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Coming up in the first half of tonight's episode will travel to Farsley in Nelson County to learn about cut flowers.

And in the second half of our show, we'll be at Virginia State University's Randolph Farm to learn about beekeeping and how you can become a beekeeper as well.

As always, we welcome your gardening questions via phone call or email.

Stay tuned for Virginia Home Grown.

If a bouquet of fresh flowers brings a smile to your face, you're going to enjoy tonight's show.

I'm Amy Williams.

And I'm Peggy Singlemann.

And welcome to Virginia Home Grown.

In the second half of our show, we'll be going to Virginia State University's Randolph Farm to learn how to tend those European honeybees.

As always, we welcome your questions via phone call or email.

Amy.

Well, Peggy, last week I had a chance to visit beautiful Farsley in Nelson County to learn about growing cut flowers.

Take a look.

So we are here at far Celia and Nelson County with Foxy Morgan.

Foxy.

This is beautiful.

As I drove up, I said, This is heaven.

Tell me about your farm.

Well, thank you for Celia was built as a wedding gift for my great great grandfather in 1814.

It was a gift to him, along with about a thousand acres and maybe 30 servants.

He ended up living here till through the Civil War at the end of the Civil War.

He died and the house stayed in the family till the late 1800s.

After the 1800s it had to owners till 1951.

And my grandparents helped my parents buy it back into the family.

So we're here trying to make a business of it to keep keep it going.

Now, you don't have the full 1000 acres.

No, we have 22 acres.

And we're doing weddings and parties and corporate events and classes.

It is a gorgeous facility and the history is so impressive and you have great outbuildings.

The original kitchen still stands in the smokehouse, and it's just a beautiful place.

But in addition to all the events, you have cut flowers.

Yes, that's my passion.

So we are we're busy all the time working on flowers.

Well, I would love it if you would show us your garden.

I'd be glad to.

Thank you.

So, Foxy, this is the cutting garden that you were mentioning.

And it looks like you've had some things that have gone by already.

But then you've got quite a collection of things that are in full bloom right now.

Do you grow all year round?

Well, we start seed in late August.

We plant the plants out in October, and in November we cover with them a remake and leave them covered till March.

Oh, wonderful.

And then we start cutting mid April.

And you've got things going.

April through October.

Yes.

Yes.

When you said you start your plants, though, do you direct?

So these are Lizzie Anthos and we buy the plugs and we bump them up sometimes twice in the greenhouse, and then we plant them in April and we plant them on white plastic because they don't like it real hot.

And the white plastic will reflect.

Oh, very good.

And I see that you have black plastic and other rows.

So it depends on what we're planting, whether they're heat loving or not.

Heat clever.

And I see that it's on both sides.

So, yes, this can be flipped one side or the other.

And some of the plastic we're using this year biodegrade.

So by September, hopefully it will be beginning to disappear.

That's pretty neat.

And you have Drip irrigation.

Mm hmm.

Now, this is a lot of area to drip irrigate.

But you have a secret sauce, don't you?

We have a spring from the mountains and it's gravity fed.

And so every row has water.

Wonderful.

Nice, great.

Fresh mountain water.

Right.

And I love this technique.

This is netting.

And we're at the foot of a mountain, so it's windy.

And we want stem lake.

So we net early when the plants are young.

And as they grow, we lift them up on the pole.

And just small rebar piping tight.

Yes, this was tractor supply and it's easy.

I can put it in and it works.

And what do you have to do to prepare at the soil?

We will work the soil and then we will fertilize with the plant tone.

And we use a pelted chicken manure.

And we work that in the soil, try to get all the weed seeds moved and mounded.

And then we cover with the plastic and usually hold the plastic down with bags that have rocks.

We grow great rock.

Understood.

And then do you do a lot of fertilizing for a couple hours, or does it depend on the variety?

It depends on the variety.

But I can put fertilizer in our water.

Okay.

Now, you had some great techniques that would help all of us who grow.

Zinnia.

Can we take a look at yours?

Sure.

All right.

So, Foxy, have a big rose zinnias here.

Are these sown directly or grown from plants?

We start these seeds inside and then we plant them on the plastic.

It's just easier weed control.

But I do plant some directly as well.

Well, I love zinnias.

They are so cheerful and really easy to grow that you have secrets to knowing when to pick them.

Well, we have a technique where we take our clippers and we tap the stem.

So if the stem, the head doesn't bend, it's ready to cut.

If it if it is like this, it's floppy, then it's not ready to cut.

And you wouldn't necessarily know that looking at it, because it looks like it's about ready to go.

It's just it's got to be a stiff stem.

And then we take our clippers and go down in arms length long and we cut.

Really?

Because my tendency is always to go to the first set of leaves or something.

This will open, open up the bush, you'll get more long stems.

And that's a great I can cut these off if I like.

Sure.

But that makes sense.

Then you can get it to whatever you want.

And by opening it up, you're going to get more long stems and more bloom.

Right.

The zinnias are a cut.

And come again, flower.

And that's what you were telling me earlier.

If I saw one that was imperfect, I don't have to fret.

No.

So this.

This probably a beetle has eating eaten it.

So I'll cut it just to where two more branches are coming out.

And that goes on the ground.

Okay, so it's not perfect because there are a few there.

So you just toss to the side and it's my compost.

All right.

Now, you have other techniques that you're going to show me up at the house for how to prepare these before you arrange them.

Yes.

Can we go take a lot?

Certainly.

That's good.

So, Foxy, you showed us how to choose which zinnia to cut.

But before we would even do that, we would need to prepare a bucket because they should go straight into water.

Yes.

So what do I need to do?

Do I just grab any old bucket and go down and.

Not at all.

First off, you start with a clean bucket.

A bucket that you can drink the water from and be okay.

Sure.

So we fill the bucket with water.

It's been cleaned with a Clorox solution, and we put a little tablet of a chlorine slow release.

Chlorine in the bucket because zinnias.

I know.

I'm going out to cut zinnias.

Zinnias are what they called dirty flowers.

And you want them as free of bacteria as possible.

And the other thing I do is I put what we call a tea bag.

It's a flower food.

Tea bag.

Okay.

And we put that in the bucket.

I know.

Now I've put food in the in the water.

It's a mild.

And that's just going to hold them over as you're doing the cutting.

Yes.

And then you take.

These are handy.

These are the best clippers.

They fit in the palm of your hand.

They're very light.

You can open and close them with one hand and they don't ever need sharpening and they're great.

And you're not going to get fatigued if you're doing no cut all day long.

Now, as I'm collecting and cutting them and placing them in the water, what do I do once I've filled my bucket?

Okay.

The first thing you want to make sure that you don't put your foliage and your foliage will grow.

Bacteria.

So you take your foliage off.

This is high enough so it would be okay.

And you strip most of that as we were walking up.

Yeah, I usually strip when I cut.

Okay.

And then put them in the water and then I zinnias don't like to go in a cooler.

Okay.

So we put them in a dark, cool place and let them sit 24 hours so they drink as much of the water as possible.

And now these have been sitting 24 hours.

So you would be able to pull these together for they're ready, ready to arrange.

And that probably makes a big difference.

I know at home I tend to Russian put them together and then they don't last very long.

If you've gone through this process, how long can you expect these?

I would hope they would last about a week.

Yeah.

Wonderful.

And now, if I encountered you at the farmer's market, how are you going to make sure that I have success with your flower?

Well, with every book, we give a little piece of paper that says how to care for your flowers from first failure, and it walks you through the steps to get the longest life out of them.

And it and it really helps.

We also, when you put them in your base or when we sell a bouquet at the market, we give you a pack of flower food and this is stronger than what's in there.

Yeah.

So when you get these when you receive a flower bouquet, it is important to you.

Yes.

Recut your stems and put this in your water.

Okay.

And that's going to help them.

Yes.

That's great information.

And you're a wonderful teacher and you're also a student.

You belong to organizations.

The Association of Specially Cut Flower Growers is a wonderful association if you're interested in growing flowers.

I strongly recommend looking it up, reading the website, and consider joining.

Great information, Foxy, and thank you so much for sharing your family's beautiful property.

I learned so much today and I love it.

Thanks.

Well, we are here with David Pippin and we have a lot of questions for you, David.

But I want to remind our viewers that our phone and email are on the screen.

So go ahead and send in your questions and we'll get to those in a few minutes.

David, you were kind enough to come in for us so that Foxy didn't have to make the long drive and you could do a demonstration.

But first, tell us about your business and what you do.

I do a variety of things horticulture, education.

I do flowers for weddings, parties, special events.

I'm the floral designer for the executive mansion.

That's so nice.

That keeps me busy.

I teach floral design to address our terminals and do a lot of lectures and workshops around town, around state.

Well, you do beautiful work and you've got some examples here today, and you're going to walk us through how to create something that we can enjoy.

Sure.

This is gorgeous.

Thanks.

Tell me about it.

This is an arrangement with just garden foliage.

So often people think they're going to have an arrangement.

They have to have flowers.

And I just want to show people that I could go to the garden and just flip a variety of things and put them all together to make an interesting arrangement.

You didn't have to buy any of that, that this all came out of my garden.

Just put it together there.

I have a liner in the basket, floral foam.

It's saturated and that's sitting in a plastic container down inside there.

So is there a secret to how you go about saturating that?

Does it need to soak for a certain amount of time or.

Most of our floral from now is instant.

So four or 5 minutes, it's completely saturated.

What I typically do is just drop it into a container of water and as it soaks in and the color changes from light to dark and it stops bubbling.

It's saturated.

So you can be working on other things, right?

It.

So you were saying that you could add a little bit of color to this?

Sure.

I want to show that we can take an arrangement that is all foliage and add some flowers from the garden to change it up a little bit.

This is Limelight Hydrangea.

So we're going to turn this around a little bit, and I'm not going to finish off the entire thing.

We'll just do the front side so everyone can see what we're going to do.

Give it a good sharp cut and then we can tuck this down into the foliage and making sure that stem is down into that floral firm like that.

Now, when they are in a foam like this, do you use the additive that Foxy was talking about?

Absolutely.

That's going to make your flowers and foliage last a lot longer.

It's important to do that when you're cutting and conditioning like she was doing in the garden and doing that again as you're starting to arrange.

So as you dissolve the oasis in the water, well, we don't dissolve you as you let the oasis absorb the water.

Right.

You have dissolved pre dissolved.

That's what I'm trying to mix that in.

And if you're just doing a vase of flowers, dissolve the flower food in the water as well, like we've done in this container.

Beautiful.

That kind of lightens it up.

And that's a little.

Yes.

If I were doing that for a party or an event, I would do that all the way around on all sides, but just really pretty.

And now it's not.

It's symmetrical sort of in form, but it's not identical.

It's not identical.

And it doesn't have to be identical on all sides.

So often people think that you're going to see that side of the centerpiece and it has to look exactly like this side of the centerpiece.

As long as it looks good on all sides, it's okay.

And that's one of the joys of using natural materials.

Right?

Right.

It's going to be a little different.

Now, this one is a little more formal in form.

This is what I like to call my garden clump style.

It's like I've taken a chunk of the cut flower garden and just set it on the table and it's in a watertight window box.

There and have the floral thumb in there.

And then I've arranged everything in groups so that it looks like it's growing in the garden, adding some garden foliage to that.

That's a great idea, too.

So you're not spreading as any a here is any of right.

Just grouping things together so you get that pop of color and we have a variety of colors and it's pink next to orange, next to red, next to blue.

And it all works well together.

A lot of people squirm when they see pink and orange together.

But yeah, it's really beautiful.

It really works.

And now this is an example of you purchased flowers.

Right.

I went to the farmer's market this afternoon.

I saw Amy at Amy's garden and bought.

This is one bunch of flowers from the market.

Okay, That's another bunch of flowers, plus a few from the garden, and then went home and cut some foliage from my garden, from my friend Barbara's garden, and put it all together.

And I think this is key because let's go over and look at this.

I my husband is very sweet and brings me flowers, but he brings me flowers like this and drops them in a face.

And they go like this.

And he says, Look at the beautiful flowers that I got you.

I refer to those people as punkers because they bring home a bunch of flowers and they plunk them in a base and have a way to prevent clunkers.

Okay.

So you have to teach your husband.

All right.

He's watching it.

So watch this.

This is a Cuba also known as coal dust plant.

So going to give those fresh cut.

We have water down in our container with flower food and we're going to drop those down in there like that.

Foliage is now going to act as a holder for your flowers so they don't just fall out.

We're going to use some of the solutia and some of the next zinnias to go in here and drop it in real fast.

And you know what?

I'm going to do a little floor trick.

Okay.

Not all the stems at one time, and then you can just drop them right down to the base.

And and I think this is something else.

When they sell these long stems, we have a tendency to use the entire stems.

I think a lot of people do that and they're afraid to cut the stems and you want to cut the stems so that they break up the water and with that foliage it they stay right where you put them and they really pop against that green color they do.

And that a Cuba or any other foliage is going to act as a holder.

Boxwood is another good one to use for small arrangements.

And, you know, if I put that in a vase, it wouldn't look like much.

And so I would feel like I had to buy my boots.

But by doing this, you really beef it up and you get having your garden foliage.

It really does help to make your arrangement go a little bit farther, so you'd have to buy quite as many flowers.

Beautiful, great tips.

So now when we display these in our house, any places we need to avoid or what should we do?

Really hot places you should avoid.

Don't put them in a window with direct sun.

Keep them in a place that's cool.

Keep your container full of water.

So often people will put them in a vase.

The water disappears and the flowers die.

So keep it full of water and you're good to go.

Gorgeous, wonderful advice.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, David.

Thank you.

Now, as we get ready to take your calls, take a look at this tip from Peggy.

Emma, containers are a great way to garden, but what we have to understand, it's not a set them up and leave them to grow and go sort of situation.

You do have to take care of them, but you also, most importantly have to understand that you've also got to make some good flower plant choices for whatever you're trying to grow.

And what we're doing here is making an ornamental container.

So we want to make sure that we have a beautiful plant as our focal point as or our thriller.

And in this case we have Persian, Cedar Strobel and things, and then we want to have some filler plants.

And here we have Castor and this also known as Bianca, as well as a purple pepper to give a little color for that medium range.

And then we want to have some plants that grow over the edge or are SPILLERS And in this case, caliber, KOA is being used.

All these plants are great for shade and plants like the Castle Ranch is serving TCA and the Caliper Kawa as well as the pepper, also do well in full sun, the scrubland and this is definitely a shade plant, but the next step is to pick a pot and you want to choose a pot that's going to be very deep with a large soil mass.

You want a big pot, you don't want a little pot because you want that beer to hold a lot of moisture so you're not watering it.

Every day we take our ornamental pot and we have that be the exterior, of course.

But then we put an interior, a more utilitarian pot on the inside.

And this way at the end of the season, we can just lift out this.

I want to say plain Jane, regular plastic pot and store that for the winter.

But we can also take our more expensive outside pot, clean it up and put it in the shed for the winter so it's not in any way, shape or form harmed by any freezing or thawing.

But I talk to you about the soil mass.

It's very important for your pot to have a drainage hole and to be able to have that drainage come out.

And here at this situation, we've got some rocks holding the pot up so it drains out well.

So the pot inside of this pot is not sitting in water.

There's not a little pond in there because that will definitely kill the plants.

And again, going back to that soil, we want to be able to choose a soil that's very light and very well drain.

And so a commercial mix is required and one that has that water absorbing polymer as well as a slow release fertilizer.

And also halfway through the summer, we add in more fertilizer because that fertilizer that was there early in the season is spent.

And so we add in a slow release pellet following the directions on the label.

Of course, now as your container starts to grow, some plants like to get a little more aggressive than others.

So it's important to constantly assess your container and the plants that are in there and prune back those that are kind of outgrowing the others.

And finally, what you also want to do is if there's any dead parts or anything that looks a little disease, you want to go in and prune that out as well to make sure that you've got everything in very good healthy order so that your container can grow the rest of the season and just be beautiful until those frosts come.

Great information, Peggy.

Thank you for that.

We have a lot of questions, but before we get started, I want to remind everyone that we have a Facebook page.

So if you're on Facebook, go ahead and like us and follow along and you can ask questions throughout the month and you'll get answers from some of our gardening pros here and you can also go to our Web page where you can find past shows.

So if you're watching this and you have some questions, I want to refer to it, check back in a couple of days and the show will be up there and you can watch it your heart's content and encourage your husbands to see this cut flower segment.

All right.

We've got questions, including about cut flowers.

Donna from Mechanicsville says, How long after you cut a flower?

Should you wait to press it?

And what should you do to it before you press it?

Wow, that's a great question because that's one thing that we talk about in one of our classes, which is hard to terrible, is pressing flowers.

You don't want to cut them early in the day like you typically do to make a cut flower arrangement.

You want to wait until the dew has sort of evaporated.

The flowers are dry, cut them when they are not at their peak.

Just prior to peak, because if they are at peak or past, as you start to press or dry, they may fade, they may fall apart.

So you want to get them just prior to being peak.

And that's when they're going to be the most beautiful as a cut flower for an arrangement.

But for pressing or drying, that is the perfect time to cut those great, great information.

We have a question on dahlias before we say that we should say that one of our former guests, Mr. Curtis Morton, who was the deli man in Charlottesville, passed away on Friday and his services this evening.

And he grew some amazing deli, I think, Daniel.

And so our viewers wondering, how do you over winter them?

Well, I personally dig them up here in central Virginia.

Is that what you do, David?

It's recommended.

I mean, if we have a mild winter and they're mulched in, they may last.

But if it's too wet and too cold, they're going to rot because they are known as a summer ball.

So dig them in the fall.

What we do is we dig them in the fall and I put them out in the sun for some time to make sure that the outer skin is dry in case the soil was wet when you take them.

And then what I want to do is you want to storm in a cold, dry, dark place and a refrigerator is sometimes a little too much because the refrigerator pulls out moisture to cool it.

But if you have maybe a root cellar, which I'm here for, I'd love to have it.

But if you have a dry spot in the basement, another thing I'd love to have, or if you have a garage attached to your house.

As you all know, we just moved and I now have a separate garage and it didn't work as well.

It got a little too cold.

But the important thing is, is you can pack it away and put moths so that they're not just out there sitting on a tray.

You want to pack them away.

And Pete was in check on them every now and then throughout the winter.

It's not just put it there and forget it, but check on it to make sure that they're not getting too dry.

And then when the time comes, you can take them out and plant them.

And you know, what I hear from all of us is go to the farmer's market and buy cut values because you are too lazy to do all of that work.

I know myself, but I will enjoy them from the that is always a lesson for my local pet flower.

There you go.

Okay.

A viewer wants to know what native flowers are good for cutting flowers.

I love Black-Eyed Susans.

They're great.

And the thing about cutting from the garden or going out to cut a few wildflowers, take your bucket of water with you.

Don't go out and gather a handful, Cut them, and then walk around for five, 10 minutes, half hour gathering, and then go back to the house and put them in the water and expect them to look great.

That makes sense because they will wilt some some things.

You cut them and they're going to start to wilt almost immediately, especially some of our wildflowers.

Queen Anne's lace is good, but don't use it too much because it has a tendency to shed little white petals all over the place.

So it looks like snow on the table, right?

Yeah.

But I also understand, too, you might be bringing some insects into the house and some people who enjoy lovely, beautiful wildflower arrangements.

Enjoy them on their screen porch or, you know, out on a table, out on their their area where it's shady.

Oh, it all depends on what people's comfort zones are for the insects in their house.

That can be true with cut flowers from the garden as well.

I've brought little friends in before.

I have, and I have given a bouquet of flowers and had someone comment on the fact that we're headed because I'm used to that.

It didn't occur to me to think about it.

So that's great advice.

Peggy, Here's one that might be for you, because I know you love Lawn so much.

What do I do to get ready for planting grass?

Oh, this is.

You're getting so close.

This is a dream question.

To be honest, the best time to plant your lawn is going to be the third week of September, and you really want to start getting ready Now, I would take your soil test right now to see if you can adjust your age by putting down line if you need to career.

You know.

And I said correct.

Right.

Not spike it.

Right.

You know, with these frequent rains that we're having, you know, the soil is still very workable and you can aerate if you need to sort of like maybe kill all the existing weeds, you can put out newspaper and smother them or use whatever method you want to kill the weeds, but you want to do everything starting now in preparation for being able to plant.

And so that seed the third week of September understand that it's important for a successful lawn to have close to a neutral patch.

And we have a very acidic soil here in Central Virginia.

Understand, in order for those roots to go deep, you need to have oxygen going down and separating, as well as the watering that we've been so blessed with this summer.

So and if we continue to get that, it'll be very helpful to have applied line because it will start to get incorporated.

Yes, it will.

Good advice.

Pat has a from Waterview has a question on our great myrtles.

They suffered a lot of winter damage and the tops are still looking dead.

Should she cut them out or what should she do?

Boy, I'm going to.

I'm a person of transplanted myrtle and for three years my husband claimed it was dead, and on the third year it just grew and bloomed miraculously.

It was wonderful.

So a great myrtle.

Sometimes the rebound is very slow.

I would, if you can, if it's not in your front yard, if it's in the back, I would just tread water and give it time.

Keep let it keep getting some fertilizer at the appropriate time of the year and leave her be.

But don't go to prune crazy on it.

Just add it if it might be there.

Be patient and I've done it to where they look really dreadful.

But if you go and scrape, they are green in there and they just don't flush a lot of leaves when their fingernail test is always telltale.

I take that fingernail chip at that little bark, and if it's green, you're fine.

Good advice.

Henry in Dinwiddie wants to know, is it time to sow some collards?

Yes.

Matter of fact, we'll be talking about that in the next show.

What's coming up on fall vegetables?

Yes, it is.

It is.

People need to start thinking in August for those vegetables.

Do you sow collards at your house?

My yard is too small for college.

That's something that I stopped by the farmer's market.

But I always know it's time to start thinking about the fall vegetable garden When I walk out into my garden and it just looks dreadful.

It's the promise of a new tomorrow, right?

Yes.

But this is the time to sow your broccoli.

Is your cauliflowers your kale from seed to get them growing, to be able to put transplants out in the garden.

And a few more weeks from now I am not getting tomatoes on my plant.

They're big and bushy, but no tomatoes.

Oh, all right.

Well, there's two things happening there in my book.

One, you've got too much shade.

They need at least 6 hours of sunshine.

And then the other thing is, is just maybe you've over fertilize them and they just have beautiful, lush growth.

Maybe your soil's a little too rich and they're too busy growing and not going, setting flowers and then hence setting fruit.

So those are my two thoughts that I want you to think about.

If you've been having a garden there and there's a few trees, see if those trees haven't just provided that little bit of shade to tip it over the edge.

And if that's not the case, go a little more.

Lean on that fertilizer.

Okay.

Good.

Great information, guys.

And we've got a lot more questions for our next segment.

But right now, we're going to go with Peggy to Randolph Farms to learn about beekeeping.

Take a look.

Keith Tickner, thank you for having us.

Come to Virginia State University's Randolph Farm to learn about the bees that are here.

I'm very excited to be here.

And as the state apiarist, I'm excited that you're on our show to share with us the knowledge that you have and some of it's becoming very popular now to gardeners.

Well, Peggy, we're happy to have you here.

The apiary here is kind of unique and that kind of set off from the farm.

But but it's very visible and it's been used a lot for demonstration and as well as teaching efforts and love to take you through the hive.

I would love to love what we have here is what we refer to as a nucleus hive or a nuc.

So this is something that a beekeeper would use as a starter hive.

We would put a young queen and some some bees in here and it would get established and then before it moves on to a larger hive, they would be able to to protect themselves a little bit better with a smaller shape.

Okay, So let's go inside and see what kind of like the first apartment, huh?

Yes.

As you can see, beehives are constructed similar to our houses.

We have a roof that helps to protect the bees from the moisture and the rain.

This is actually a feeder that we use to kind of supplement what they're bringing in from the from the outside.

And we have the smoker going to calm them down.

Actually, it's it's covering up some of the pheromones that they emit, particularly the alarm pheromone, which they will signal to the other bees that there's danger there.

And so they'll be on the defensive.

So we're going to keep a little less defensive and hopefully protect ourselves from being stung.

I think it's a great idea.

The colony, the Bees is what we refer to as the colony.

But within the hive it's composed of frames where the bees will draw out, comb on it, they'll store honey.

Mm hmm.

And they raise their young on it.

This is some of the cat brood here.

We've got some larva that are in here.

You can see them shining light.

Yes.

And then, of course, we got lots of workers that.

That take care of them.

Yes.

Two sides to it.

So we can double up on the rooms that they use as far as raising their bees.

Okay, So we have a near.

Yes.

Oh, who's that?

This is the Queen mum, and she's just looking for a place to lay an egg.

Okay, so all of these cells that we refer to in the comb, she will go in and find when it's empty and lay an egg.

You would said this was a young queen.

What is the lifespan of a queen, typically?

Well, typically we'll get three or four years out of a queen.

The longest on that, I think it's been recorded is eight years.

But what usually happens is a beekeeper will want to reclaim their hive about every two years because the after about two years, the hive is has a tendency to swarm.

And that's a division of the colony.

Okay.

And the workers will go out about half the workers will go out and find a new place and they'll take the old queen with her and the workers that are left behind.

They have raised the queen to replace her.

And then she'll take over the hive and continue that hive from there.

We've actually had a swarm movement where the swarm has covered basically a branch of a tree.

Right.

You know, and just sort of been there a while.

And then the next day we've come back and they're gone.

I have no idea where they went, but they any available cavity that's of the right size, usually they're looking for something that's between five, ten gallons, interesting capacity that's already existing.

They don't she would they don't she leaves so they take advantage of the space that's there and they'll occupy it.

So if this is what the starter looks like, I'm very curious to see what what a true you know how they establish colony looks like.

Well let's go into an established height where you can see a few more bees on the fringe.

Okay, I'm looking forward to it.

Thank you, Keith.

I noticed as we were walking over to this hive that you have many hives here and they're all different styles and shapes.

And to me, this is the classic that we draw the pictures of in school.

But tell me about the other one.

Well, this is a demonstration yard, so we like to show people how you can keep the bees.

And there are different ways to do that.

As you said, this is kind of the classic we call it referred to as the Langstaff hive.

And this has the boxes that you see there that hold the frames and the bees and so forth are about nine and a half inches, right?

So it's it can get very heavy with its contents.

It's got ten frames that it can hold.

And so each of those frames is a full of honey.

That's, that's nearly £70 My so people that are that are not interested in lifting that much weight we've got smaller boxes that they can use we call them, we refer to them as supers and usually that's about six inches in height.

So that weighs about £30 with a honey.

But the configuration, they can use those for the reproduction, for raising the bees as well as the storage of the honey.

We can take this and we can kind of shorten it down a little bit and use eight frames or six frames, I suppose, or even five frames as opposed to the ten frames.

So it makes it a little bit easier for people to get into beekeeping at their level, what they want to work with.

And there are other styles of hives as well besides the livestock.

Okay, Which means almost everybody can keep bees.

Yes, absolutely.

That's fantastic.

Well, what do we have here?

We've got something fresh and cool.

This is this is what we start with as far.

Or give the bees to start with.

Okay.

And we refer to this as foundation is basically a template where we want them to build the comb for their storage of the honey in the pollen and the bees and so forth.

Yes, right.

And then manipulate it to to build the frames and so forth.

And that's what you'll see inside of here.

Well, let's see the fruit of their labor once they've got it all drawn out.

Mm hmm.

You can see it throughout.

And this is what they'll do with it.

So they'll fill out the comb.

As you saw, the foundation was basically the midriff.

And so they'll they'll build wax out to make up the frames that we see.

And this is the basic unit to sell that that they do, but they fill it up with the honey.

Yes, I can see this.

Is that £7 of honey that I was talking about and once it gets filled, can get fairly heavy inside of these boxes.

I know it may not.

We have What you've told me is a feral hive, which is in one of our trees in this year.

We were waiting for the activity in and it just seemed it took so long.

We were very concerned.

We had lost it.

These cold winters, you know, how does the cold weather affect the hive?

Well, this year in particular, which was hard on the bees, the problem that we had with that late season cold that we had where it was below freezing for a number for a number of days, not only could the bees not get out, they were clustered together to try to stay alive.

Yes.

But also the queen stops laying eggs because it's so cold.

Because it's so cold.

And that's that's a huge drain on their resources to try to keep that egg and larva warm enough because they have to keep it at 92 degrees, 93 degrees in order for it to develop.

I didn't realize I had it.

And you're looking at 20 degrees outside.

It's a huge difference that they need to make up.

So your heating bill probably showed the same thing that was going on inside the hive this past February and March.

And so the bees were a little late in growing.

So the populations were a lot smaller a lot later, of course, because of the cold, the trees and the plants were late as well.

So it still kind of coincided, but it really set back the season for about two weeks.

You know, keep the bees are so important, but what are some of the other bees that part of this colony that are equally important?

Well, we can take a look in the box below and see some of those.

So down here is where we see the brood nest.

We've got the queen drones as well as the workers.

But typically we see most of the population are the workers.

We typically have one queen, although we can have multiple queens in a hive, and then we'll have a few thousand depending on the time of the year, we'll have a few thousand drones.

So about 60, 80,000 workers, five 6000 drones, one maybe two queens.

But in the winter time, we'll have just the queen and the workers, the drones will be thrown out in the fall.

Over here is the drone.

I see.

And Queen is typically the largest.

The drone is the next size.

Next largest size in a drones.

Their only purpose is to meet with the queen.

And they do not meet with the queen from their height.

So it kind of cuts down on any inbreeding.

Okay.

And then course, once they do, they die for.

So it's a it's a very short life, but they don't want to keep it for the genetics, but they don't contribute anything to the high.

They don't force for food, they don't protect, they don't have a stinger.

So they're very easy to to pick them up and hold on.

And in fact, we use these as demonstration to the kids.

We can we can take a lot of strength to them and fly them around with them.

But, you know, this is extremely interesting.

And I can see that these these folks are busy as a bee down there.

But let's go back to the studio to learn more about how that honey is extracted from all of the combs that are here and all the the fruit of their labor that we get to enjoy.

Thank you, Keith.

That was absolutely fascinating.

I see you've brought some of your friends along with you so that we can talk more about the next step in beekeeping.

But before we start, I'd like to remind everybody that we still have our phones open and are accepting emails with their questions.

And boy, what a lot to talk about and what a lot to share.

And well, I brought a lot along.

As you can see, we've got a few bees that brought with me so that we could share with you, with your staff and and let people see what it looks like close up inside of the hive again.

But one of the things that honey bees are most known for, of course, is the honey.

So I wanted to show how we get from that frame of honey and hive to the jar that most people have used to seeing at the store.

Right.

So this is the frame as we showed on the segment that has the honeycomb on both sides of it.

And so, of course, it's got wax on the top.

We need to get that wax out of the way so that we can we can get the honey out and see it's shiny in the light here in this area.

And typically we just take a knife.

Normally it would be a hot knife for someone who was a commercial operator, so forth would use a hot knife to to cut through it, to expose it.

It's just sliced right off nice.

It just comes right off slit in there.

That's wonderful.

And this is and you can see all the honey that that is is behind it or weeks worth.

Well, if you if you think about this is £7 or excuse me about £3 of honey that's in here it's they can fill this depending on, you know, how good the nectar flow is.

The two poplar or honey nectar is coming in.

They could fill in a day that could take a week, or they could eat it up and in a few days as well.

So.

That's right.

This is their food source.

Yes.

Yes.

And then once we get it off, we put it into a what we call an extractor, which is actually a centrifuge.

Okay.

And it's dripping.

It is dropping.

And so that's the reason for the gloves.

Yes.

So I'm ready.

Sticky, but will start to spin it, spin it out so that it goes to the side and then as it goes to the side, also down to the bottom, and then you can see it will come out at the bottom of and as it drains out, we take it through a sieve that will catch any wax that might have gone through with the with the extraction, with the decamping process.

We can get a clean of honey that way and take out all the impurities.

And so got well, we want to keep some of the impurities in there.

Some of those impurities we like, like the pollen and so forth is something that the that people enjoy along with the honey.

Yes, but yes, we don't want the wax in there and although some one of the wax products that we or honey high products that we do have is called the Chalk Honey and also the wax honey itself that people will eat.

But some of the products I have some liquid honey, which is what we're doing here, is that, of course we've got different ways that we can bottle it.

We've got the traditional £1 jars as well as the honey bears.

Different size honey bears.

A lot of people are using these the smaller bears as entertainment or gifts at different parties and so forth so we see different things that that can be used for.

But the other products that we see, of course, is the wax.

Once we get the wax off of the frames, we can go ahead and process that, get the honey out of it, wash it basically oops.

And then melted down, clean that up, and then we can use it for different products such as candles and so forth.

But one of the things that I tend to do for friends and so forth is make a wax bowl that you can use for different different objects.

And as you can see, I'm feeling this is made of wax.

And there's also a wonderful fragrance because of the candles that are burning inside.

Yeah, the honey is actually gives the wax a an aroma that people like.

And if you go to churches and so forth, they used to have a tradition of having beeswax, candles, so that you would have that aroma in there.

What we're seeing here, of course, is, is the fact that it.

Waxman floats.

Yes.

And so we can put like candles inside of it and have it have it floating around inside.

So nice little gift you have there.

Yes, it's a nice party effect.

But, you know, we think of these as the byproducts of the bees, but we are excited missing the really most important byproduct.

Well, this is the honey, of course, is the number one thing people identify with.

Secondly, of course, is the wax that that that the wax candles.

Of course, we use it for the lips, lipstick and in other products as well.

But yes, there's a lot of things that come out of the hive, including the bees themselves.

But the number one product we get from the hive, of course, is pollination.

Yes.

And so one of the things I wanted to show was just what that pollination means is that not only do we get fantastic fruit, but the purpose of the pollination is the production of seed.

And so all of the seeds that are in there is the result of those bees going out and pollinating those plants properly in order to set the seeds and for the meat to grow around it.

Of course, we enjoy the meat, whether it's apples or cantaloupe or watermelon or bananas and so forth and cucumbers and such.

Yes, yes.

But this is where our product of a hive really is, where we associate the honey in Virginia with a few million dollars.

As far as agriculture is concerned, the pollination, we're looking at hundreds of millions of dollars in increased production, increased quality of the food and and also the the just the the fulfillment of the of the crop itself so that they have lots of things coming in at the proper time.

Now, not all of us can have a honeybee truck come to our place and you know lend us so we say a few set ups and there's a program going on with our state.

Can you share that with us of how the homeowner can start participating in this?

Well, we've got there's there's beekeeping groups around the state.

They have classes that they offer to new beekeepers, new people that are interested in beekeeping.

But the state is helping to get them started.

There is a program called the Beehive Grant Program where the an individual who buys the parts of the hive or a construct of newly constructed hive, if they're going to construct it or buy another constructed, they can get some reimbursement for the for the the cost of that.

It does cost a bit of money.

Get started in it.

And so the program itself offers up to $200 per new hive.

That's right.

It's a wonderful springboard to be able to get started.

And, you know, plus they get the advice from you and their fellow beekeepers to sort of help get them going and get their questions answered.

And this has just been wonderful information.

Well, we appreciate being able to to come out and talk to you about this.

Well, I thank you so much for being on the show.

And right now, I'd like you to go to Louis Ginter and you can join us for the plant of the month.

Hi, my name is Chelsea.

I'm happy here at Lewes.

Conservative a garden.

And we are standing here at Flinders Edge today.

We are talking about is one of my favorite plants here at Lewes.

Ginter.

It comes in a variety of colors, but this one in particular comes in a pink form.

We love it here as a border because it blooms all summer, as you can see by the beautiful flowers, but it can grow up to six or seven feet deep down.

Our flower of the lettuce likes to last for up to three days, and once it is done, it will start to drop its petals and after it drops its petals, it becomes a beautiful green seed pod.

Once the seeds ripen, it turns a beautiful brown color, which a lot of you may recognize from wreath, decorations and ornamental purposes.

Once its seeds have fully dried, it'll tip its head forward and fall right into the lake and help sell seed everywhere.

The plant not only spreads through seeds, but also through rhizomes.

That is also one of the reasons why we have a barrier here at Lewis Ginter, because it can be slightly aggressive.

So if you want to do it at home, I would suggest a container probably about three feet around, fill the bottom with heavy topsoil, put some pebbles on top, and then plant your seat in there.

You want a round container because a rhizomes like to go around the bottom of the barrel.

One of the cool things about this plants is its usability.

Not only are these seed pods decorative and ornamental, we also can use the rhizomes as a source of food for pickling main dishes and desserts.

Another cool characteristic about the lotuses is the leaves ability to hold water and not absorb it.

So not only does the water just stand there, it can pour right off lotuses are a great plant to have in your garden because they come in many varieties from dwarfs all the way to full grown.

They can be grown in containers on your patio with full water and not only are they beautiful, but also edible.

As always, a big thank you to Lewis Ginter for helping us with Plant of the Month.

That was really interesting.

And before we get started with all these questions, I want to remind everyone that if we don't get a chance to ask your or to answer your questions this evening, you can always write to Richard Nunley at the Richmond Times Dispatch.

And he's really good about getting back with you.

And you may even see your question appear in one of his future columns.

So be in touch with Richard at that address, guys.

We've got a lot of questions.

We have a first question about which counties allow you to keep bees, where you actually can keep any county, any city There are is one town in Virginia that has banned bees, but all the rest of have an open door.

There are some restrictions and some regulations that that as to limitations, how many hives you can have, how close it has to be as a property line.

But I'm not aware of any other city county that that doesn't allow it.

And she says that in the video she saw one bee with a green dot on its back.

That's the queen.

That's the queen.

That's an easy way for us to identify where she is, because you can imagine you've got 60,000 workers running around.

Look a little bit like her and you want to find the queen.

So when you start a hive and will they come march?

They can you can ask to have it Mark beforehand or you can market yourself.

Or is some beekeepers like when they come out, when our inspectors come out to inspect the hives, they'll have a marker pen with them and say, would you mind marking the queen?

So very good.

She doesn't wear a tiara.

No question for David.

What are the flowers that you recommend we avoid growing for?

Cut flowers for using for cut flowers.

I think that's a personal preference.

But things that I like to avoid are things that are very sappy and things that are very thorny.

There's one shrub that I really like in the garden, like Barberry, but using that as a cut foliage, it's very mean.

It has those hidden thorns under the leaves.

I've tried to use it before and I'm always sorry afterwards because I have very bloody fingers and it's clear to me which is Spider flower.

And that's a great summer annuals, great out in the garden, but trying to cut that thing you use, the stems are very sticky and there are some thorns hiding there as well.

So there are two that I don't like.

I will avoid those.

For another question about Chuck Hayes, Gardenias barely survive the winter.

I think a lot of us experience they did leaf out but no flowers fertilize.

Leave them alone.

Well you know, Chuck was introduced a number of years ago about the Hardy Gardenia, and this is going to be the answer to everybody's wishes.

And and even Chuck, you know, took a beating this winter, as well as shooting Star and Griff Select and a lot of other very hardy gardenias.

And right now we're just happy that we've got some good new growth coming on.

I would really focus on getting that Bush good and strong and to have that growth be good and strong, fertilizing it.

We're getting into the end of July.

We really don't want to start initiating a lot of new growth.

Now, I would just really focus on if you feel the need to putting an organic fertilizer down and then also mulching and keeping it well-watered, which with this rain is easy.

She had asked about this farmer.

That would be a good choice.

That would be a very good choice, yes.

All right.

A question about the mosquito treatments that you see advertised all the time.

Are they a risk to bees?

Well, any pesticide can potentially be harmful to the bees, to pollinators in general.

And so we are cautious about having pesticides around our hives.

There are some things that the beekeepers can do to protect them.

Of course, notification is is number one on the list.

So we encourage them to make known where their hives are so the neighbors can notify them or if there's a program that's citywide that they can be notified in order to make proper protection of the hives.

Good idea, because you see the signs all the time now about taking mosquito control.

It's a quite a balance, isn't it?

Let's see if that more questions.

Janine says she loves the show.

Thank you, Janine.

Yeah, And she says, please tell me an organic way to get rid of beetles that are destroying my roses and also which plants are most likely to be treated with pesticides that are killing bees?

The organic way to get rid of Japanese beetles.

Treating your roses is truly to hand pick them off and or to flick them into a little jar of something that's not very nice.

Alcohol, alcohol, rubbing alcohol, 91% rubbing alcohol.

You can put a little you know, I want to say soup can and just really them into the alcohol and that will be the end of those.

That's really the best way to do it.

It's not the some people are concerned about that but I'll be honest that mama I care for hundreds of roses and that's what we do.

We don't do anything else but to be able to control those Japanese beetles.

And as far as things that are most likely to be treated with pesticides, really it's non-natives are probably more likely.

Goldenrod is a tough one for insects.

That's kind of tough.

And I think what people need to do is to understand that you've got to have your threshold of acceptance.

You can't have 100% clean garden.

That's a thing of the past and that what is your threshold before you start reaching for your I want to say first line of defense, which is an integrated pest management.

You know, the I'll say the lowest guns, which are your soapy and stuff like that.

So you've got to sort of define how much is too much for you before you reach for some help.

But you can certainly look for varieties that are well-adapted to the area that can tolerate insects.

Introduced varieties that are most important.

Thing is plant the right plant in the right place with the right conditions.

It's not stressed.

It's less likely correct if that plant is growing strong and do good cultural practices really focus on right plant, right place and good solid cultural practices.

And that's to me, 80% of the problem right there.

Valerie in Chesterfield says she has some Holland bulbs that she planted that she thinks were spring and summer, but nothing happened with them.

What can she do just to dig them up and try again, or it's hard if she doesn't know what they are, right?

I mean, not knowing what something is, it's like it's hard to assess if they didn't.

Yeah.

And what were the conditions they were planted in where they planted too deep.

I guess if you, if she dug them and they're not mushy right there, that's healthy, then she could plant them again and see she has luck.

All right, guys, we only have a couple more minutes.

Bee question.

Shannon, please discuss the issue of colony collapse, What causes it and how do we remedy it?

Actually, we don't know what's causing it.

Colony collapse disorder is where their hives are.

Basically, the colony of bees are just disappearing over a few weeks to a month typically occurs in the summertime.

There are some diseases that we have associated with it.

Fortunately, in Virginia, we're not seeing much of it.

We've had a few cases, but but not as widespread as some of the commercial operators out of Florida and the other states have seen.

All right.

What native flowers are good to attract bees?

Pretty much anything that's got a flower on it.

If there's nectar associated with it, that's that's what's going to attract the bees.

So how much time goes into having bees?

And this is one of the things that I look at and go, Oh, that's really fun.

And then am I committed to like five days, 5 hours a day of beekeeping?

And it's really up to the individual.

You can spend all day in a hive.

The bees won't be real happy to see you.

But typically what I tell the individual is that you have to go in about once a quarter, spend about a half an hour inside of that hive, make sure they have what they need, where they need it.

Similar to what you were saying before, if they've got proper food, if they've got well, laying queen and everything is there, you can close it up and move on.

Most inspections for myself, it takes about 5 minutes inside of a hive.

Okay.

So that's a might be a fun hobby to try.

We only have time for a couple more questions.

Joanne has a lot of green tomatoes, but they're not turning red.

Is there something she needs to do to get them to ripen on the vine?

Well, I think that's fantastic.

We're gonna make a lot of things in green, light green going through my head.

I don't know what cultivar she's purchased from the store, so I don't know the ripening time.

I know.

Many months.

Vegetable garden.

Jack's vegetable garden.

It may, but we've got a lot of different tomato cultivars growing, and they're coming in at all different to be patient.

Be patient.

This has been a lot of rain, a lot of a lot of good solid, I want to say lush growth.

And the tomatoes are starting.

Great information, guys.

Peggy, Keith, David, thank you so much.

Thank you to Foxy for having us to fertile you.

Great show.

Lots of great information.

Next month Peggy is going to meet with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation to learn about watershed protection.

And I'm going to meet with Susan V Meister and Nelson County to learn how design choices affect maintenance in the garden.

That's next month right here on your community idea stations.

Thank you, guys.

Very good information.

It's very good Thank you for watching.

Virginia Home Grown for information on how to become a financial partner, please contact Lanny Fields at 8045608226 or L fields at idea stations dot org.