Update on my bees in the water meter vault problem. Some women beekeeper said she would take the hive but then never showed up so it looks like its up to me. I hate to kill the bees but it looks like I have no choice. Out of curiosity I would like to salvage the honey and bees wax if possible without contaiminating them with poison. Some ideas I had. 1. Starve them out by blocking the entrance and waiting. But on another website some women said a bee has been traped behind her window shade for a week and is still alive, and thats without food or water, so the bees in the water meter vault probably have enough honey stored to hold out for quite a while, but I don't know if they need water too. That women beekeeper said she thought it would take five days for them to die if I just plugged the hole. 2. I was thinking about sticking the end of my unlite propane torch in the hole and filling the chamber with propane gas, maybe that would asphixiate them without poisoning the honey. 3, Another idea would be to stick a funnel in the opening and pouring ammonia or chlorox into the vault and hope the fumes would kill them. 4. Maybe get brave and put on two or three pairs of pants and a couple of sweatshirts and a heavy coat and gloves and put a mosquito net over my head and try opening up the cover and pull everything out myself and then put mothballs in the chamber to keep them from coming back. 5. Or forget trying to salvage the honey and bees wax and just get a can of wasp killer and empty it into the hole or use that sevin dust someone recommended. 6. Or last choice, put on all the protective stuff, open the chamber at night, and then stick a garden hose in it and flood the chamber, and hope they leave and don't come back and hope they don't sting me or anyone else the next day. 7. Any ideas or recommendations would be appreciated.

finally i stumbled on a very good collection at palm hammock nursery in miami - these are such spectacular foliage plants, who needs flowers? alo/colo's don't have special flowers, yet everybody grows them. they had many varieties, but most of them were not marked. i spotted plowmanii label, but the rest were unknown. some with very long leaves, some with more rhomboid leaves. most just gigantic. this time i had the camera and got them all - but misplaced the cable, so can't post now... i'll do a pic show on aroid forum later - got so many pics, might run out of mem. they had a lot of rare variegated aroids there to die for - but not for sale. and regonia rexes !! it must be a rex heaven....the place is amazing!

Mama sago palm has taken almost a year to develop the seeds and now that they are ripe she is growing new fronds and the process is kicking them out of the nest ... I picked off a bucket full of seeds because of the chance that our new puppy, Alfie, might chew one. They are toxic to dogs. If anyone wants seeds at the fall SAPS let me know now. Otherwise they are going in the green recycle bin ... The male trees are busy producing their cones as they do every year... The female tree may not bloom again for 15 or 20 years. It has only bloomed once before. It's been fun watching the process. Thank you for joining me in the watching ... :-)

I have a pocket of oak trees in my front yard that is home to many creatures. We had a hawk in our tree one year and that bird was such a messy, wasteful eater- dead birds and squirrels everywhere. I put up an eagle decoy and moved it around but it didn’t do much. The hawks moved to the neighbor across the street the next year. And then to the neighbor next door after that. IDK if it’s the same bird or maybe there’s more than one bird/family. They do flybys and hunt in my yard but they dont live in it anymore. I thoroughly enjoy watching this little microcosm of forest life...most times. The kids were yelling one day to come look at the window. A heron was in my little backyard pond and was eating my fish like it was a buffet.