As you can see from the “bee-zi-ness” on this blog, it is not only the bees which have come out of hibernating:-}! It is exciting to once again be back to taking care of the bees. I read somewhere that if you have a small farm or do backyard gardening, it is perfect to have chickens and bees. This is because the chickens take the most work in the winter months when the bees are holding up in their hives and no work is really required. In the summer the reverse is true, the chickens become less labour intensive and the bees become very active indeed.
In an earlier blog I tried to post a picture of the biodynamic calendar which we use in our beekeeping, without success. So here are the details :
The North American Biodynamic Sowing and Planting Calendar 2013 -Maria & Matthias Thun
This calendar will guide you in your natural beekeeping and it also will help you in your organic gardening.
Here at Bello Uccello we are creating a Glasshouse so we can grow food all winter long. Nova Scotia is a perfect place to winter garden – we have a 6b growing zone and lots of sunshine. My Glasshouse will have a removable roof covering so that the wind, rain and nature can be part of environment of the garden. With the help of our Biodynamic Gardening teacher we planned this Glasshouse with a four foot deep ICF foundation. What this will do is raise the inside temperature of the soil during the winter months. The four foot deep hole which we had dug inside of the glasshouse gardening area(27 feet by 4 feet) has been filled with seaweed, straw, manure,sawdust, old evergreen brush, sand, peat and soil. We are almost ready to plant!
We will be having a separate blog set up for the development of this project and its trials and successes. For several years we have been growing lots of greens in our very small cold frame to make sure this idea would work. The cold frame was successful. So this Glasshouse is a glorified “cold frame” but will work on the same principle- no added heat sources. This will make this Winter Gardening Project something which could be then translated into smaller or larger applications, according to your needs. The bees will love the flowers which will be part of this garden.
Happy Spring and Beekeeping!
its the bees knees 