Bird Boxes

Another guest post from Tom today…

Having chickens and compost in our suburban setting has put us into a situation where we’re fending off varmints – specifically, rats. I’ve written about our rat trapping efforts before (see The RRZ and RRZ Part Two), and our rat situation is pretty cyclic – we start noticing evidence of them, I get a little more diligent about setting up the traps, we trap a few, and then the trapping slows down and we don’t see as much of them again.

We’ve got a variety of hawks and owls in the neighborhood, and while we’ve not necessarily seen them making off with any rats, we figure that they’re also helping to keep the rat population in check (one of the reasons we’ve stuck with snapping traps and not poison). I’m not sure where we heard this, but the phrase “you don’t have a rat problem, you’ve got an owl deficiency” has been in our heads, and so this winter I did some research into nesting boxes for owls.

You can find bird box plans all over the internet. My most trusted source of all things bird is the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. They’ve got a specific site, Nestwatch, that has instructions and plans for bird boxes for all kinds of species of birds. The information is excellent – in addition to plans, they’ve got advice on how high up to put a box, which direction to face it, whether a specific bird is going to nest in your area of the country (and when), etc. (Note: downloading specific plans requires you to enter an email address, which I always find a little concerning (please no newsletters!), but it’s been okay).

After quite a bit of looking and thinking and perseverating, I decided to start off small, making a couple of boxes for some of the smaller birds that frequent our yard. The Nestwatch site has a single plan for a series of smaller birds we see – Bewick’s wrens, nuthatches, chickadees, and the oak titmouse – with the only real difference being the size of the hole in the front. I found that I could make the whole box from a single piece of simple 5-foot 1”x6” cedar fence board. No real special tools required – I used a circular saw to make all the cuts, including the few angled ones. Total cost was maybe $10-20, and a couple of hours of effort. I think they turned out good:

The top is angled to let rain run off, and the gap on the side is intended to keep the box cool when the weather heats up. There’s a little hinged side that’s screwed in securely, but will allow for cleaning out the box at the end of the nesting season. You can’t see it from this picture, but the bottom has some small holes in the corners to let any water that gets inside to drain out.

With these smaller boxes proving that this kind of build is within my grasp, I set off to make a larger box for a western screech owl. This box was going to need to be bigger – about 12” wide, 9” deep, and 18” tall. After kicking around our local home supply store a bunch, thinking about how much I wanted to invest in this and what size boards I could fit in the car, I decided to try using that same 1”x6” cedar fence board, gluing them up to make boards of a sufficient width, This proved to be a little tricky – I wound up using a LOT of clamps, as well as some internal bracing to hold things together, but overall I think it turned out okay. I got the box put up in our catalpa tree yesterday before the rain started again:

Overall a pretty similar design - it’s just a box with an angled roof and a hinged side. It was a little tricky getting it put up in the tree - that branch looks vertical from our bedroom window but in fact curves quite a bit.

I have no real sense of whether we’ll be successful in hosting any bird families at all this spring. We’re set up for success – they’re in the right place, they’ve got the right dimensions – but you never know. We heard a great horned owl outside the house last night, and while they don’t use nest boxes (they tend to just take over someone else’s big stick nest), we feel like this was a good omen.

“But what about nest cameras?,” you ask. “Don’t you want to host the Poppy Corners owl box live stream?” Yes, gentle reader, you can be assured that I spent quite a bit of time looking into ways that we could get owl baby video online - the Nestwach site has a whole section on this. In the end, it seemed like a bit of a pricey proposition, and kind of a pain — running an ethernet cable out so that we could be assured of good connectivity, dealing with lighting and power, etc. If we do have owls set up shop, I’ll try to figure out a way to rig up our trail camera to get some pictures.

If you’re looking for a good weekend project, I’d encourage setting up some nest boxes!

Leveling the Hive

When we installed our top bar bee hive (made by my father) ten years ago, we picked a nice site in a place that got morning sun and afternoon shade, was sheltered from wind, and mostly hidden to passersby. We also leveled the site before putting the sawhorses and hive in place, resting them on concrete blocks to keep the legs up off the soil.

Over the years, the earth has settled and shifted. This is due to many factors: One, this is earthquake country; two, we have 100% clay soil which swells and shrinks during wet or dry periods (and in California, it’s either very wet or very dry, not much in between); and three, I’ve been adding mulch in that area for years, which has probably worked its way under the legs somehow. So it’s not a surprise that our hive began to list.

For a long time, we would ‘solve’ this problem by shimming up a side (you can see our first shim on the left). That was an easy ‘fix,’ and would hold for a while before needing to shim it up on the other side. Sometimes I would even put an especially large piece of bark under one of the sawhorse legs. It wasn’t an exact science, but the thought of moving the whole thing and re-doing the area was daunting.

But finally, this fall, the hive started to lean in earnest. This was worrying, not least because if it started to gain some momentum, the whole thing could have just slid off the sawhorses, which would have been a colossal mess and would probably really freak out the bees (and make them very aggressive and/or want to leave), or even harm them. Was it leaning over that far? Probably not, probably I’m exaggerating. But what was definitely happening was that our bees started to beard every night, even on cool nights.

Bearding is when bees hang out at the front of the hive, on the ‘front porch’ so to speak, and make a big hanging mass of bodies which looks like a beard on the hive. This usually only happens when it’s super hot out, and the bees can’t keep the hive at the 93 degrees they prefer. They remove some heat from the hive by removing bodies. Smart, right? But bees can also beard when they run out of room, or if there is poor ventilation in the hive.

See the picture at the top of this post? That’s a beautiful comb, from our top bar hive. Since top bars don’t use frames, like Langstroth hives, the bees build on a bar which rests on the top (hence the name). What this allows is for the bees to build the way they like. And bees like to build their comb in catenary curves. When the hive is level, the comb perfectly fits the shape of the hive box, allowing for something called ‘bee space,’ which means there’s just enough room at the edges and bottom for the bees to move freely around the colony.

Gravity plays a big role in how bees build comb; they naturally build in line with the pull of gravity. When a hive is level, they create an ideal comb. When a hive isn’t level, the bees are confused. They build asymmetrically or in a funky shape. The comb can encroach on other combs, and create a mess. It can also lean with the hive, and honey is heavy, so the comb can slide off the top bar and create an enormous sticky pile of wax, honey, and bees at the bottom of the hive.

My working theory, while viewing the leaning hive, and the constant bearding, and after hearing how Tom, when working in the hive, found lots of comb stuck to the sides and bottom (so the bees weren’t building comb correctly), was that the unevenness of the hive was past the point where a shim would help. We just needed to redo the entire area. This was a bummer, because it meant we had to move the hive.

Just like there’s an ideal time to work inside a hive (sunny warm afternoons, when a good portion of the bees are out foraging), there’s an ideal time to move a hive, and that time is never. But, second best is when it’s dark and the bees are tucked in for the night. So, since I’m not allowed to work anywhere near the hive due to my allergies, we recruited my dad to help.

Mom and Dad came over for dinner, and once it was dark, Tom and Dad went out to the hive and discussed the operation. Tom brought out our other sawhorses and set them nearby. They both made sure to cover arms and legs securely to avoid stings. Mom went out with a flashlight to help light the scene. And then there was nothing for it but to move it, that heavy hive, over to the side several feet. Job done! And no one stung, and no fuss from the bees at all.

I checked on them periodically the next day, and they were very confused. But by the second day, they had a new pattern of exiting/entering all figured out.

Then, the following weekend, the real work began. Tom started by removing eight inches of mulch and leaves until he found bare ground. Then he bought 240 pounds of construction-grade sand and wheelbarrowed it over to the space. Wet, level, wet again, level again, rinse, repeat. Then he bought bigger concrete footings and set them in. Level, pound, level again, pound again, rinse, repeat. Finally the sawhorses went back on the blocks. And then, my dad had to be pressed into service for the second time (will work for cookies!) and helped move the hive back in place in the dead of night. And voila! A newly leveled hive.

The bees had absolutely no confusion the day after moving back, which was interesting. They must have good memories. Or deep instincts that reminded them that they oriented to this position originally.

So, that oughta do us for another ten years. Unless the big one comes, and then we’ll have other things to worry about anyway.

Maintenance

It’s about 80 degrees at Poppy Corners, and it’s that exact time when, every April, we say to ourselves, “Is the neighborhood pool open yet?” The season of flip flops and tank tops signals also that it’s time to do some much-needed maintenance at home. Tom and I always keep a running list, inspired by Monty Don and Gardener’s World, called ‘jobs for the weekend.’ We add to it all week and then begin to tackle it as soon as we’ve finished our coffee Saturday morning. Our list this week was literally as long as my forearm - typical for this time of year.

Luckily, I’ve already planted most of our summer veg, which I normally wouldn’t do until the temp is consistently over 50 degrees at night. But I’m scheduled to have knee surgery on May 8, so I thought it would be good to get all that done before then, and luckily everything has survived. Since we removed all the raised beds from the North Garden (to make the orchard), I used that wood to make the raised beds in the South Garden taller. We’re not getting any younger around here and taller beds will be helpful in that regard. I ordered three cubic yards of planting mix from a local nursery, and added that to the beds before planting. It’s good to have all that done.

But today, the first thing on our list was the irrigation system. Now that we’ve had the last of our (prodigious!) winter storms, it’s time to begin a regular irrigation schedule. It’s important to start out with 100% saturation in your soil; if you do that, you’ll just be topping it off every time you water, instead of playing catch-up. But the irrigation system hasn’t been used all winter, so it’s not as simple as just turning it on. Inevitably there will be some problems - breaches in the lines, clogged drips, broken micro-sprayers. Tom and I turn on one ‘zone’ at a time and go around watching what happens and making notes. Often, I’ll see an area that needs coverage, and we’ll add some lines. Sometimes an area is too wet and we’ll adjust that too. Tom always has a lot of repair work to do. It’s really good to get all that done before irrigation becomes crucial.

Can you see the swarm?

After that, Tom opened our top-bar bee hive. Two days ago, I was out running errands when I got texts from two different neighbors: “Your bees are swarming!” So I rushed home in order not to miss it and to see if I could capture it for my dad, who always wants our swarms. Alas, it was too high to reach with our ladder. I’m not even sure if they were our bees (there are many beekeepers in the neighborhood), but it was a good reminder to spend some time looking through the hive and adding bars for new brood and honey. Everything looked as it should, and Tom took a full bar of honey out for us. Opening the hive is now Tom’s job since I’ve become allergic over time; he’s gotten really good at it and never gets stung anymore. I hang back and look on longingly, peppering him with questions which I’m sure he just loves. At least I can handle the messy job of cutting up the comb and extracting the honey, though gravity does most of the work.

I also spent a good deal of time today cleaning out our enormous passionvine. It’s a Passiflora ‘Blue Horizon,’ and has gorgeous flowers and small black sour fruits. It supports a huge number of gulf fritillary butterflies every year, and is a stopping place for every curious neighborhood child in summer. I bought it as a living deer fence, assuming that it would die back every winter with our frosts (and therefore remain manageable). It’s never done that, only gotten more and more enormous each year. It’s extremely promiscuous and shows up in all sorts of places I don’t want it to, so I’m always pruning the thing. However this year, we had so many nights of truly cold weather that the vine died back, leaving a hedge of dead leaves and flowers a foot thick. That was fun to hack through and remove. Now it looks quite bare, with just foundation vines on the trellis, but it won’t be long before that monster puts out new growth and begins the cycle all over again.

Tomorrow, we plan to wash the windows and screens, a once-a-year job that we loathe but that always makes such a difference in the way the light comes in our windows, so is totally worth it.

We also have reserved time for hiking both days. After all this rain, the hills are simply covered in wildflowers. This morning, we walked up to Shell Ridge where a guy named Phil (a volunteer with the Walnut Creek Open Space) has been working for ten years to restore a giant hillside with native flowers. This year it is simply spectacular, with every kind of California native annual you can imagine. Below you can see a very small section of the hillside, covered with poppies and chia. Tomorrow, I’m hoping we will have time to go a little further afield and hike in a place where we can ford some streams, which never gets old in our normally-arid Bay Area, and see nature-planted flowers.

The Orchard Project, Part Four

We’ve finally been able to complete the project. With one atmospheric river after another (we’ve had THIRTEEN now), it has been hard to find time to dig holes for the fence posts, move the fencing, and make the gate. But we got a few (very welcome) dry days that allowed us to get those things done. Tom built a marvelous gate which works beautifully, and since Adam is home for spring break, he was able to help us stretch the fencing. The chickens have a slightly different-shaped run, and the gate is much easier to use for us humans.

The almond tree was the first to leaf out, but a nectarine and a plum were first to bloom. Now all of the trees have both leaf and flower buds, and we look forward to sharing what this area looks like once all the trees are in full leaf. They are very small, but I anticipate that they will grow quite fast!

Traverso Tree Company dropped a load of wood chips off in our driveway last week (about 20 cubic yards), and it was great to get this whole area covered. These chips will help suppress any germinating weeds, hold moisture in the soil, prevent erosion, promote mycorrhizae and feed all the wee beasties that live underground.

We also covered all the soil in the chicken run with chips. I do this periodically to help soak up all of the nitrogen being produced by their excrement. It also helps prevent the chickens from standing in mud. And trust me when I say, this winter, there is so much mud.

I’ll probably plant some bulbs under these trees in the fall, just to add some winter and spring color here when the trees are bare, or maybe I’ll plant some comfrey or borage. It’s possible that some annual wildflowers will also seed themselves around. But I won’t make any elaborate plans, I don’t think. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to a lower-maintenance part of the garden! And I’m really going to enjoy watching the orchard grow and mature, knowing that it will provide delicious food for us (and for whoever lives here in the future) in the years to come.

The Orchard Project, Part Three

Our bare-root trees arrived while we were driving home from Georgia. As you know, I have been in Georgia caring for our youngest child since January 9th, when they were hit by a pickup truck while crossing the street at college. Rin is doing really well, and we are very glad to be continuing the recuperation here at home. I had to take a leave of absence from work, so now that I’m back, I have only two jobs until June: One, take care of Rin, and two, take care of the garden. I’m going to enjoy both of these things!

Tom flew to Georgia to do the drive home with us, so the wonderful friend caring for our house and animals had to deal with the trees when they arrived. She opened the box and put the trees into buckets of water, and they spent two days soaking in the garage. We arrived home Friday night, and it’s taken us some time to get adjusted to being back, but this morning I knew I had to get the trees in before the next cold snap.

The beautiful thing about planting these trees into the old raised beds is that the soil has been amended a million times and it’s lovely. Digging holes for the trees was easy and fun. I added some low-nutrient organic fertilizer to each hole, tamped the trees in well, and watered thoroughly.

Next, we need some mulch. I just put in a request for free wood chips from Traverso Tree Service, my favored company. Hopefully those will come soon and I can get this whole area covered. Ideally Tom will finish up the new chicken fence and gate before then. He spent some time getting another post in this morning; digging in the places that haven’t been amended is a true hardship with our heavy clay. Since we’ve had so much rain and cold weather this winter (and considering the accident and my absence), we’ve not been on top of this as we would have liked. It feels good to be back working in the yard.

None of these trees will bear much for the first few years, but it will be fun to see how they grow. The company already ‘topped’ them, so I’ll leave them to do their thing this first year, and possibly do some light pruning next year.