by PeterAllen

Bee Forage

Why should the timing and success of a certain plants be important to beekeepers? 2015 the year of the snakeweed. Honey bees do not forage on snakeweed. And with the proliferation of snakeweed and the lack of late summer, August and September moisture, the chamisa, on which honey bees do forage, did not do well. This is very important for the honey bees which have to collect enough nectar and turn it into honey stores to be able to survive the northern NM winters. This lack of sufficient stores is why in the last several years many…

by PeterAllen

Winter of 2015-2016:

Late December 2015 and January 2016 northern NM received a good rain over several days and then a few snow storms. A couple of phenomenon occurred- because of the snow cover the ground did not freeze and with the bumper crop of pinon nuts the rodent population exploded- voles, mice, pack rats and gophers. Since I am growing my trees in “root maker bags” these rodents had little or no effect on my trees, but they did on other tree growers and field nurseries in northern NM. What happened to me was the snow cover…

by PeterAllen

opportunists

Over the past 10 plus years that I have had this land and especially since I retired, I have observed that each growing season there is the perfect condition for some plant to do exceptionally well. The right temperature, the necessary amount of moisture especially  at the right time, some plant flourishes. My land has an abundance of Blue Gramma, a native grass. With roots that go down five plus feet it is a plant that is extremely important to the desert because of it's role in eliminating erosion especially wind erosion. A couple of…