Today I worked with Kat. Kat looks after the Medaterrainean garden, the acacia passage and the silver garden. First she had me retrain some Hardenbergia violcea vines that are growing on a archway in the Med house. It was hot work! The house is orientated north-south, with no shading on whitewash on the east front, plus being up a ladder didn't help either. I thought the task would go quickly, but some vines were very tangled and needed to be delicately unwound and retrained.
Hardenbergia violcea is a vine in the Fabacae family native to Australia. I found it curious, its a legume, but with a simple single leaf as opposed to bi pinnately compound leaves or tri leaves of peas and beans. It is winter flowering (well, its from Aus, so summer flowering in native habitat? ) and flowers on new wood. Kat therefore gets cut back hard after flowering in early spring. It is valuedbecause not much else is flowering in mid winter.
After lunch I was back on the ladder, this time in the acacia passage. The acacia passage is historic, running east westfrom main to orchid, while squashed between silver garden and the lilly ponds north south.
At 2.30 we had a field trip. It was a talk on bees! I thoroughly enjoyed it. My highschool summer job was working as a beekeepers assistant. I had forgotten a lot, and it was a really good recap. We first went to the acer room, where A beekeeper called Scott who has hives on Longwood property gave a talk. He talked about the bees themselves, hive dynamics, worker roles, importance of bees etc. Like NZ, the honeybees with are familiar with aren't native species, they are European. But they are much better pollinators than the native species. And as so many native pollinators have been disrupted, honey bees fill an important niche. After the talk we then went out to the demonstration hive in the treehouse. It was interesting to compare methods and practises between NZ and here. For instance, they mark their queens, and they also use different breeds of bees that can withstand the colder temperatures over winter. Pest and disease was also different. American bees have a lot, Foul brood, varoa mite, colony collapse disorder, hive beetle. NZ also has a lot, but I dont think we have hive beetle or have had many problems with colony collapse. Collony collapse disorder is interesting, and devastating. Apparently the biggest beekeeper in PA lost 3000 of 5000 hives. As beehives arent covered by insurance, it almost ruined him. Apparently the bees just leave the hive, and no one is quite sure why. Many theories have been put forward, eg moving hives, incorrect nutrition, but no one theory has been proven. Very strange... I talked to Scott and it seems like the hives on the row may finally be happening which is exciting. I am more than happy to take a role in managing them, beekeeping is fun.
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