Working on the Back Yard - Part 6 of X

Two yard updates in a row?  This has to be some sort of record!

Okay, anyway, last week on the blog, I talked about fending off weirdos at the mulch yard and moving the garden to a new spot, both events occurring in the springtime.  As spring transitioned into summer and the rain finally cleared up for good, I started harvesting tons and tons of tomatoes, as you saw in the last blog.  I was also continuously pulling gigantic zucchini out of the garden (as seen in this blog), and the basil and jalapenos were also humming happily along.  What wasn't producing much, however, was the set of tomatillo plants.  I learned in our Peoria house that you can't just plant one tomatillo, as one can't pollinate itself; to be safe, I grabbed two for our Long Beach garden; after a few months in the ground, they were growing like crazy, but they still weren't producting very much fruit.  Enter the bees!

Later in each summer season, our pepper tree brings all the bees to the yard, as they love flitting in and around its branches, knocking all of the pollen to the ground and all over everything else.  On most summer mornings, while I'm outside waiting for Kaylee to finish her a.m. ritual, the tree is literally humming due to all of the bees.  However, since these guys normally come in later summer, I wanted to see if I could jump-start the pollination of the tomatillos by going online and buying bees, specifically leafcutter bees.

Yup, you read that right.

I went online and paid actual

US currency to buy bees.

What?  There's a shortage!

In addition to the bees themselves, I ordered a cute little house for them, because obviously, accessories are important.  In a few days, my friendly USPS mail lady delivered the bees to my door, likely completely unaware of what was in the package.  

Summer bees!
Skinnier than winter bees!

Leafcutter bees are pretty calm, as bees go; while they will sting you if you poke at them, they're pretty mellow overall, and they're smaller than your standard honeybees.  They don't make honey or any sort of product like that, and instead of nesting in hives, they live in holes or cavities they find in their surroundings.  The reason they're called leafcutters is evident in the picture up top; as they nest, they snip out little bits of leaves from roses and other plants like that, roll them up, and shove them in their nests, laying eggs as they go.

My box of bee goodies!

The kit I ordered came with the items seen above - the bee house, which I'd hang on our eastern-facing fence, and the tubes containing the bees.  Although they were enclosed in the tupperware-type container seen here, they were all still asleep in their little tubes, so the box wasn't buzzing when I opened it (thank goodness).

The bee house

The house came with a ton of unoccupied tubes,

so the bees could use them later for nesting.

Bee tubes

An end view - these tubes were filled

with bees who had nested the prior season.

I also got this sweet bracelet for free!

I "heart" bees!

The care instructions advised keeping the bee tubes in a cool area until temperatures allowed us to transition them outside, so I chose the easily accessible option:

Me, to Chris: "Your lunch is on the left.

Please don't eat the bees.

Today isn't 'Take Your Bees to Work' Day."

Eventually, temps stayed consistently warm enough to introduce the bees to the yard!  I hung the bee house next to the other bee house Chris gave me for Birthmas last year (we're really into bees around here, apparently) and inserted the bee tubes into the new lodging.

Ready for boarders!

See the tubes packed with leaves?

Those are the ones with the bees.

Since all of the information I'd read on leafcutters say that they totally love using rose leaves, we also planted a few rose bushes near the back wall.  I didn't take a picture of this project specifically, but here's one shot that can also be considered a preview for a later blog:

See the wee little rose bush back there

in front of the cherry laurels?

Also, check out that redonk garden.

The zucchini seriously went nutso.

Although we didn't see a lot of activity at first, eventually, the desired result was attained, and the tomatillos fruited, producing a few decent-sized batches.  While it was enough to make a few helpings of salsa, the amount of space the plants took up compared to the quantity of fruit convinced us that maybe we don't want to raise these in the future.  Flash forward throughout the rest of the summer with me, for a moment, and arrive just a few weeks ago - as temps started to drop again, we planted a winter garden and noticed something going on with our kale:

...and also our brussel sprouts.

After a run one morning, Chris excitedly called me to the back yard to check out the bee houses.  We have some residents who seem to be settling in for their fall/winter sleep:

Sorry for the crappy angle and the shadows,

but check out the tubes covered up in mud!

The side of the older bee house...

Look inside!

See the completed rows near the bottom,

and the rows in progress closer to the top?

I think I see our kale in there!

Once it really gets cool and stays that way for the season, we'll bring the bee houses into the garage for the winter; if you leave the houses outside, pests can get into them and eat your bees up, and that's not cool!  We want our little dudes (dudettes, actually) to come back next year!

Later!

Amy