After a cold and drizzling beginning to July which delayed us a few week, and ‘thanks’ to the hot weather, we got around to extracting honey and bringing in nearly 55 lbs in just under two hours! From what I heard, this is only about 1/3 of the what’s still in the beehives.
Bye bye, cool July – hello heat! With the temps back to more normal “summer-like” weather, the critters water needs on the urban homestead need to be taken care of. That includes even the honey bees.
Beekeeping is slightly more involved than say keeping ducks or chickens. Sure the bees do most of the work, but you have to stay on top of your hive maintenance – no slacking. Besides, bees are independent – they don’t listen to nobody!
Since we captured that feral freebee swarm back in April 2007, we’ve taken a pretty relaxed approach to urban beekeeping by letting the bees, well just “bee.” However, we are constantly checking the health of the bees and hives. Just recently, we noticed that one of the hives was different.
With the rising awareness of the honeybee crisis and popularity (trend) of backyard beekeepers there’s another looming threat that could potentially add problems to the already unstable bee situation – newbie “beekeepers!”
We are back! It was nice break but not really sure I can say I actually caught up or anything – but that’s life!
Another storm blew yesterday and dumped about 3/4″ of rain – what a tremendous blessings that was! The garden seems to have grown overnight. Everything is lush and beautiful.
Justin tallied up the [...]
Continuing our pictorial peek into life here on the urban homestead. As for the previous entry with the fish: FYI, we won’t be naming them anytime soon in case you are wondering!
Weekend Wanderings
Farmers Justin & Sergio visit the local nursery that’s right across the street from our urban homestead and check out the vegetable selection [...]
Gearing up for spring, not only is there planting to do, new projects to tackle, there’s lots of maintenance to be done too!
Justin give the citrus a hair cut
Hive maintenance. Look at that frame – heavily loaded with dark “winter” honey!
Hive tool in hand, checking on the brood
Watching bees is mesmerizing
Everything looks good!
Last Saturday Farmer [...]
The menagerie of animals that live here on the urban homestead provides us with countless hours of entertainment and free “therapy” – bringing smiles to our sometimes stressed brows.
Here’s Lucie (aka Lucie Goosey) digging her way to China (well, grubs or bugs more likely)
Diggity dig!
Estella, seeing Lucie’s hole is bigger, stops her digging and comes [...]
and urban bees win, well from the likes of this article they do!
The national bee-keeping body has recently reported high mortality in the country near corn, sunflower and rapeseed fields. Bee deaths across Europe have been 30 to 35 per cent higher than average since the 1980s. French figures show that bees in urban areas [...]
On the hives once again. Beekeeper D says that the bees have been doing their job. Filled up another super after the summer honey flow and a few weeks we’ll harvest another batch of honey soon (wonder what this batch will taste like?)
Brood and bees look healthy – which is good news.
Ok I have to admit it was really hard choosing photos for this sequence because Justin took like 300 photos of the hummingbird (pretty nice don’t you think!) . But seriously, give this guy a camera and boom there’s like a whole card filled with some great shots.
There’s this little hummingbird that visits the urban homestead [...]
Here’s some photos I snapped while the guys did a bit of hive work awhile back (yep, still catching up on all the goings on here on the homefront). Beekeeper D went in to do an inspection on each of the queens (now four of ‘em!)
Happy to report all’s well in beeville.
Love the smell of [...]
Another picture post. Enjoy!
Chillin’ chickens
More soil blocks filled with peppers
Wild bergamont
The beginnings of a summer garden
California currants
Huge radishes (these were grown in a homemade self watering container using ollas)
More delicious carrots
Cob oven
Checking in on the bees
This & That
As you can see from one of the photos, this year we’ve had one of our best [...]
Off comes the top box with the second queen that they isolated a few days ago
Keeping the bees calm with smoke
Beekeeper D checks on the new queen and her brood
A new hive joins the urban homestead. Long live the new queen!
Did you know? – Collectively, bees fly 24,000 miles and visit three to nine million flowers to make one pound of honey
Today was honey extraction time!!!!
But first it was time for the beekeepers to check the well “beeing” of the hives. They are well and the good news is that we have a new queen! [...]
Yesterday, we went in and checked out our resident bee hive and found that the supers were loaded with honey. Guess it’s all that citrus here and around that’s creating a good honey flow. Our street is right off a major street called ‘Orange Grove’ which, back in them days, was actually [...]
While perusing the internet, reading about others bees that are swarming in the area, I wondered why ours were happily content, going about their “beesness.” What was up, I wondered….
So, I approached our 30 year resident beekeeper (while he was working in the garden) and asked, “So, tell me, while other people’s bees are swarming [...]
On Sunday, with the warmer weather and the spring nectar flow it was time to build up the hive. This was the first time opening the hive since late Fall. So this was a chance to see how they over wintered and spot if there were any diseases present.
Well, happy to say the feral hive [...]
(please note post was written yesterday – Wednesday )
Amen and pass the pitchfork. It’s a clear and sunny day! Honestly, the rain was getting a little much – too wet all at once.
No more soggy clothes and mucking boots for awhile at least.
It’s been so dreary and wet that we had to rig up a [...]
While our captured feral bees are snug as a bug in their hive, this latest report of GM contamination of honey has make home honey production even more vital.
Reacting to the test results, the company Breitsamer wrote that beekeepers are victims of genetic engineering; they themselves are not using GM, do not grow GM crops, [...]
Since we are on the subject of bees….
A Plea for Bees
Bees are dying in droves. Why? Leading apiarist Dennis vanEngelsdorp looks at the gentle, misunderstood creature’s important place in nature and the mystery behind its alarming disappearance.
As bees go missing, a $9.3B crisis lurks
The mysterious disappearance of millions of bees is fueling fears of an [...]
Distilled water, herbs, vinegar, honey concoction
Beekeeper D exclaims “drink up, bees!”
Justin attaches the feeder to the hive and the bees immediately go for the honey, herbal, vinegar concoction.
Calm Before the Storm
“Without husbandry, “soil science” too easily ignores the community of creatures that live in and from, that make and are made by, the soil. Similarly, [...]
The guys worked on the bees yesterday afternoon. Beekeeper D says the queen is looking big and healthy. Broods are good and no sign of sick bees. The bees are still actively working the blue basil patches we have scattered throughout the front yard storing up their honey supply for the long winter.
Though Beekeeper D isn’t in [...]
Justin strains the unheated, raw honey
Pouring the honey into canning jars
Liquid gold! Lovely sight, wouldn’t you say?
A few weeks ago the guys went into to the resident honey hive here on the homestead and collected a few frames of honey. After letting the wax filled with golden honey sit in a huge black pot in [...]
The great honey drought
Winter viruses and the wettest August for years have combined to leave Britain’s beehives dry
In 26 years of beekeeping, Ged Marshall has never seen anything as bad as the 2008 honey harvest. A miserable summer that has confined his bees to their hives following a winter bedevilled by deadly viruses [...]
While our other fruit trees have been loaded, this year the lack of flowers this year on our decade old 10′ high citrus has us concerned. Simply put very little flowers equals very little fruit. Our two orange trees haven’t really fully recovered from the freeze of January ‘07 (which hit the urban homestead hard) It takes [...]
After a few hours in the sun, the honey’s drained from the comb. Time to bottle it up.
Pure gold
Honeycombs hanging from the top bar beehive
Mr Beekeeper removes the top bars and reveals the milky white combs filled with honey
Out comes one of the combs
Golden honey – what a beautiful sight
Pile of combs removed from the top bar
Justin puts the combs into a cheese cloth
Ties up the [...]
The old hive get’s taken apart by Mr Beekeeper. He’s gentle and the bees don’t seem to mind him disturbing their home. Talk about a pro!
Justin peers in for a look see, intently trying to spot the queen.
Is she on this comb?
Found her! Bottom right corner of the comb there’s a cluster [...]
Justin and Mr Beekeeper inspect the top bar hive
Besides our own bee news here on the urban homestead, seems the there’s a buzz of bee stories here in the LA area!
Millions of bees loose on Calif highway (Yahoo News)
San Marino home has honey of a problem (Pasadena Star News)
….arrives on the urban homestead. While the internet is a buzz with stories of colony collapse disorder I am happy to report bees are alive and doing well in this here city.
Last Spring we captured a swarm (read all about it here) and the bees have been happily residing on the urban homestead ever [...]
Flashback
Mr Beekeeper
The urban homestead’s resident beekeeper has nearly 30 years experience in raising bees so we are in good hand when there’s anything that needs to be done saving these vital insects. His love affair with these sweet creatures began in New Zealand where he started his own honey business selling honey in the town [...]
[note: this is a draft post from early in 2006 before CCD - colony collapse disorder]
If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man. ~ Albert Einstein ~
Keeping bees [...]
Unexpected visitors
Monday morning, a little after bringing home a boxful of chirping chicks, while Jules was in the house he noticed there were a bunch of “insects” flying around the front yard. After further inspection by it was bees. Lots of bees! They were swarming in our front yard! Jules a longtime beekeeper, kept bees [...]
Beneficial garden visitors
Veggie tales
Peppers, beans, eggplant, tomatoes, variety of salad greens, herbs and more.
Received an email from a friend who is apprenticing at a farm up north and he confirmed our observation and said the seasons a bit off kilter up there too. (not to mention the comments left by our reader’s who are, too, [...]
Waterfall in local foothills
SOLAR BANKED
We received our electric bill last week and were pleased to see the amount was only a couple bucks (for distribution charges). For JAN-MAR we used 200KWH and made 209 KWH (banking 9 kwh!)
PROMOTING
We’ve been busy trying to promote some of the events here at PTF. JM and I have been [...]
Last night’s dinner was a delicious meal of potatoes and a spring salad — allfresh from the garden. Yummy! The potatoes were the best ever andmelt-in-your-mouth delicious! We would love to have a bit more space to squeeze in a few more tubs of potatoes.
…. speaking of space, we had a visitor to the garden [...]
Hmm, that sounds to me like the theme song from the Pink Panther series….The four old garage doors that JD picked up the other day will be used to build a tool shed and a new cellar door. We first thought about using them to replace our ugly old garage door, but one of them [...]
