty much the same, but with a slightly more exaggerated, and more colorful, taproot. (Wild carrots have white roots.)

wild carrot (queen anne's lace) seeds — Wild carrot seeds ripening