May and June is the swarming season. Here is a picture of a nice swarm that landed very high up in an apple tree near my honey house. It was too high to capture so I hope that it moves into one of my empty storage supers nearby.

Our spring colony check is a very important part of the bee year. Weak colonies are made stronger by taking frames of brood from strong colonies & given to the weaker ones. This also helps to prevent swarming which is sometimes caused by colonies being too big and crowded. Splits are new colonies made by taking 3 - 4 frames of brood, bees and a queen cell. We use splits to replace colonies lost over the winter and sometimes to re-queen weaker colonies. Usually 2 colonies can be made into 3 or 4. Raising new queens for these colonies has always been a large part of our spring work. Making splits ......

Quite often I will use about 50 to 100 new queens every year. At $10 to $20 a queen this can get quite expensive. By raising your own queens you can maintain better queen control quality. I raise queen with a "Jenter" system that help to transfer 1 day old larvae into queen cells. I then put them into a queenless hive for the bees to finish them into a queen. This year I used 2 queens that are bred from new mite resistant stock.
Click here for pictures & info on how I raise queens.

These breeder queens, called SMR (or smart queens) have just been developed and many people hope that the genes from these bees will start to spread accross the country to help control the devastating loss from the varroa mite.
Click here for more information about "smart" queens.
Click here to see how we install and raise new queens.

We also move, change or increase bee yards at this time of the year. The colonies are smaller and much easier to move if we have to. Since I do not move bees for regular pollination fees (I leave 15 - 20 colonies - a bee yard - in one place)

We are starting a pictorial page that will show where honey comes from and what we do to our honeybees each month throughout the year. Watch a field of flowers become honey.

June honey recipes - Honey Bread

Mix all ingredients together. Fill foil-lined, greased tins ½ to ¾ full. Bake in slow oven (325 degrees) for 1-1 ¼ hours. Remove from pans and foil. Cool. Wrap in plastic wrap or foil and store in tightly covered container to ripen. (2-3 weeks) When ripe, the top will have a very moist layer. Slice thinly and serve as cofee cake. May be buttered if desired. This makes 3-4 medium loaves.

This recipe was given to my parents by a Belgian couple (Truck gardeners who lived near Selfrigde Field) in the Mid 1930’s. We make at least one batch in time to be ready to eat at Christmas and often will make another later.

It is a good way to use up left-over coffee, but it can be made with strong instant coffee also. It is very important that you follow the instructions about the lining in the pan and the ripening of the bread after the baking. The pans are bread loaf size. We use the smaller size as this gives more top sides. Richard C. Bloom, Grand Blanc.

Spring Frost! Major Damage This Time! T-Corks! More Winemaking Contests!

Spring Frost!   Major Damage This Time!

A cold and late spring has reduced our crop somewhat and will cause what was not damaged to ripen slightly later. We will also see clusters ripening at slightly different times on the same vine. It is a very good thing that all our grapes are picked by extremely skilled and intelligient people (YOU).

We missed the frost damage from the freezes in April that severely damaged the Paw Paw area of Michigan but we did have a lot of damage from freezing temperatures on the morning of Sunday, May 19, and two days later on May 21.

The only good part of this scenario is that because it has been so cold the bud growth was not as far along as it could have been and the vines are already pushing more buds. The damage seems to be quite varied, some vines that push buds later had less damage and some of the earlier ones have lost all of their primary buds. Most vines have secondary buds that are sometimes fruitful and we hope for a crop from many of these. Since we had a very mild winter the majority of the buds that are left are at least not winter damaged     . Here is a picture of a DeChaunac flower cluster.

The June 1, 2002 Detroit Free Press has a good article regarding the freeze damage in Michigan this spring.   Michigan's fruit growers hit hard by spring cold  

The Michigan State University Fruit Alert Newsletter/Website may also be of interest you. It is revised every wednesday and shows the growing conditions of all of Michigans fruit crops. Check it out!!!

Here is a picture of frozen shoots from a late spring frost last year on Mothers Day, 2001. This damage was VERY SEVERE and we lost about 2/3 of our crop. Fortunately this does not happen very often. This is somewhat like what happened to the Michigan Paw Paw area this year.

Here is a good article on how much cold temperatures grapes buds can survive in the spring. How Cold Can Grapes Go?

Recent Experience with "T-Corks"

I have been bottling wine for quite a while with "T-Corks". They are cheap, easy to install & remove. I started using them because I was real busy and I could persuade my daughters to bottle wine for me. (A corker was too hard for them to handle)

I have noticed in the past that some of my wines go bad (oxidise) quicker than they should. I was in the habit of bottling 5 gallons of wine & leaving it up-right in a few bushel basket. (Sometimes it gets disappeared fast anyway). After a while it did not seem to taste as good so I would dump the rest. After all, owning a vineyard gives me access to a lot of fruit.

Earlier this year I bottle a 5 gallon carboy of a Vignoles/Seyval/Cayuga blend and I was very pleased with it. (I have found that Vignoles added to various blends really enhances them.) I left most of the bottles up-right (with t-corks) in a few plastic milk/juice cases with some of them stored on their sides laid on the top. (Sometime this is a dangerous practice with t-corks because the easily leak.) Only a few months later, after enjoying a few bottles, I tried one and it was not good (already oxidising) and was VERY SURPRISED. I went to the basement and pulled a bottle that was laid on its side and tried it. I COULD NOT BELIEVE THE DIFFERENCE! The bottle stored on the side was wonderful and the up-right one was not drinkable.

I knew that wine not stored on it's side will not last as long, but this was the quickest that I have had some go bad. It may have been influinced by a low sulphite count in the wine (I had blended it a year before but did not get back to bottling it untill a year later)

This is just another warning to use proper corks, store wine properly, and adjust sulphite when necessary. Here are some articles on these subjects:

A Sulfite Calculator - Winemaker Magazine

Put a Cork in It!    Winter 2000 by Jim Drevescraft - Winemaker Magazine
Everything you'll ever need to know (we think!) about sealing your bottles of homemade wine.

Aging Gracefully     Winter 2001 - Winemaker Magazine
Some remarkable changes can occur when a wine is allowed to age - yet not all wines improve with time. A guide to understanding and managing the aging process, from selecting time-worthy wine to storing it properly.

Solving the Sulfite Puzzle    Winter 2000 - Winemaker Magazine
A guide to understanding, measuring and controlling the level of sulfite in your wine.

Do you have any experiences with corks, sulphite and storing wine? - Click her and let us know for our newsletter!

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The continuous story of Cayuga Row 34 and how it behaves during this growing season.

This is a picture of the first vine in row 34, taken in January 2002 - Watch it grow during the season.

Meet Cayuga Row 34 (or really the first vine in this row). This will be one of the vines that we will focus on this year, taking pictures of it all during the growing season. You will see it shortly after it is pruned (around Easter), when the buds are swelling and bursting in May, when it blooms in June, when the berries dramatically increase in size in July, when the berries color (although Cayuga is a white grape) in August, and you may be the one to harvest it in September!  

In (February) we were able to get a very nice picture of our cayuga vine covered with snow. Near the end of march we will start pruning this vine. We will add to this page during the season as the vine grows.

Cayuga in row 34 before pruning	Same vine after pruning in late march 2002 (click on picture for close-up)

 

This picture was taken May 6, 2001. It shows Cayuga buds in the "bud swell" stage. Cayuga starts its spring growth somewhat later than DeChaunac or Delaware and had very little frost damage.

	This is a different cayuga vine down the row from our original. The first one was not typical of the row. See how there are not many new shoots and they come from anywhere on the vine rather than on the 5 bud spurs. This is caused by the freeze.
Picture taken on 6/3/02

 

 

Click here to go to our more in-depth study of 3 growing vines,
a Cayuga, Delaware & a DeChaunac

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Enter your wine in winemaking contests.  I have additional information regarding winemaking contests. Many of our customers have won in the past.

Enter the Michigan State Fair Homewinemaking Contest!
(must enter by late July)

Enter the 2002 Indiana International Wine Competition!
(must enter by July 15, 2002)

Enter the 2002 WineMaker International Amateur Wine Competition!
(must enter by November 8, 2002)

Michigan Wines - This is a very good site about Michigan wines and also has info abour last years Michigan State Fair winners.

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Grape Recipe for June

Grape and Green Tomato Chutney

1. Put the tomato slices in a 5-quart saucepan. Peel and dice the apples and add them to the tomatoes. Add the onions, sugar, vinegar, raisins and salt. Mix well. Cook over medium heat for about 30 minutes.
2. Add the red pepper flakes, mustard seed, dry mustard, ginger and grapes to the hot mixture. Cook for about 30 minutes longer, or until mixture is thick.

Pack chutney into hot sterilized jars, preferable 1-cup size. Seal at once. Makes 2 pints.

• 2 lbs. Green tomatoes, sliced
• 4 tart apples
• ½ tsp. salt
• 2/3 cup chopped onions
• 2 ¾ cups dark brown sugar
• 2 cups cider vinegar
• 1 cup seedless raisins
• ½ tsp. hot red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp. mustard seed
• 1 tsp. dry mustard
• 1 tsp. Finely chopped fresh ginger
• 3 cups green seedless grapes

Do you have a great grape recipe - please send it to me and we will put it in our newsletter.

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Congratulations! June candle winner is = mpkilbourn@yahoo.com

Click here for the full list of winners!