If you are on a budget and you decide to go with langstroth hives, try going foundationless. I have langstroth hives and I have never used foundation. Not buying foundation saves me money. That frees up more money for purchasing more hives and more bees. I use the "wedge" frames. I remove the wedge from the top bar and turn it 90 degrees and staple it back on with a 1/4" crown air stapler. I use 5/8" long staples for the wedge and 1" long staples to assemble the rest of the frame. This gives the bees a guide to build their comb on. Otherwise, who knows where they will start to build it? Another thing that might save you money is to catch swarms. You might be able to get on a call list for swarm removal. Check with local law enforcement in your area or agricultural extension agencies. You might also catch swarms with bait hives, often called swarm traps. You can build your own or buy the manufactured wood pulp ones that look like a large flower pot. Mann Lake has the cheapest ones and they are impregnated with asphalt to hold out to the weather a little longer. A bee pheromone lure or lemongrass oil should be used to attract scout bees looking to relocate the swarm. I tried this last year a little late in the swarm season, but did manage to get a swarm to move in a wood pulp bait hive on the last day of June. This year I will get them out in late April. Our main swarm season in Nebraska is May, but it can start in late April and go through June, depending on conditions.

They should not have opened the green beans unless they had only been canned 24 hours before hand. Opening jars like that can be deadly. Enough botulism can grow within a few days to kill a person. I am being serious. The jars and all should have been dumped. Same with any salsa that was made more than 24 hours ago since it would have to be treated as low acid since it is a mix of tomatoes and low acid veggies. The fruit should be dumped, but it would be OK to open and dump since in would be higher in acid. Still, not safe to eat. Sorry, but that is what is considered safe. You should stress that botulism cannot be seen, smelled or tasted. It can be deadly or cause paralysis. I would print and show them the proof from CDC or some other reputable source about the botulism. Within the past few months there has been 3 cases of botulism from homecanned green beans. No word lately as to their condition. It was a mom and her 2 children. The lady was a nurse, so I am sure she would not have just fed them the beans had they shown signs of spoilage. I would also ask them why they are taking the advice of someone who has no food preservation safety training. Like taking your dog to an auto mechanic for a broken leg.

Of the recommendations so far, I think Huldine and Marie Boisselot are the winners. Huldine will probably be easier to find. She's also a show stopper because of the prolific blooms. I have one in both my garden in the Portland area and at our home at the coast. It explodes each spring with lots of lovely foilage and is covered with blooms. The flowers are white with a mauve overtone and the lovely mauve stripes on the back. The flowers tip a bit toward the sun. My Marie Boisselot tends to grow more vertical with paler foilage. She does rebloom all summer with larger flowers but less quantity. Marie is true white with the lovely contrasting yellow center. The blooms face more directly out from the vine than Huldine. Marie is more of a lady in the garden where Huldine is a bit of a flirt with a more exuberant growth pattern. Good luck and have fun.

Hey Jennifer, welcome to our crazy world! Just be careful.... it can become a major obsession! I started with a handful of roses back in 1990, and I now have way over 1700! As for roses for a shady area, I would think any of the old tea roses would do great for you, especially since you're in a warm zone. My summer temps often reach triple digits. I have several tea roses growing along the lower, west side of our house in mostly light shade. My ROSETTE DELIZY is a virtual monster, spreading about 4ft wide and sometimes over 6ft high, and blooms off and on throughout the yr. Same with MAMON COCHET, altho that one reaches almost 8ft if I let it. In that bed I also have the teas WILLIAM R SMITH, RUBENS, DUCHESSE DE BRABANT, LADY HILLINGDON, MONSIEUR TILLIER, RAINBOW, climbing teas MADAME DRIOUT, SOUVENIR DE MADAME LEONIE VIENNOT, E VAYRAT HERMANOS, shrub roses MORDEN BLUSH, MARQUISE ORSOLA SPINOLA and floribunda BLUEBERRY HILL. Some of these don't repeat as well maybe as others, but they grow just fine and do bloom at least two flushes. Oh except for E VAYRAT HERMANOS. That one and actually SOUVENIR DE MME LEONIE I am planning to move out of there and plant them at the bird-feeder pergola so they have a place to climb. At the side of the house they don't have much to grab onto, so they sprawl out all over the place, getting in the way. EVH has never bloomed in the 10+yrs I've had it. It just grows like a big monster-octopus. I would just experiment and see how certain roses do in a shady area. They will probably surprise you and do really well. Just to give you an idea how beautiful some of those teas are, here are some pics to tempt you with. (I just love to enable...) Antique Rose Emporium carries some of them. ROSETTE DELIZY RUBENS MAMON COCHET MONSIEUR TILLIER MADAME DRIOUT DUCHESSE DE BRABANT WILLIAM R SMITH LADY HILLINGDON