By Margaret Sloan, Sunset production coordinator

After a night in the deep freeze, the frozen comb had poor dead drones all over it. It sounds harsh that we have to kill the drones. But we're raising a food crop, folks, and while we love our bees, livestock management is not all romance.

Drones are the males. Here is a photo of some drones among some worker bees. You can identify the drones by their big, square butt and enormous eyes; the worker bees have elegantly pointed abdomens, and are smaller and cuter. Drones also sound like B-52s when they fly, and they have no stingers; Kimberley safely carried one in her bare hand around the office to show everyone.

Drones have only one purpose: to mate with a queen and provide sperm to fertilize a lifetime of eggs that will produce workers. The rest of the time drones lounge about the hive eating honey and getting in the way. And if there are too many drones, increasing congestion in the brood area, they can encourage swarming. The last thing we want our bees to do is all fly away.

At the end of summer the worker bees will forcibly evict all the drones to a certain death outside the hive. So I feel less badly about killing them. Plus, the drones have varroa mites! We found 7. Too many. We hate varroa mites.

By Margaret Sloan, Sunset production coordinator

It helps, when you're new to beekeeping, to have someone more experienced guide you through your hive. That's Tom in the photo below, on the left. I'm in the middle, and Molly Berman on the right.

Last week, Tom Vercoutere, President of the Beekeepers Guild Of San Mateo County visited our hives, and we were relieved to hear that he thinks they are doing well. Hive Veronica has filled out both boxes with brood and honey. In fact, she may be honeybound—the bees have filled the box with so much honey that she doesn't have room for more egg laying. It's a recipe for swarming (when the bees and queen pick up and leave), so Tom helped us switch some frames around and gave us some tips to relieve the congestion.

We also pulled the drone frame that we are using as a mite trap. Varroa mites prefer drone brood ten to one, and by putting in a frame that's been designed to encourage the bees to build drone cells, we can raise nothing but drones (and mites) in that frame. Just before the drones begin to emerge, we take out the frame and kill them by freezing or throwing away the comb.

We did just that when Tom pulled that frame. We found the drones in our drone frame were emerging like crazy, so we were just in time. We pulled the frame, shook all the bees from it and put it aside. Later, we cut out the comb and, after warning the food department that we were freezing bees, froze it to kill the mites and the drones.

If you click on the photo at left to make it larger, you'll be able to see the drones emerging from their big bullet-shaped cells.

By Margo True, Sunset Food Editor

A few days ago, proud and beaming, Sunset test garden coordinator Johanna Silver came into the kitchen with the whole One-Block Feast crop of Yukon Golds in a box: 22 pounds of fresh spuds.

She also had a small bag of spade victims, which she'd accidentally mauled while digging around in the bed.

“You can still eat them,” she said. “But they’ll only last a couple of days.” That’s because bacteria love a freshly cut potato.

Determined to use any scrap of edibleness coming out of our garden, I took them home that night, cut off the blackened bits (Johanna wasn’t kidding—some were already starting to go), peeled them, and boiled them in salted water. When they were just tender (I could slide the tip of a sharp knife into them easily), I drained them and put them in a bowl with a hunk of butter. As the butter started melting, I sprinkled on some black pepper and chopped parsley and gave them a slow stir.

The whole thing took about 20 minutes. What great potatoes. They were unusually dense and slightly creamy, and they tasted—I don’t know how else to put it—young. Not just fresh, but sweet and light. If the wrecked potatoes can taste this good, I can’t wait to try the whole ones.

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by Johanna Silver, Sunset test garden coordinator

When are potatoes ready to harvest? Wait until a couple of weeks after your crop has finished flowering (or maybe even fruiting). Dig your hands through the soil for a few test taters. Keep watering them regularly if you want to grow them larger.

If you're happy with the size then it's time to cut the water and let the plants die. This causes the potatoes to suberize — a process that cures the outer layer of skin, making it less likely to scratch right off and increasing the storing capacity of the crop. This process takes about two weeks — then it's harvest time. You can definitely eat potatoes without the suberization process, but it's important to remember that they won't store as well, and any scratches to the skin can make them susceptible to bacteria.

Ah, the potato harvest. Rip up a plant and you will find a number of potatoes dripping off the bottom. Then use a shovel and carefully dig a deep, two foot margin all sides of the plant, as the spuds are known to spread. Bury your hands all around the soil and reward yourself with beautiful potatoes. It's the best.

It would have made a great picture, right? But I got so carried away in the fun of searching for them that I neglected to have a photo taken. Drat. What I can say is this: I suddenly understood why someone named them Yukon GOLD. It's like a gold mine when you are digging your hands through the dirt and finally pop out a beautiful, creamy, gem of a potato.

Lastly, I inevitably splice right through a few when I'm digging them up. These are the ones I wash thoroughly and eat that very night for dinner.

Try 'em in Rosemary Potatoes Anna from our One-block Feast menu.

During the hot days of summer, the hives are fairly roaring with industry. At midday you can hear it from five feet away: a steady, low hum, like machinery in a distant factory. (This is a sound entirely different than the high, warlike warning they make when they're irritated at us).

Our girls are busy, despite the heat, and the landing board is a mighty intersection of field bees setting out to forage or lumbering home laden with pollen and nectar. Once home, the returning bees are greeted by house bees waiting to take in the groceries. But in hot weather the bees have another job: apiary air conditioning.

Bees are tolerant of heat, preferring hive temperatures of about 92-95 degrees Fahrenheit. When the hive starts getting too hot and muggy, the bees cool it down by fanning.They increase and direct circulation in the hive by fanning their wings. It's a mystery how they know where to stand, but on hot days some bees come out on the landing board to fan, and you can watch this part of their intake and exhaust system.

As you can see in the photo above, they fan so fast that their wings disappear. The first time I saw this, I thought, oh no, what new plague has taken our bees' wings from them? Then I realized they were just flapping for all they were worth, keeping their home comfortable. The bee in the top right of the photo is coming home; the yellow lump on her leg is pollen.

At last, after much trial and error, we eat! See how our crops became a summer feast. | Jump to the recipes.

Coming up next: How we're eating from the garden every day.

Veggie-garden primer | Sunset guides to growing edibles

The team considers their edible garden right below the Mayor's office. Results will help feed people. More

Download a plan for your own circular edible garden.

by Johanna Silver, Sunset test garden coordinator

Today we did a taste test of the 'Sugar Baby' watermelons. Well, I secretly did a taste test a few days ago because I can't fathom bringing produce to the test kitchen before trying it myself.

Neither taste test, alone or group, went too well. The watermelons, despite being named 'Sugar Baby,' were not sweet.

I chalk it up to the lack of consistent heat in our parts in our so-called summer months.

Regardless, I'm mad. I waited all season for these puppies. I yelled at anyone who put their foot within an inch of stepping on a baby tendril. I coaxed them along. I cooed at the babies as they formed on the vine. And most importantly, I cut down on water to sweeten them up and waited for all three indications that they were ready:

1. The curly tendril on the stem near the point of attachment turned brown
2. The color turned a bit duller
3. The part of the melon that touched the ground turned a creamy, yellow color

Not sweet.

What is especially disappointing about a less-than-stellar melon crop is that these are done for the season. Melons won't keep cranking out on the vine the way cucumber will. And they won't get any sweeter off the vine (like tomatoes, for example). It's done. That's it. Better luck next year.

Grumble...

By Amy Machnak, Sunset food writer

I started this salt-making experiment by straining the water through a very fine strainer lined with coffee filters to remove the sand and any other solids items. Once I’d removed all the physical contaminates from the water, but I thought I should at least attempt to kill any bacterial organisms. Based on what I learned in culinary school, this means boiling. I transferred the water to a large stock pot, brought it to a rolling boil, and let it go for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, I preheated an oven to 275°. I measured 3 cups of hot ocean water and poured it onto a rimmed baking sheet. I repeated this 2 more times, ending up with 3 trays and 9 cups of liquid. I baked the uncovered trays for almost 2 hours.

Nothing happened. The level of the water hadn’t dropped at all. I started to doubt whether this was going to work, but decided to increase the oven temp to 350°.

After about 30 minutes, the water line started to lower. I gave it another 90 minutes and sure enough--the water was gone and the tray was covered with a crystallized white film. SALT ! I had done it.

I let the trays cool slightly and then used a metal spatula to scrap the bottom and sides of the tray to break up the crystals. I tasted a very small amount and it tasted like salt. The appearance and texture wasn’t exactly odd, but it didn’t look like what I had imagined.

Granted it was white, whiter than I imagined what Pacific Ocean water would make, but I guess I assumed that it would be fine and sandy like the stuff in the shaker. These crystals were large, flaked, and very irregular in shape.

I later learned that one way to tell whether the expensive salt you buy from the store is processed: All the grains will be exactly the same size and shape. Nature is a little more random.

So how much salt did I get? The total amount was almost 1/3 cup. Not bad for a first try. It’s 90° outside, I wonder if I could save 4 hours of oven energy and just stick my trays out in the sun?

You want to make what?
By Amy Machnak, Sunset food writer

As a former chef, I have embarked on some strange food experiments in the kitchen over the years. However, when our food editor, Margo True, asked me to try and make salt from ocean water for our one-block feast, I thought the idea was completely ludicrous. Then, after some thought, curiosity got the best of me. Could it be done? How much water would it take? How much salt would this actually yeild?

My first problem was logistics. How was I, who hasn’t owned a car in 8 years, suppose to get to the ocean, find a clean patch of it, and bring back a few gallons of ocean water?
I did what any intelligent, independent, and resourceful young woman would do; I called my boyfriend.

My boyfriend, also a chef, thought my plan was, for lack of a better word, silly. Fortunately, he is also a free diver and loves any and all excuses to shimmy into his wetsuit and enter the oceanic food chain. I handed him a few of our plastic jugs left over from our olive oil adventures and off he went.

In this case, we were lucky it hadn’t rained in a while, as rain causes runoff from the land and makes the water murky, not to mention contributing unwanted contaminants. He went to a small cove called Bean Hollow, near Pescadero, swam out about 100 yards, and filled up our jugs.

I have 20 gallons of lovely Pacific Ocean water. Other than a little sand at the bottom of the containers, the water seems crystal clear. Now I need to figure out how to extract the salt from the water. Or I guess separate the H20 from the NaCl (wow, I guess I’m glad I took that chemistry class). Evaporation seems the best way to start. Unless anyone has a better suggestion? Anyone?

By Kimberley Burch,  Sunset imaging specialist

...Moving in!!  Ack!
I am writing my first blog (all by myself, that is), because Margaret believes I am the only one who can describe the horrible disgust I felt yesterday morning.  It gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it.

Arriving back at work from a long-weekend, I went to check on our bees. Margaret came with me and we chatted as I cleaned out the water dish and refilled the moat containers around the legs of the hive stand.

Just as I’m left alone so Margaret can get back to the non-bee part of her job, I get a good look at the ground around the hives.  I shriek at the sight of thousands of ants scurrying around with no apparent direction.  The ant nest, I assume, was already established underneath the hives and was disturbed by the flood of water when I filled the containers and water dish. Most of the ants are carrying eggs.  Ant eggs.  The ants are on the move and I fear they’re moving in with the bees!

I run back to my office, call Margaret to share the horror, run across the street to the convenient local market to buy mineral oil, grab my camera and run back to the hives.

I feel the ant population has doubled in the 20 minutes I was gone because they just seem to be everywhere.  I take the hose and flood the area around Betty and Veronica thinking that if at least a few hundred die this way, that would be a start.  If they somehow change their thinking that this is a great spot to build a colony now that it’s all flooded-- fabulous!  I know I can’t spray any chemicals or insecticides for fear the bees will get it on themselves and bring it into the hives.  I squirt some mineral oil inside our moat containers and on the plastic where I see ants trying to get access to the hives.  The mineral oil is supposed to be harder for ants to cross than plain water.

As I do all of this, I am dancing.  I am picking up my feet, one at a time, in a slow still march.  I already know that if I leave my feet on the ground, I will have several ants crawling on my feet in no time.  I have already found ants with eggs on my legs and on my arms.  I found ants on my veil!  Eww eww eww eww EWW!!

Now some of you may think I’m over-reacting, some might think I’m a little girly being so grossed out by little ants (and maybe that’s a little true), but ants are my weakness.  Ants are the one common pest that I cannot stand.  I am still getting the willies when I think about the sight. 

The photo below shows a few square inches of the horror.  The ants covered around 15 square feet!

I feel fatigued, frustrated and frenzied from our fight with the ants.  I purchased more mineral oil and more Terro outdoor ant bait and put it out this morning.

Other than that, I’m not sure how we will win this fight.  Stay tuned.