Bees love kale

We are noticing how much the bees love the yellow kale flowers at this time of year, when there are not so many other flowers yet for foraging.  The kale (which we are letting go to seed from last year) in our grow tunnel bed is in full bloom, and constantly covered with a loud buzzing frenzy of gorgeous bees (many types of bees too, we saw loads of bumbles, a few honey bees, some small native bees, a sweat bee).  And I get to continue my fascination with bees, and trying to capture their energy on camera.

To learn more about bees and urban beekeeping (the top bar method) consider taking our Beekeeping with Intention workshop, Sat June 11.  Register here.

honey, eggs & earth day

Happy earth day (every day!)

Our daughter told me she felt we spent today in the most earth-loving way possible - spending most of our day with earth-loving friends who inspire us: who also love growing food, caring for animals, keeping bees, getting their hands into the soil, raising their kids to be conscientious and kind, living simply and exemplifying creative, sustainable permaculture principles in so many ways (in approaches to parenting, unschooling, gardening, household routines).

Whenever we are at this friends' house we are served simple nourishing wholesome food that they have grown or wild-harvested, our daughter spends as many hours as she can holding all manner of their birds and animals from bunnies to quail, snuggling with cats and dogs, and we never leave empty handed.  Today we were gifted with a dozen tiny quail eggs wrapped in tissue to keep them safe in our bike trailer; a piece of sweet precious honeycomb from the first honey harvest of their top bar hive; and freshly cut willow for spring decor and to root for ourselves.  An inspiring family that I am so glad to have as members of our community.

For those who want more information on natural beekeeping, check out Gaia Bees site and Gaia Bees videos.  The section on alternative bee nests is quite beautiful (see the straw hive and sun hive).

Bees Late Summer Forage

We are enjoying watching all the marvelous varieties of bees foraging in our garden right now.  Here in Ontario there are over 400 varieties of wild bees alone! It's a busy time, they are moving with a much faster pace than in early summer, getting all the last best pollen and preparing for winter.  Any yellow flowers, like this cup plant and goldenrod pictured, are just covered with bees from morning until dusk. 

There is so much more I want to learn about bees, and from bees!  On our fall/winter reading list is The Thinking Beekeeper: A Guide to Natural Beekeeping in Top Bar Hives, learning about top bar beekeeping, an minimal intervention approach to beekeeping that uses a hive design much more similar to how bees would build in nature.  The idea is to create a healthy hive for the bees (and let them build and maintain it), with much less emphasis on harvest of honey. 

Visit Pollination Canada to learn more about the important role of bees and other pollinators, what plants to grow in order to help attract pollinators, and other useful info.

Sustainable Bees - Queen of the Sun documentary

Last Friday we had the opportunity to watch Queen of the Sun: What are the Bees Telling Us, an amazing documentary that speaks to the importance of bees in our ecosystem and to our food system.  It discusses the devastating effects of industrialized agriculture and large-scale beekeeping (where bees are driven around the country by semi-trailers to pollinate monoculture industrial farms), and interviews many small-scale beekeepers around the world who are using various sustainable approaches to beekeeping - including setting up inspiring examples of bee sanctuaries.  One biodynamic bee sanctuary highlighted is Spikenard Farm Honeybee Sanctuary.  We are utterly dependent on healthy bees - do watch this documentary! Watch the trailer here.

This short video is a great overview of how to start a bee sanctuary.  It features a bee sanctuary garden in Davis, California, and shows what a top bar hive looks like.

Beekeeping co-op locally

Last fall we hosted a beekeeping workshop here at Little City Farm. We had a speaker from the University of Guelph beekeeping lab come to present information on basic beekeeping, demonstrate the various tools, discuss bee care and honey harvest, and ended with a "honey tasting" to sample an array of local honey.

Various workshop participants became inspired and took this very seriously! Several expressed interest in taking the more extensive beekeeping course offered every spring by the Ontario Beekeeping Association, joining a local beekeeping group, and even forming a beekeepers co-op. The beekeepers co-op could share the hive management, costs, tools, bee care, honey harvest, and share knowledge, etc. We've now heard of at least five participants from our fall workshop who have now taken the plunge and ordered bees for this season. The bees arrive in mid June, ordered from a nearby farm, and the rest of the beekeeping supplies can be found at a store in Cambridge (or possibly used through the beekeeping association). We hope to volunteer with one friend, and continue to research the feasibility of keeping bees on our property in the city. Very exciting! Congratulations to the newest K-W beekeepers!

If others locally are interested in more information on this beekeeping co-op, or have beekeepers information to share, contact us at info@littlecityfarm.ca

Organic Beekeeping

Thanks to Les Eccles, from the University of Guelph beekeeping lab, for an excellent beekeeping workshop here on Saturday!

We held the workshop in our unfinished strawbale house addition, where we set up extra bales into risers for people to sit on. Turned out to be the perfect "farm" setting for a beekeeping workshop (see photo above)!

The workshop was packed with information, definitely whetting the appetite of would-be beginner beekeepers. He mentioned a 2-day hands-on workshop in spring, which would be the next step for someone getting serious about beekeeping (otherwise apprenticing with a seasoned beekeeper would be a good way to start). He was encouraging of urban beekeeping and there was some interest from participants in the idea of forming a beekeeping co-op, sharing equipment such as honey extractor, yard space, and also the care of the bees. Hopefully we can stay in touch through an email list to see a group like this form next spring!

A highlight was the honey tasting, with varieties of honey from Les' apiary - examples of raw and liquid (pasteurized) spring honey (harvested in June, made from flowers such as dandelion and red clover), and fall honey (harvested in September, made from summer flowers such as alfalfa). He mentioned that trees such as willow, linden and buckthorn make excellent honey, and that certainly there is enough greenspace and gardens in the city to supply bees their nectar.

Organic Beekeeping
Our group had strong interest in organic beekeeping, and although he said it's virtually impossible to become certified organic with honey (given that you need such a large radius of certified organic farmland around your beekeeping operation to ensure bees are only feeding on organic plants), you can use organic practices to reduce chemical residue in honey. Here is the contact information for those who wish to follow up on organic beekeeping:

Ontario Beekeepers' Association Technology Transfer Program
Alison Skinner, Janet Tam and Rachel Bannister
519-836-3609
www.ontairobee.com

From the organic beekeeping brochure:

Why choose organic beekeeping practices?

- risk of relying on a single solution is eliminated when using a combination of treatments
- monitoring disease levels and treating when it is required saves the expense of treating for the sake of treating
- alternating treatments reduces the selection pressure for that treatment, decreasing the likelihood of resistance
- organic management eliminates the potential of residues from hard chemicals

The national standards for Organic Honey as reviewed by the Canadian General Standards Board are available at: www.honeycouncil.ca

The invaluable honeybee

Really excited for our beekeeping workshop which is coming up next Saturday. There is a huge interest in reviving small-scale beekeeping and bee preservation, stemming from all the recent information about the mysterious disappearance of honeybees and entire colonies of bees in North America. Given the cornerstone/keystone role that bees play in our food system (and therefore our livlihoods in general) this is an alarming situation not to be overlooked. Much research is going into the causes of bee losses, and how to develop sustainable solutions. There is a group of people talking about the possibility of setting up an urban beekeeping co-op locally, so we can all share the responsibilities of tending the bees as well as reaping the benefits of the honey.

The facilitator for the workshop next Saturday is Les Eccles from the University of Guelph Beekeeping Lab, who will speak about his research about the recent losses of bees, as well as setting up your basic first honeybee hive. He will also do a honey tasting! Honey tasting? It's true - there is an astounding variation of flavour, texture and colour to honey (not unlike wine) depending on where and when the nectar is collected. For example, in New York City where there is a thriving urban beekeeping movement, one bee farmer, David Graves, who sells his honey at a farmers market in the city, keeps 13 hives on rooftops in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the Bronx in order to get variations on flavour. Based on what different neighbourhoods have growing in their parks, community gardens and backyard gardens, he finds distinct changes in the honey from bees kept in that location (see New York City Rooftop Beelicious Honey). From his site: "So, how does NYC honey taste? Sooty? Fortunately, no:The bees sip from deep inside the blossom, beyond any grime, feeding on linden and locust trees, cover, and a range of flowers. The honey varies in character seasonally and from hive to hive. Last fall, Grave's Upper West Side honey was intensely sweet, and electric amber in hue. His Brooklyn blend was as dark and as thick as treacle. By spring, both were clear gold, with a mild, clean flavor. Graves takes pride in his truly local honey, noting that some say it helps build immunity to indigenous pollen."

There's also a whole listing of beekeepers clubs, including the Long Island Beekeepers Club whose goal is to "education beekeepers on the proper beekeeping practices for the management of honeybees in a suburban environment and the general public on the importance of honeybees and their products". Their website provides a wealth of information to new would-be beekeepers (www.longislandbeekeepers.org).

And here's a little honey bee trivia, to present the amazing qualities of these bees:

How fast can a honey bee fly?
15 miles per hour

How many eggs does a queen bee lay in one day?
800-1500

What do honey bees do in winter?
hibernate

What happens to drone (male) bees in the fall?
They are evicted out of the hive by the worker bees

How many bees are inside the hive during honey season?
40,000-60,000

How long does a worker bee live in the spring/summer?
4 weeks

How much nectar can a honey bee collect in one flight?
1 eyedropper full

How far does a honey bee fly to give us one pound of honey?
55,000 miles

How much honey (fuel) would it take for a honey bee to fly around the world?
2 Tbsp

What is the average yield of 2 beehives in Canada or the US?
150 lbs of honey