Two years ago I planted two dwarf cherry trees. They are both varieties that are recommended for Western Washington. The are both doing very well. 
The ‘Glacier’ tree is loaded. The ‘Kristen’ tree is also producing well for a 2nd year tree.
3 years ago I planted a ‘Lapins’ cherry which is producing lightly this year. It is a full size tree, which scares me a bit. They get very large. But the ‘Lapins’ seems to be working for this area too. None of the varieties have been bothered by birds, only a few cherries have splits, and they are all delicious! If I had to pick a favorite at this point it would be ‘Glacier’ since it is producing the best and the cherries are large and the tree is lush.
I created the designs in Adobe Illustrator and printed out the patterns to use as templates for cutting the glass and laying out the pieces. Then the glass pieces are placed at the bottom of the mold, upside down, and concrete is poured over the top of the glass pieces.
I don’t actually “step” on these.
I’ve created some with smaller glass pieces that I’ve put in traffic areas that get stepped on. The glass pieces in these are larger and I’m afraid they will crack if they get a lot of traffic.
 |
| The third and final cluster was close to the ground |
 |
| New raised beds |
We were outside building new raised beds for a vegetable garden in the front yard. The hives are close to the new raised beds so we were aware of the hives being lively on a warm sunny day. One of the hives (Oceanic815), the new 4 pound package installed this spring, became busier and busier around 1:30pm. We realized they were swarming. What an amazing thing to watch. The air filled with bees, flying around and around, and you could see the gathering moving as a whole, edging closer to the holly tree which is about 30 feet from their hive.
They settled high in the holly tree. It turns out holly is not the easiest tree to remove a swarm from.
Gavin climbed up a ladder with hand pruners (no safety gear) while I stood on the ground with a cardboard box at the ready, in full beekeeping geek attire. He clipped the branches and placed the swarm into the box. By then many bees had dropped or flew off. So they began to congregate again below where the first cluster was. We let them gather a bit and repeated the process. Gavin only got 2 stings.
We let the remaining bees settle again and this time the cluster was within arm’s reach of the ground, in the same holly tree.
The final group of bees was much easier to capture.
 |
| The swarm settled in the holly tree |
Then a trip down to Beez Neez Apiary Supply to purchase a new hive. I had originally intended to get a nuc box to have ready for this kind of occasion but Jim at Beez Neez said my swarm was too big, nuc boxes are really for splits. So I ended up buying parts for a new hive (#4!). While they were being painted we set up a temporary hive, which was an extra deep brood box I have ready for my new split hive, a make-shift bottom Gavin constructed for me, and a piece of plywood for a top. And a feeder I’m not using on the other hives. Works great.
 |
| Mmmm… topsoil |
So back to gardening! These raised beds we built out of discarded Trex (plastic decking material). We purchased topsoil for the 3 in the lower yard since the soil there is very shallow, and amended the soil with commercial steer manure. We are going to plant our sun-lovingest plants down here. Tomatoes, squashes, cucumbers, basil. I have rarely had much luck with tomatoes, and I have high hopes for this new location with the raised beds.
