No Rest for the Honey Obsessed

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Winters here in Central Texas are mild, punctuated from time-to-time by cold snaps which typically don’t last long. This winter has been historically warm and the honeybees have remained busy with their obsessive collecting of nectar and pollen for the hive. Before winter made an appearance last week, there were still a few blooms available and the bees were all in. These little gals are collecting pollen from the pretty pink flowers of Purple Heart, Setcreatsea pallida.

At the last blooms of Forsythia Sage, Salvia madrensis, these two are sipping nectar, using a process called nectar stealing or nectar robbing. This is a foraging activity where an insect doesn’t crawl into the flower to nectar, but instead bites or pokes a petal and sticks its proboscis through, directly sipping nectar and bypassing pollination. Interestingly, until this year, I hadn’t seen honeybees on this sage, only native bees, particularly the Horsefly-like Carpenter bee, Xylocopa tabaniformis.

Before the sage’s bloom cycle was ended by the blast of cold last week, honeybees, alongside one or two Mexican Honey wasps, Brachygastra mellifica, and a couple of small skippers, were the main pollinators visiting these yellow lovelies.

The blooms are gone now, the plants freezer-burned and dormant. In my garden, there is little for the bees to forage on. Honeybee activity slows during winter, but they still need to exit the hive to pee and poo and they’re driven to forage for whatever they can find in this flower limited period of the year.

When we last checked the hive in mid-October, Bo-Peep’s second (top) brood box was honey-bound and its honey box (the top-most box) had several frames of honey, but it wasn’t full. That’s probably enough honey until spring, especially given the protracted blooming in autumn and winter. Even so, I always fret in winter: do they have enough to sustain through winter and when do I add some supplemental feedings?

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to open a bottle of honey and let the bees have at it. It took them one full day and part of the next to clean up the trays where I’d poured the gooey goodness, but like good girls, they cleaned their plates. That’s a quandary: should they get dessert? After honey, what would that be?

You might wonder about the sticks on the platters. I place sticks across the honey so that the bees have something to crawl on as they’re eating. Otherwise, at least a few drown in the gooey goodness. Sad, but at least they die happy.

For January and February, once a week or so, I’ll be mixing a bottle of sugar water (a 1:1 ratio of sugar to water) as a feeding supplement. If the hive was larger and more established, I probably wouldn’t bother, but I suspect Bo is just young enough to need some extra feeding during this time before the first spring blooms appear. I won’t feed more often than once per week because I don’t want to encourage the queen too much, so that she decides its time to get busy with new brood and ramps up for spring egg laying. That’ll come, but I prefer to delay that until mid-to-late February. That said, the queen will do what weather conditions and her DNA demand and she probably won’t consult me about her decisions.

By the time I got around to taken a photo, Bo’s bees had emptied the bottle.

With cooler temperatures, I finally covered the bare ground of the bee ‘yard’ with a thick layer of newspaper, topped with an equally deep layer of pea gravel. Going forward, when we check the hive(s) after a rain, we won’t come away with mud-bound shoes.

Instead, there’s always at least one rock wedged in the treads of my shoes.

It’s always something.

Frost After the Freeze

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On Saturday, January 1, 2022, it was 78 F. The next morning I awoke to a garden at 26 F. Brrrrr! Shorts and t-shirts one day; leggings, layered jackets, cap and gloves the next!

The first thing I saw when I walked into the front garden was a hummingbird zooming past me heading straight for Mexican Honeysuckle. Unfortunately, the orange flowers were freezer-burned and the poor little bird, after trying several blooms and clearly not finding any nectar, flew off to find his breakfast. My SIL ambled over I and pointed to the hummer and suggested she put out her hummingbird feeder so the hummer could get its energy drink.

After this freeze, there’s little for pollinators. Hello winter! Sunday was a cold, windy day and it was clear that most perennials in the garden would have some freeze damage, time would tell just how much.

By Monday morning the wind had died down, but it was another very cold day, 26 F, a hard freeze. What brought me into the garden so cold and early was the appearance of the frost sculptures of Frostweed, Verbesina virginica. So named ‘frostweed’ this particular plant is known for its elaborate ice sculptures along the stems, caused by the first hard freeze of a season. The sculptures develop when water in a stem freezes and expands, breaking through the stem’s epidermis. As the water moves up the stem, it freezes into thin, fragile ribbons. The curls of ice that develop are delicate and can be quite elaborate, though I thought this year’s ice show was a bit restrained.

Frostweed produces substantial ice sculptures along its main stems, but it isn’t the only plant to rock these ice designs. On Sunday morning several perennials burst outward in icy winter performance art.

Firecracker Plant, Russelia equisetiformis:

Lemon Rose Mallow, Hibiscus calyphyllus:

Behind the frostweed, the stems of Barbados Cherry, Malpighia glabra:

The destruction of these stems means that a complete pruning to the ground is now required. The stems that grew during the year are permanently damaged and new spring growth will come from the roots. If the freeze wasn’t so hard, the plants might have suffered some freezer burn (like the aforementioned Mexican Honeysuckle), but not the bursting of the plants’ frozen pipes, effectively killing the plant above the ground. These plants are hardy, at least to 8F, so they’ll come back with warm spring breezes and longer days.

What I found interesting is that the ice sculptures happened on Monday, the second day of the freeze, not on Sunday, the first day of the freeze. Typically, it’s the first hard freeze that produces the ice sculptures. Best guess? I think because our fall and early winter has been very warm, the ground temperature prevented the stems from freezing that first night/morning, therefore there was no breakage and no ice. By the second morning, warmth from the soil had dissipated and all bets were off–it’s ice art all around!

The winter gardening chores are now set: raking and shredding of leaves, most of which go into the gardens, the rest into the compost; pruning of perennials, which is a weekly chore through February, and cleaning the pond which will be a very long, stinky day, indeed!

Flowers Before the Freeze

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It’s been a warm autumn and early winter here in Austin, Texas. December 2021 is now tagged as the warmest December on record and it sure felt like it. That said, there was finally a significant freeze at the flip of the calendar. While I’m always sorry to see the lush foliage of the garden and accompanying flowers disappear, it’s good that plants will rest, even though gardener’s work will increase.

Here’s a fond farewell to the the last blooms of the long growing season in the garden. When a hard freeze is forecast, I walk through my garden, bidding appreciation and adieu to my plants: those that completed the 2021 growing season and those who started 2021 and will initiate the 2022 growing season in a few short months.

Each year, the last perennial in my garden to flower is Forsythia Sage, Salvia madrensis. With grey-blue foliage during spring and summer and added sunny spikes in mid-to-late fall, it’s a welcome nectar source for pollinators toward the end of the growing season.

This native to Mexico blooms from September/October and until there is a significant freeze; some years as early as late October; this year in the early morning hours of January 2. Recently, the honeybees have engaged in nectar stealing and it’s a convenient place for them to dine, as the sage grows within about 6 feet from the honeybee hive.

Two days ago, I enjoyed viewing the last bunch of Purple Coneflower, Echinacea purpurea. I don’t pick flowers for indoor vases often, but I was tempted to pick these. Then a butterfly landed and I decided it (and its pollinating colleagues) need the flowers more than my kitchen table. The flowers are done now, after two nights of 26F (-3.3 C).

Most of the Plateau Goldeneye, Viguiera dentata, finished with blooms and graduated to seed production, but this one shrub plugged along with its yellow pops of color. After the freeze, it’ll be naught but seeds, pleasing the various finches, sparrows, and wrens who will visit.

The “new” garden is done–sort of. With mature sections on either side, but no tree in the middle, I’ve planted/transplanted perennials, shrubs, and grasses that will take a few years to fill in. I planted, repaired soaker hoses, and mulched, but I’m still moving in some spring blooming annuals that have developed since November. So I guess the work isn’t actually done.

Almost, I keep saying. Almost done.

A stump is all that remains of the Arizona Ash tree. I placed a large red ceramic pot on the stump, planted with a Squid agave, Agave bracteosa and Silver Ponyfoot, Dichondra argentea. In the garden’s shady past, the pot housed a Texas Beargrass, Nolina texana. With help from The Hub, we removed the beargrass–which was a BEAR– and it’s now planted to the right and in front of the yellow chair, which about 15 feet this side of the chair, though it’s hard to tell from the photo.

Pre-2022 first freeze, the only bloom in this part of the garden was one luscious Globe Mallow, Sphaeralcea ambigua. It’s a sun worshiper, so it should be very happy in its spot near the street. In fact, this plant blooms more in the cool season; during summer, it’s mostly about lovely foliage.

Roses always perform nicely during our milder winters and the Martha Gonzales rose is no exception. These red beauties will be nipped by the freeze, but new ones should develop, so there will be something for the bees.

The crazy-tall American Basket flowers, Centaurea americana have bloomed since mid summer, but I imagine that the flowering is now done. Their winter rosettes should be fine as they hug the warm ground, but those spikes topped by spidery, pinky flowers are vulnerable to cold air. I plan to move some of these pretty pollinator-friendly native annuals throughout my front garden and maybe a couple to sunny spots in the shadier back garden.

Before the freeze, several Queen butterflies, Danaus gilippus, worked basket flowers,

…and remaining blooms of the Mexican Orchid tree, Bauhinia mexicana.

Both plants will be dormant and then pruned to the ground after this hard freeze.

Another native plant to Mexico, Mexican honeysuckle, Justicia spicigera, blooms, as it does during a mild winter. Bees, some butterflies, and an over-wintering hummingbird enjoyed the blooms.

A reliable, long-blooming perennial, Tropical sage, Salvia coccinea, is a favorite of bees. It provides flowers throughout a mild winter, but anything in the 20sF makes it irrelevant for the pollinators until spring warmth brings on the dainty, white blooms.

This is also true for Firecracker Plant, Russelia equisetiformis. It blooms throughout the growing season, reveling in the heat of summer. These tubular blooms attract small metallic sweat bees. I’ll be pruning it to the ground after these chilly temperatures.

Four-nerve Daisy, Tetraneuris scaposa, will bloom throughout winter. The freeze will impact current daisies, but new ones will replace them immediately. It’s nice to have some cheerful yellow during the winter months.

The last bloom I noticed on the goodbye tour was a singular Lemon Rose Mallow, Hibiscus calyphyllus. I’ve never seen this plant flower so late, though with a record warm autumn and early winter, I guess continued blooming of the warm-season perennial makes sense. I’m certain that the freeze will render this sunny hibiscus defunct until sometime in May.

After the freeze, the garden rests. All it will need is occasional water, preferable in the form of some gentle rain, though with the drought conditions, will probably come from the end of my hose. This week I’ll begin pruning to the ground those that benefit from a complete whack and later in winter, pruning to shape for those that prefer a less dramatic end to the growing season. It won’t be too long before some of the spring-blooming trees will offer life to the insects awaiting meals and the cycle will begin anew.