Sunday, October 11, 2015

Stropharia Experiment

Earlier this year I saw a video of Paul Stamet talking about mushrooms and bees.   Apparently there is evidence that bees use certain mushrooms such as Stropharia as a tonic against viruses, etc and bees fed a solution from those mushrooms were healthier than those not.  

It's easy to find Stropharia [AKA Wine Cap or King Stropharia] spawn on the net from places like Magnificent Mushrooms in Paoli, Indiana so I availed myself of the opportunity and got a bunch.
It's not cheap.  I got 4 bags and spent around $100 including shipping but bees are even more expensive than that, so I figured that if this stuff helped save just one hive, then it was worth it.

Plus, these are edible.

Plus, it's fun to try out new stuff.

Plus, it was a great use of the mountain of wood chips we had from taking down some trees in January.  

So I got the spawn and planted/spread it exactly like they recommended under an apple tree and behind the chicken coop and then watered it for a few weeks, then neglected it.

And lo and behold a forest of mushrooms was discovered under the apple tree
last week!

We have been so busy that we missed the first flush, but we were able to pick a couple gallons of them even so.   They are delicious!

We have not seen any bees on them yet this year, but I plan on spreading them around and eventually the bees will find them.   In the meantime, we love them.

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