Botany is kinda weird!

When I studied Botany I initially found the description of the things I would eat definitely odd. I guess the first rule is that plant species and parts are all classified and generally clumped together with similar physiology.

Take for instance the definition of a ‘true’ vegetable? Well it is anything that is the root, stem or leaf of a plant. Which of cause makes for some interesting anomalies in how we describe the food we eat, because this means that while many of us would call rhubarb a fruit because we use for dessert, technically it’s a vegetable.

Then there is the proper definition of a fruit: fruits are the ovaries of a flowering plant that develops after its seeds are fertilised (or sometimes even without fertilisation). So corn, peas and cucumber etc are all fruits. What about cauliflower, broccoli? Well they do contain the ovaries but they haven’t developed so they are simply defined as flowers. Weirdly the pink inside of a ripe fig is the flowers…

It gets even more complicated because we have further definitions of these fruits into fleshy and dry, simple and complicated. So technically just on the fleshy side we end up with drupes, poms, hesperidiums, aggregate fruits and berries. So as not to confuse myself I’ll leave the dry fruits for another day. Simply to say that dry fruits are more than a nut!

Drupes are stone fruits, they are composed of an outer skin, flesh and a hard seed in the middle. As a simple fruit they come from the ovary of a single flower and include mangos, avocadoes, olives, cherries and peaches. Poms are similar but have more seeds without the stone and are apples and pears. Hesperidiums are citrus with all those co-joined segments. Aggregate fruits come from multiple flowers that produce many fruits that mature into a single, larger fruit for example pineapples and mulberries. So next time you look at a pineapple each one of those hexagonal shapes is a fruit in it’s own right…

And strawberries? Well they’re not even a fruit. They’re a special type of plant structure a ‘fleshy receptacle’. The seeds in the strawberry are the actual fruit part.

Confused? You might be interested in watching the Scishow’s Hank Green’s

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LybfPwCzs3g

Aussie Adaptions to Climate Change….

“Koala climbing tree” by Diliff – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

The timing of life cycle events and their interaction with the seasonal climate is called phenology. Now, phenology is sensitive to small changes in the environment. The life cycles of many plants and animals affect our day-to-day lives, and understanding these cycles is important for our survival. To effectively produce food or hunt, we need to understand animal behaviour and plant growth, and how these are linked to the environment.

I have been doing a little research about how Climate Change affects our environment. There seems to be a lot of information from the Northern Hemisphere, this is probably due to the noticeably visible seasonal changes over this region e.g the first snow event of the season.

Documented ‘firsts’ in these countries, like the arrival of migratory birds or flowering, are very obvious and easy to record. Other phenological events have also been recognized because of cultural significance -in Japan, the date of the first bloom of their cherry trees is known from as far back as the ninth century.

Whilst our records here in Australia are less extensive the University of Melbourne, Earthwatch and the Bureau of Meteorology have set up a ‘citizen science project known as ‘Climatewatch’. Data from this project suggests that the breeding season and migration of many birds is beginning earlier by an average of 2-3 days each decade. According to the Bureau of Meteorology some Australian plants are flowering, fruiting and being harvested as earlier as an average of 9 – 10 days per decade.

The term ‘flowering’ doesn’t just mean the development of flowers but also means the presence of pollen in the air. What was once thought of as the “pollen season” is also changing as the climate changes.

Researchers in Italy have found that the pollen season for several allergenic plants (birch, cypress, olive, grass, and Parietaria) was up to 85 days longer in recent decades, with the pollen season starting earlier now than in the 1980’s.

Wine grapes in southern Australia are also maturing earlier, as much as an average eight days earlier per decade since 1985. These changes are related to increasing air temperatures and decreasing moisture in the soil.

Box-ironbark forests are unusual in that they have trees that flower during winter. These flowers are a vital food source for nectar-dependent woodland birds, and are known as a ‘keystone’ element, because if these ironbarks fail to flower, leaving dependent woodland birds short of a vital food supply.

Records from 1945 to 1970 of red ironbark flowering in the Rushworth Forest in Victoria, indicate that no flowering occurred in only four of the 26 years. However, a more recently between 1997 to 2007 of red ironbark flowering found that the number of years with no flowering had increased. Over the 11-year study, there were four years with no flowering, with three of the failures occurring in the final six years. These flowering failures may have contributed to recent declines in the number of woodland birds in that forest.

This type of information comes from the public, you and me…There are over 170 species of plants, birds, mammals, marine creatures and insects that are being studies. If you like me are interested observation methodologies and details about this project can be found at www.climatewatch.org.au. This month along 44 people have downloaded information detailing some 125,939 bits of data. Wow!

Build it and they will come…

In recent years, with the publicity of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) of European Honey Bees in the Unites States of America and Europe, there has been increased research into native bee species. CCD is a term used to describe the mass disappearance of worker honey bees from the hive. The result is a breakdown of the colony and insufficient workers being present to maintain that colony. In America the cause of CCD has not been clearly identified although many reasons have been suggested, including infectious diseases, malnutrition, pesticides, mites (Varroa destructor), immunodeficiencies, bad beekeeping practices (antibiotic use, long-distance transportation of hives) and electromagnetic radiation. In Australia CCD has always been associated with the microsporidian Nosema apis but this is not the case in America. Where over 50% colony losses in their beekeeping operations have been reported for example 750,000 – 1,000,000 hives died between 2007-2008.

With no massive losses to hives in Australia, research into Native Bees has never the less been advancing. Of interest to me, in Western Sydney (between Parramatta and Lithgow) there are 200 different bee species, most are solitary and therefore do not suffer from colony collapse, because there are no colonies, they don’t produce honey in bulk, but the do provide a massive source of pollination and are therefore of great interest to agriculture. Who knew – not me! It’s a whole new world for me…In NSW we have Carpenter bees, Reed bees, Blue banded bees, Teddy bear bees, Leafcutter bees, Resin bees, Masked bees and Homalictus bees, the diversity is amazing, the different niches are fascinating…and niches are every where -Yellow, Black and Green Carpenter bees are not always welcome in some residencies because as the name might imply they build their nest is decking, carports, porches as well as trees, but curiously of these 200 local species 70% live in the ground.

Carpenter bees, Blue banded bees and Teddy bear bees are capable of a special behaviour known as buzz pollination, which is ideal for the flowers of tomatoes, capsicums, eggplants and chilli peppers. Good plants for attracting native bees include (not so amazingly) Australian natives especially Abelia grandiflora,

Angophora spp, Baekea spp, Buddleja davidii, Callistemon spp, Eucalyptus spp, some Grevillea spp, Hardenbergia violacea, Leptospermum spp, Melaleuca spp and Westringia spp. As well as introduced herbs like basil, sage and lavender. Ideally, you need lots of different kinds of flowers that bloom during the different seasons, so there is always something available to the bees on any given day. Not all nectar and pollen is equally nutritious, so a variety is important for a healthy bee diet. The greater diversity of flowers you plant the better. Native bees generally have a much shorter foraging range than honey bees, so you can’t assume they will nest in your yard but get their pollen and nectar somewhere else.

We do however have a native honey bees (Tetragonula carbonaria previously Classified as Trigona carbonaria) in the Sydney region that does create colonies and is now much demand with enthusiasts. It is better adapted to warm climates, so the bad news, for me anyway, is that they don’t survive the cold winters of the Upper Blue Mountains. Hazelbrook is about the limit of their range, even there the climate is marginal for these stingless ‘sugar-bag’ bees, so that boxed hives need to be carefully sited and managed. Harvesting excessive honey from hives is not recommended in these areas as the bees will not fly at temperatures below 18 °C, so they need the honey they collect during summer to survive the long winter months.

Tetragonula carbonaria  are a tiny 3 – 5 mm, black and are considered stingless along with only 9 other species, Australia wide. It has been said that all native bees are stingless but this is not the case. Like Honey bees a nest consists of a queen, drones, and hundreds of worker bees. In the wild they usually nest inside hollow trees but in urban situations they may be found inside wall cavities or underneath concrete footpaths. Or you can create a bee box/hive. According to the web Elke Haege, sell Native Bees and hives for the Sydney region, her Tetragonula carbonaria are bred and acclimatized to the Sydney region. If your interested her
website is http://www.elkeh.com.au.

But as I have said where I live these bees would not survive so I am concentrating on solitary bees. They only lay a single egg at a time and therefore don’t fly around laden with pollen bags, one egg needs less food than a whole brood, but it does mean if you have lots of individual eggs hatching out there you need numerous individual rooms in your ‘hotel’. So if like me, you just want to add native bees into your garden’s diversity, you can create a bee ‘hotel’. Blue Mountain Mountains Organic Community Garden in Katoomba has one in Victoria Street if you want to check one out. Basically if you want to provide nest sites it can be bundle of bamboo canes or even drinking straws or a block of hardwood drilled with holes (4 mm up to 9 mm wide and about 150 mm deep). Different bee species are differing sizes hence the different sized holes. By autumn most adult solitary bees die, however, the developing young bees live on in their cells, emerging in the next spring to fly amongst the flowers and vegetables.

Bee ‘hotels’ should be at least a meter or so above the ground, ideally closer 2m. Individual bamboo bundles or wood blocks can be hung up using wire, while metal garden stakes with wood screws work well for holding larger wooden shelter boxes. Watch out for wasps, ants and spiders. Keep approaches to the nest lubricated with petroleum jelly, or a similar product, this makes it difficult for ants and spiders to keep their grip, and keep the immediate area around the nest clear of tall grass and weeds so ants and spiders cannot climb up directly onto the nest.

Then there are all those ground dwelling species to cater for. Apparently they prefer bare ground, not grassed or mulched. Not so much like my permie garden, so the answer is rammed earth inside besa bricks. Lay them both vertically and horizontally for different niches. For example the Blue banded bees (Amegilla spp) with most species 8–13 mm long like vertical surfaces, even old style mortar in between house bricks, whilst Teddy bear bees (also Amegilla spp) has most species 7–15 mm long build there brood holes in horizontal ground.

When my interest was first piqued I needed to get my head around knowing what is a native bee compared to a wasp or a fly? Well, firstly I discovered flies have only two wings whilst bees and wasps have four. Then whilst both bees and wasps will sip nectar from flowers, only bees feed their young with pollen collected from flowers, while wasps feed their young on insect or spider prey. So if you see an insect collecting pollen from a flower, it is a bee, if not it’s a wasp. You could say that bees are vegetarian, whilst wasps are carnivorous. Now I keep a hand lens in my pocket and I have discovered a whole new world out there. I hope you do too!

Decreasing oxygen and stuff I just don’t realise

I am fascinated by the information I am gleaning from the Massive Online Outreach Course (MOOC) I am doing. I knew we have around 78.1% Nitrogen in the atmosphere and 20.9% oxygen…And I knew the Co2 in July 2013 was 389.6%, well above the 350 ppm that was hoped for only a few years ago, but not being a scientists or a mathematician I hadn’t thought about the o2 that is decreasing as we convert carbon to carbon dioxide. Of course we will never go back to the primordial times of more Co2 that oxygen with cyano bacteria, because thankfully of plant’s photosynthesizing and the oceans being carbon sinks.

Other stuff on Green House Gases well… as we know Ozone over Tasmania is all but gone because of Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s), but is improving now we changes refrigerants, propellants (as seen in this advertisement from Dupont) etc. But is seems we still don’t get it. We are creating new Green House Gasses which are possibly just as troublesome. One that I have been learning about is Nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), it is the bi-product of computer memory production and the manufacture of flat panel displays. Different Green house gasses have different life time potential for example the global warming potential of Co2 is about 1 year, but other gasses hang around much longer eg methane if 23 years…Nitrogen trifluoride will hang around for maybe 500 years.

As we enter the next commitment phases of the Kyoto agreement I wonder how our new government will act. So as I type this on my laptop, and wonder when I can afford some more thin filmed solar panels, or all those microelectronics with their inbuilt obsolescence that my family would love to own…at the very least I recognise that I need to be better informed!

Planting out a wicking bed

My privilege to be part of one of several great permie youtube videos by Chris Towerton….

Another Geoff Lawton free youtube coming up!

From Geoff On http://www.geofflawton.net/crisis/?10042 this weekend we’ve got a special Permaculture Masterclass. Watch me design and explain in 20 minutes how I turned a pretty plain akward 5 acre property that was mostly unusbale into a Permaculture paradise with ponds, swales and food forest. All on a low budget. Every cost revealed. It’s what everyone has been asking for in the comments on my videos on geofflawton.com. This weekend I’m going to show you how to do it, for free, but only on http://www.geofflawton.net/crisis/?10042

Free permaculture Design Video

Yes you read that correctly, Geoff Lawton and the Permaculture Research Institute has put out a free Permaculture Design Video. You can catch it on http://www.permaculturenews.org.

This is the same Permaculture Research Institute that students doing a Permaculture Design Course with Katoomba Street Permaculture get their accreditation from.

Always a hot topic in the mountains, come along and find out more about those plants we call weeds with local expert Linda Thomas.

Permaculture Blue Mountains

Permaculture Blue Mountains is proud to present another sustainability talk next week.

This talk will be presented by Linda Thomas of Blue Mountains City Council and will explore the extent and impact of weeds in the Blue Mountains.

Linda Thomas has been the Community Weeds Officer at Blue Mountains City Council since 2005. The position is focused on encouraging & supporting conservation works on non- Council land and manages various programs including Landcare , the Bush Backyards Network and the Rural Practice Improvements program which works with landowners in the Megalong Valley and Sun Valley.

In the past 25 years as a resident of the Blue Mountains, Linda has also been a bush regenerator, working with various contractors in the Blue Mountains and Western Sydney and has been involved with various community conservation groups.

Linda will talk about weeds in the Blue Mountains and Council’s bushland conservation and weed management…

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Recently I’ve been feeling ‘clucky’

The scientists say they now know that the egg came before the chicken, for the proof try watching http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a8pI65emDE. One of my hobbies now for several years now, has been trying to breed my own chickens; so I guess I have always known that without a fertilized egg I am never going to get chickens, whether under a broody hen or in an incubator.  What I always find amazing is that for a chicken to develop under the right conditions from a newly laid egg takes only 3 weeks. I have read suggestions that store bought eggs can be way much older than that.

Twenty-one days of a hen’s body temperature and humidity and there you have it, a fluff ball of “life”.  My dilemma is always that a hen leaves the nest after the first few chickens are ready to go and learn to feed. This often leaves a few eggs in the nest only hours away from that moment of emerging free from the shell. Luckily, I do have an incubator, so occasionally (Like now that I’m feeling clucky!) I collect the last eggs and give them that chance at life and try to introduce them back to a broody hen.

With the big down pores of rain we have had lately, even with the hens best intentions I have been loosing very young chick – drowned, cold or somewhere in between. So last fortnight I was watching carefully – one chicken got left behind in the nest with the classic legs up in the air looking almost lifeless. So it spent the day in the hollow of my bra, which thankfully gave it heat enough to revived. Another chick, totally oblivious to it’s mother’s clucks innocently wandered across the yard and was found huddled with some young rabbit kits (not just once but twice). I tried returning them to mother hen’s care but she just didn’t seem to want to know them; so I put them in the incubator with the other 6 eggs I had rescued from her nest the previous morning.

Did you know that even before the baby chick start ‘peeping’ and breaking through the egg shell you can hear the chirping. So cute! Next morning I woke to these 2 chicks and another five that looked wet and pathetic, but a noisy wriggling mass in the incubator. I set up a ‘broody lamp’ and placed them under with a shallow plate of water and some food. Anyway the next day the last 2 eggs hatched. I’ve been told that all the chirping encourages chick less developed to hurry up to break free in the hope that they won’t be left behind. One little black chick in centre of this photo was one of these, sadly he died the day after this picture was taken. He always looked the ‘runt’ and just never had the vigour of the other seven.

With the Blue Mountains Slowfood – Chook Tour coming up this weekend I have been happily involved in the background conversations between all the remarkable  ‘fowl’ people in the Mountains  and I love the vast knowledge and interesting facts and figures. For example – Did you realize that not all chickens are created equal? Once upon a time I only kept heritage varieties until a fox entered the scene about 2 years ago… so after that loss I gratefully accepted some Chinese Silkies that needed a home. ‘A chook is a chook’ I thought. I was wrong …I knew Silkies weren’t a meat chook and that they went broody frequently, but I didn’t take into consideration how different they are from the commercial chicken. Yes I’m sure you would all recognise a Silkie with it’s fluffy soft feathers that go right down to their toes; but did you know that under those feathers they have 5 toes when the larger domesticated chickens only have four. Apologies to the vegetarians out there, but I think this is fascinating… the flesh and bones are grey, very grey, the sort of grey that no special herb and spices or chicken gravy can disguise. Apparently desirable in some restaurants, but not my family’s dinner table. Over the 2 years and maybe 4 generations, I thought I had breed all of that Silkie genetics out, they are now a strange hybrid crew. So imaging my surprise recently when along came a white almost classic Silkie chicken minus the feathers on the feet.  As a new mother may count her newborns babies toes, I was interested to see all my newest chick in this photo have only four toes.

For those of you going on the Chook Tour I do hope the weather stays fine. If you missed out this year, there is bound to be another one next year or maybe think about going to Katoomba Street Permaculture’s next Introduction to Permaculture Course…chooks are always part of the discussions!

bees in the walls

There’s a sweet smell of honey wafting by as I approach the wall. I’ve just parked up and apiarist Gavin Smith arrives, up from Sydney but a moment later. Elspeth greets us with an offer of a cup of tea, a lovely start to this misty morning. We’re here because there are bees living in her wall. This is part one of an attempt to encourage them to relocate from the wall into where they are wanted (in my hive).

First up we clear the bushy growth which hides a small hole in the wall where bees are getting into the wood panelling behind which they’ve made their home. Ta-da! Next Gavin (also a carpenter!) constructs a small shelf on we sit the base of the bee box close to the hole.

A couple of guard bees follow us around in turn and we stop a couple of times to walk away from the scene to take the warning level down. Considering the amount of disturbance we’re creating in their routine the colony is not becoming very aggressive and taking it slowly they seem to adapt to each change we introduce without too much drama. The sun comes out, the day is slowly warming up and so the bees becoming more active now…

One guard bee tails Elspeth and loses its stinger on her shirt, another ends up trapped in a sleeve and  that bee pings stinger number two in Gavin’s arm before the job is complete. We lose a third squished on the new base, but this doesn’t seem to cause the colony any further distraction. With pollen gathering ramping up, a wall full of honey behind them we appear to be a bit of a nuisance, but no real threat apparently perceived. Still, its enough of a warning for now. Out comes the smoker which pumps out delicate wafts of pine needle smoke, which Gavin uses to direct them away from the hole so he can get a drill in to the hive’s existing entrance space. Next he drills into the wall to make the hole a bit bigger (and rounder) and inserts a small piece of tubing to fit snuggly inside. It doesn’t take long for them to find their way around and inside the wall again.

Next the base of my bee hive goes onto back onto the shelf. The bees spend a little while getting used to the floor of this hive, not landing so well on the metal plate to begin with. Although they get used to this new entrance fairly quickly its a bit of a hop up, so Gavin adds a little stick from the base which they immediately use as a ladder to the tubing entrance.

Here they are coming in through the entrance and lining up from there to the hole in the wall.

Now we have them landing on the base and going in through the tube we’ll add the rest of the hive bit by bit.

In a couple of hours then the first part of this job is done, Gavin heads ‘down the hill’ to help some more bees transition from one home to the next. Before he does, he leaves us honeycomb from a hive in the Rocks. Yum! Instant gratification for us.
For more details and pictures from this morning’s bee adventure with Gavin here:

You’ll find Gavin Smith at the Sydney City beekeepers’ meetups and demonstrating the ways of bees at various community events around Sydney. I’ll be back with more parts of the bee hive later on today and over the next few days(/weeks/months?) and will post updates here. Will the queen resettle, or will we ‘just’ end up with a boatload of honey?

—

Update @4pm

A few hours later, lots more bees hanging outside the wall than usual.
Looks like a move maybe already underway! I was going to add the box at this point but it looks way too busy out here for bee novice Kat to mess with.

Update at 6:30pm

Once I’ve seen my hens go to roost for the night I think, ‘well that’s animals going to bed’, and head out to see where the colony in the wall is up to. They’ve settled down again; was this a demo for the other bees ‘come see how to get in now?’ or are they on their way somewhere new? So much bee language to learn!

I ready the smoker, kindly lent by local beekeeper/s.  I’m no so secretly proud of being much quicker at lighting it up this time). I pick up gloves and move in with the empty bee box. Gently smoking the bees as I go I put the box down as far in as there are no bees along the edge of the base, something I saw Tim Malfroy demonstrate when handling a hive to harvest honey at a fabulous natural bee keeping workshop he runs. And I leave it there, dashing away, dash dash! They’re onto me! I’m learning to recognise the swoop of the guards’ intent, and walk away quickly several times to avoid being made an example of.

Today, I declare quietly, is not Sting Kat day, ladies. Thinking calm assertive thoughts, on approaching them once more I pick up a stick to flick remaining bees out from behind the box. It’s a bit tricky as I cant see well from the front what lines up with what, and I’m quite vulnerable to having a beeline made for me by some well posted sentries.

From the space between the wood panelling and the back of the bee box, a distinct tone is audible and carries along the side clearly, I hear it change, and this seems like ‘on alert’ to me. I want to stay and listen but this is ‘no sting for Kat day’ so I keep going. There’s definite confusion as the remaining bees walk the circumference around the entrance which I’ve just mostly blocked off.

I make the smallest movements I can to begin with, but see I am still agitating them so I work quickly to give them maximum time to work out a new route in before bedtime. Three or four jiggles and the box is in place. I haven’t secured the pipe into the hole at the back but it’s lined up well enough for the bees to get back in, if they can work out how to get there.

It’s around 7:30pm now, I stick around to make sure the last couple of dozen bees figure out their way around the box and in the tube, all but a few are in by the time I leave. Phew!

 

Update Friday 22/02/2013 – 8:15

Beetown is pretty quiet when I arrive on this typically damp Katoomba morning, and its a little cooler than it has been.  I spy a few early morning bees clustering around the tube entrance, but no buzzing overhead yet. This is good. I came after a very swift coffee and zoomed over for the next phase of box installation before community gardening this morning. I have an hour and a half, and I’m playing it by ear. The smoker is in the car and stays unlit today. I figured on coming early enough not to disturb the colony so this is going to plan. (yay). The box is above me so I don’t see if activity is building inside the box, as I add the three sided frames that come with this warre hive. Last one in, just as a few more bees poke out from the box and start showing some interest, crawling along the frames and starting to occupy space in flight around the box. Great timing! I think, but too soon. Oh no! the frames are in the wrong way round. So much for swiftly and methodically. Still, its not a drama, I take frames out and neatly replace them 90 degrees to the original position, and here they’re sat correctly lined up in the rebates of the box. I slowly creep the mesh over the top giving bees room to come in or go out working around bees coming and going. Will they find their way out the front again? Oh yes! They’re not even slightly phased. Moments later the first bee exits from one of the holes designed to be an entrance.  First one, then two on the right, then the same pattern on the left, within seconds half a dozen more from the right. Ok Nothing to worry about here.

On goes the quilt box on top (providing insulation) finally top the construction off with the metal finished roof. Now we wait. Pictures uploading now at Flickr.com