“Females get more done. Males are an inconvenience in the bee world, good for only one thing.” She stepped up into the truck.
Chase considered her comment. “Well, I think it’s time women step up and lead. We men haven’t done a very good job at all lately.”
“I don’t generally get into politics,” she said, grinning, “but I wouldn’t argue with your observations.” The look on his face was priceless. Cari wished she’d had a camera.
As Chase climbed into the truck, he said, “Smart choice. I want to show you Mary’s gardens. They have a lot of blossoms. Maybe bees are interested in them, too?”
“Lead the way,” she said, pulling her seat belt across her body.
Chapter Three
May 26
Chase was taken with Cari’s quiet authority. Totally unlike Court, who bragged all the time about how good a shape the hives were in, and how much honey was going to be produced for sale at Mama’s Store, she was a very welcome change. As they toured four huge rectangle plots of different vegetables that were flourishing, she was making notes. When they were walking to the truck afterward, he said, “You’re taking a lot of notes.”
“Yes. There have to be enough plants that are flowering to be able to estimate whether it’s worth it for the bees to pollinate them or not. Fruits and veggies only bloom once a year. Bees need more than one resource after those bloom, to keep them alive the rest of the year. I like that clover and alfalfa fields are next to Mary’s garden areas. That gives bees a chance to thrive and make more honey because your hay crops bloom three times in a season.”
“That almost sounds like they are thinking,” he said. Cari beat him to the passenger side door, opening it herself.
“If there is a clover or alfalfa field closer with more blooms, versus these vegetable plots? They will forage the hay fields first and always. Their bottom line is where can the most pollen, which will later be turned into honey, be found. They can make more trips in a day, because of that.”
He slid in and shut the door. “So? Mary’s vegetable gardens aren’t as good a possibility as pollen producers?”
She brought the seat belt across her body. “They would be down on the list. What I would do is put two or three hives nearby, for a given time, during blossoming of the veggies, and let the bees pollinate and gather the pollen. Then, move these hives to the two nearby clover and alfalfa fields for the rest of the season. They should do fine.”
“So, you can move hives around?”
“Yes, if need be. You have to go where there’s blooms.” She pointed far off to a huge orchard. “For example, your fruit trees are usually early bloomers because they have a season to produce a fully formed fruit. Are we going over there?”
He nodded, putting the truck into gear. “Right now.”
“I can assess your major bloom areas and then look at how many hives you have. Then, I can figure out how many to put in a given area and create a schedule, if need be, to move them to the next pollinating area.”
“The fruit orchard is next to one of our alfalfa fields.”
“Which would be a good place to put a lot of your hives because alfalfa, weather conditions cooperating, is going to bloom three times in a season. For a bee? That’s wonderful because if the hives are close to the field, they have an incredible pollinating area with a high honey yield. The hives could be placed at the edge of the alfalfa field where the orchard perimeter is, and they can do double duty since both are close to their colonies.”
He slid her a glance. “You almost sound like a military strategist, figuring out who, what, where, and when to place hives in the best locations.”
She smiled a little. “That’s exactly right. So? Did Mr. Court move your hives around at all?”
“Not to my knowledge. They remained where they were for the entire season.” He saw her mouth thin for a moment, but she said nothing. They drove along a dirt road that was between the fields.
“After the fruit-tree stop, I’d like to go see the hives, Chase.”
“Sure,” he said. In another mile, they would be at the beginning of a fifteen-thousand-acre fruit tree area. And that is where the alfalfa field began, parallel to it on the other side of the orchard. When he pulled over and parked, about a mile into the two fields, they got out.
He enjoyed watching her. He stood back, staying out of her way. Clearly, she knew what she was doing, what she was looking at, and calculating the beehive activity potential. Eventually, she turned to him.
“What fruit do you raise here?”
“We have apples, pears, peaches, bing cherries, apricots, plums, and down at the other end is about five thousand acres of almonds. We’re very lucky that we have a number of creeks and a river through our property, plus we have an aquifer beneath the land that we access via the wells we’ve dug.”
“Has climate change affected your area yet?”
Chase looked around. “Silver Creek is in what we call a microclimate valley. It’s based upon landmasses, a mountain range, and it just happened to get lucky enough to be where it is. On the western boundary of Wyoming, they get nine months of winter and the temperature can dive to thirty or forty below. Here”—he gestured around—“we will get down to about twenty-two degrees Fahrenheit in the worst of winter, and the general temp is around thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit for the four months of snow we get.”
“How much snow?”
“On the western boundary, they can get five feet of snow dumped on them all at once. Here, we’ve never seen more than a foot. We have an actual four seasons here, unlike there on the western boundary, which is winter and summer. They don’t have a ninety-day growing season, either, unless they’ve got a greenhouse. Here, we have from May to the end of October. That’s what allows us to have three good crops of alfalfa and clover.”
“It’s ideal for a bee colony, too. They can winter over, but they need a lot of protection and their own honey stores in combs, to get them through it.” She pointed toward the five-foot stone wall that ran the length of the orchard, creating a boundary with the wide dirt road. “I would put hives inside that rock wall, which is ideal protection against westerly winter winds. It will protect the hives and the bees won’t freeze. The bees sit around in large groups within the hive, like a ball, keeping warm by being packed in close to one another to survive the winters.”
“That sounds like good news.”
“It is. I noticed on your other fields, those rock walls are on the longest stretches.”
“My great-great-grandfather spent a year building them. We had a lot of rocks in our soil and he had to remove them, anyway, for planting purposes. My great-great-grandmother was the one that gave him the idea for the rock walls, as well as for planting marigolds next to them.”
“Your family is very environmentally minded and wise,” Cari said. “After I study your map when we get back to the ranch house, I can identify perfect places for your hives. I’ll ensure that we use those rock walls as part of their winterization plan to protect them. Plus, I would also like to see you build hive pads out of concrete. That way, there’s a specific place for the hives and the concrete platform where you’ll set those hives, which are made of wood. That way, they’re protected from wood rot. If you place them on soil, instead, it’s just a matter of time before the wood would rot. Concrete platforms are cleaner, no water issues, and have a far longer life, which in the long run saves you money. You won’t have to buy wooden hives as often.”