I can’t believe its almost May already. I’m so far behind! I have so much to tell you!
Hope everyone is doing well. Spring has sprung I guess for everyone by now and nature’s in full bloom. So let’s start off with an update on our bees. It was a tough Fall/Winter last year for the bees, we ended the year with just 1 active hive. Fast forward to spring this year and the two hives I normally keep are full, the new one I just added is full and I have two swarm traps full waiting for a place to call home.
Spring is the time when bee hives start growing their numbers and when they grow a little too fast and there isn’t much food around yet they will swarm, basically splitting the hive in two and half the group will leave to find another home. So this is a great time to add to your hive numbers, by making attractive places (swarm traps) that they’ll want to call home. I’ve caught five swarms this year! Two of them did not have a queen when they swarmed, so they won’t become a viable hive ever, but the other three are busy building their new families in my hives. As you can see to the left, a swarm has found one of my traps. I think it’s going to be a good honey harvest year for us.
Next up is a couple of updates to our collections of wildlife sightings both above and below the water. It’s already looking to be a super year for our land wildlife sightings as I have several Florida firsts added to our collection. Check out the Reddish Egret, which is said to be a rare species in our area. Add to that were sightings of Eastern Meadowlark and the Northern Bobwhite quail heading to their summer grounds. And in the plant category is a spectacular wild Grass Orchid! Our 2026 collection can be found here.
The underwater wildlife has been very productive as well this year and we’ve updated our collection of critter finds from the Blue Heron Bridge in West Palm Beach which you can check out here.
And lastly lets talk about food! As you might know Barb and I have been working hard growing quite a variety of fruits and vegetables on our property. Well I added a few new fruits to our orchard.
This is a papaya that we grew from seeds that we brought back from Indonesia a few years ago. An odd looking papaya for sure, but its very large, has a small seed pocket and a sweet flavor.
We got a peach tree from Barb’s family when Mom past away a few years back and this year it really took off. we got almost 50 peaches this year. The variety is called “Florida Prince” but we call it a blood peach (for obvious reasons)
And lastly we added a tropical mulberry last year. It lost all its leaves last fall and we thought we lost it, so we cut it way back. And then this spring it started growing like a weed and actually gave us a few berries! Boy are they delicious.
And lastly for those of you who might be thinking I haven’t been doing much in the kitchen. I’ve been working on quite a few things including an ancient German pumpernickel, Papaya candies, new green mango pickle recipe and pictured is a new recipe for pretzel buns for hamburgers and bratwursts.
So thats it! Well almost. Barb and I went picking blueberries last week and they were so wonderful that we bought a couple of plants of our own! Can’t wait for next years harvest!
Would you like to receive notification of new blog entrees? Head over to my “Contact us” page and leave me an email. And in case you haven’t had a chance to see the whole site, you can check that out here. I know that everyone uses a phone to surf the internet, but my site really is better in a larger format. Tim
Leave a Reply