Original Transplants

Episode 26 of the Original Transplants Podcast finds Satoyama Homestead stewards Sarah and Will recovering from the installation of a testy package of honey bees. Hear their tips for bee package installation, dealing with a defective queen cage and observing behavioral indicators for queenrightness. After a brief visit to the chicken coop, the Satoyama stewards discuss seasonal chores in the edible landscape, including pruning, vegetable seed starting and transplanting, weeding and mulching. This is a great time of year to remove invasives like garlic mustard - which, incidentally, makes a tasty pesto. We close out this episode with an analysis of late-winter temperature variability and its impact on honey bee colonies, and a discussion of the unintended consequences (hint: radioactive wild boars) of nuclear power.