tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17695314090753971712012-01-09T01:22:06.733-05:00an apprentice's adventures in Brooklyn beekeepingMatthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.comBlogger441100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-36420395644638657942010-08-13T15:27:00.002-04:002010-08-13T15:34:54.516-04:00

How swiftly time passes! For reasons of epic proportions, I did not end up with a hive last year. Since then, however, bee keeping has become legal in the City of New York, and now a thousand hives are blooming here. I do hope to keep hives, or have the hives keep me, someday in the future. Meanwhile, you can now generally find me blogging about natural history at Backyard and Beyond.

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-2752799053955862382009-06-19T07:18:00.004-04:002009-06-19T07:26:44.024-04:00

A Brooklyn beekeeper has been busted for backyard beekeeping. She's received a Notice of Violation from the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and will have a hearing on Tuesday, June 23rd. This is in the midst of Pollinator Week, which runs from June 22 to June 28. There will be a rally in support of this beekeeper at City Hall at 12:30 Tuesday. Other things you can do are listed

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-86498353248828204512009-05-26T15:15:00.000-04:002009-05-26T15:16:23.730-04:00

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-10415105416955214432009-05-03T13:44:00.002-04:002009-05-03T14:01:11.833-04:00

One of the other ways of getting honeybees besides ordering a package is to capture a swarm. Swarming season is coming. This is when bees, who have been productively filling up their hive with more bees, decided it’s getting a little crowded in here. The hive splits: a new queen is produced, the old queen leaves with about half the bees. The departees cluster in a swarming football-sized mass

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-66053723269481930422009-05-02T00:42:00.000-04:002009-05-02T00:42:00.623-04:00

Today is the Brooklyn Food Conference. It looks to be a mammoth event, with workshops, films, speakers, tours, and presumably, some food in there, too. Many things are happening at John Jay High School on 7th Avenue in Park Slope. Stuff for kids is at the Slope's PS 321 (presumably all kids will be able to get in there for this). Other things are going on at the Old Stone House, the

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-63243234856827177322009-04-30T22:18:00.002-04:002009-04-30T22:26:06.147-04:00

By now, you probably know that the honeybee situation is dire. There are just far fewer bees than there were a quarter century ago, certainly less than there were fifty years ago. Colony collapse disorder (CCD) got a lot of media attention for a while, and is still a major, unresolved problem, but bee populations were plummeting long before CCD. Pick the reasons: pesticides, climate change,

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-64397618958997669622009-04-30T16:38:00.000-04:002009-04-30T16:40:22.112-04:00

Prospect Park, Wellhouse.

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-530161575313076612009-04-29T12:30:00.003-04:002009-04-29T12:45:40.896-04:00

Integrated Pest Management. This grid comes with a screened IPM bottom board. It allows you to count the aptly named Varroa destructor mites, a serious pest to bee hives, which fall through the screen onto this grid. We're going to be sugaring the frames to take care of the mites. This is a labor intensive method, but with only one hive to care for, not really a problem. Sugaring means that you

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-41634209865085514812009-04-26T08:51:00.001-04:002009-04-26T08:53:58.444-04:00

Yes! It looks like we have a home for the hive. Details to follow. Meanwhile, you may enjoy this interview about beekeeping here in the city. Rod Huntress’s Radio Free Cupcake is an internet radio project documenting his curiosity about food. I’m looking forward to future installments.

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-479024778849804572009-04-23T13:00:00.002-04:002009-04-23T13:06:36.635-04:00

A dozen bees were in the mud on the Lookout Hill steps in Prospect Park this morning. Gathering water, perhaps also salts and minerals. I wonder if there's a feral hive somewhere on the hill.

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-15427349467778238162009-04-22T17:42:00.000-04:002009-04-22T17:42:00.340-04:00

Urban bee consciousness is growing by leaps and bounds, and that’s a good thing. Gerry at Global Swarming has a wrap up of recent items, and of course there are the Presidential hives on the White House lawn that are all the ... rage. Above: tipped off by Amarilla, I went past Anthropologie on 5th Avenue and 16th St. in the Inner Borough to see their window display for Earth Day. An average hive

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-49173685638349364872009-04-22T12:26:00.003-04:002009-04-22T12:41:22.956-04:00

Justice and Prudence are looking over your money, honey, with that beautiful gold skep between them. Or at least that’s what that old long-haired billygoat Ben Franklin wants you to believe. This plaque is the old South Brooklyn Savings building on the corner of on Court and Atlantic, now Trader Vic’s Joe’s. It’s a lot more golden in real life.

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-63823742821024736022009-04-21T10:47:00.003-04:002009-04-21T11:06:55.707-04:00

Lyle's Golden Syrup may go a long way to explaining British teeth. It's liquid sugar (technically, inverted sugar, a byproduct of the process of converting sugar cane juice into granular sugar) and once you've had it on steel-cut oatmeal, the kind that takes thirty minutes to make, you'll know it makes a strong run for maple syrup's lead in the non-honey sweetsstakes. The reason it's here is that

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-73368558628635799572009-04-17T16:49:00.000-04:002009-04-17T16:50:45.517-04:00

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-80395988710428958072009-04-16T20:10:00.002-04:002009-04-16T20:13:21.639-04:00

The search for a hive site continues. We’ll be checking out some places this weekend. Then, deciding what color to paint the hive. White is traditional, but I think we’ll go for something a little more blending-in, something a little more, "hey, when did you put a Shinto shrine to the household gods in your backyard?" sort of color.

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-72574884016543149262009-04-12T09:25:00.002-04:002009-04-12T09:38:28.822-04:00

The entrance reducer is set to the smallest opening so that the hive, which is underpopulated in the beginning, can defend itself from raiders and robbers as it gains strength and numbers through the spring. Always set the opening up, so that it doesn't become clogged with dead bees.Pry off the top of tha package. take out the queen cage, make sure she's ok.Then a bunch of heads intervened so I

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-56212581981772465942009-04-12T09:06:00.003-04:002009-04-12T09:22:30.440-04:00

At an undisclosed location in the East Village...Four hives. Two cameramen (AP, some German outfit). One photographer (NYPost). One radio newswoman (public radio). I moved ahead quickly to get a shot before the crowd.A package of Georgia-born Italian honeybees.The queen cage. The queen is marked with a blue dot to help her stick out during inspections.The cage is set up between the frames. The

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-53276696554019797272009-04-09T20:30:00.003-04:002009-05-05T09:17:49.295-04:00

Yeah, that's right, Plan B. We'll get the southern belle bees two weeks later. And we'll get a space. If you have suggestions, we're open to them. We need a readily accessible place that gets morning sun. There should be about ten feet of flyway in front of the hive. Ideally, we'd like a garden, but a roof will do. Or, hell, a roof garden... Accessibility for the beekeepers is key, and

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-47196890594466128672009-04-09T16:06:00.004-04:002009-04-09T16:38:55.557-04:00

The garden that was to host the bees has just decided that they won't be hosting them after all. They had confirmed, but must have had second thoughts.

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-92185253251825908562009-04-09T13:11:00.002-04:002009-04-09T13:20:43.438-04:00

If you're reading this delightful piece by Alicia Kachmar in Brooklyn Based, which I understand is read even by people across the big puddle, then welcome to this blog about bee-keeping to be in the big but not so bad city. We intrepid Brooklyn-based bee keepers are actually planning to hive this weekend. That means we'll be pouring the bees into their new hive. That's right, pouring them in.

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-44244098348991735982009-04-06T16:49:00.002-04:002009-04-06T16:52:03.330-04:00

OK, it actually showed up fairly recently. Scientific American on urban honey. Andrew Cote has the money quote.

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-56956927584496409372009-04-05T21:13:00.001-04:002009-04-05T21:16:08.449-04:00

Thank heavens for longer days. After working 9-5 today (I gotta get religion!), I just had time to prime the hive.

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-85407971154178404222009-04-04T19:38:00.002-04:002009-04-04T19:47:02.598-04:00

Glue. Two nails at each top end, one at each bottom end. Brads to reinforce the edges of the top.Ten frames, one with wax foundation.The wax foundation. A thin sheet of wax reinforced with metal rods, imprinted on both sides with hexacomb. Smells really good.Ten frames are ready for the hiving.

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-65892960162157406942009-03-31T21:48:00.002-04:002009-03-31T21:53:22.602-04:00

I've taped the edges of the hive boxes, outer cover, and bottom, all sections which won't be needing paint, which only goes on the exterior surface. The taping maybe overkill, but I'm not much of a housepainter.

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-16220884689190083922009-03-29T14:34:00.004-04:002009-03-29T14:46:51.477-04:00

has arrived.R makes a deep. A rainy back yard kept us inside, so now the apartment smells of lumber.A deep or brood box with cover. This is how the hive will start out. After several weeks, we will addanother deep, and a shallow or medium (those are actually different sizes). The smaller box is where our honey will come from if the bees have a productive first season. We will prime and paint

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-80474750775959156732009-03-27T15:43:00.001-04:002009-03-27T15:45:26.130-04:00

This morning I was early to work, so I sat on one of the granite planters at the ugly wedge of developer folly called “Forte” on Fulton and Ashland to kill some time. I pulled out a magazine to wile away the minutes in the glorious spring sunshine, and right away noticed a bee land on my right pants leg just up from the hem. She might have come from John Howe’s Fort Green hives. I crossed my

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-8280774381935005242009-03-26T18:01:00.001-04:002009-03-26T18:02:33.149-04:00

Good piece in the Daily News about the effort to legalize beekeeping in NYC.

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-71065294882318744022009-03-25T17:05:00.003-04:002009-03-25T17:19:16.881-04:00

A skep is an upturned woven basket most everyone recognizes as a beehive even though very few of us have ever seen an actual one. This is probably because this type of European hive has saturated our symbolic culture. It’s been used to represent the first French Republic, thrift, industry, and Utah, among other things. Skeps were once very popular in the iconography of banks. Old school banks,

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-38097521421581131872009-03-22T17:47:00.002-04:002009-03-22T17:57:10.149-04:00

The hive has been delayed. We now expect it next week. Won't you enjoy some wonderful Cretan honey in the meantime? This was given to me for my birthday along with some ouzo (we went to a taverna in Astoria, almost the Aegean), and there is still some of each left.Can't you just taste the rocky thyme-scented ancient hills? Thanks, A & A.

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-65644538612982694332009-03-12T16:17:00.003-04:002009-03-12T21:03:53.860-04:00

More gear has arrived. In the picture are a smoker and a hive tool sitting in a top feeder. Got these from Brushy Mountain. The hive tool was discussed earlier. The smoker is used to burn (pine needles, burlap, special smoker pellets, etc.) to create smoke, which is pumped into the hive via the bellows. The smoke should not be very hot, and the aforementioned items burn on the cooler side. The

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-78004114564632578242009-03-09T16:38:00.003-04:002009-03-09T16:48:07.494-04:00

This was in the hallway when I got home this afternoon. I'll get someone else to take a shot of me in the full regalia (what's the opposite of the full monty -- the full python?) later, but for now here's a self-portrait in the bathroom mirror. I got this jacket and the gloves and some leg straps from the fine folks out at Mann Lake. Service with a smile (hell, they're Midwesterners, and if

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-52998453601393194382009-03-08T10:23:00.001-04:002009-03-08T10:26:13.423-04:00

Yesterday: the crocuses, the honey bees.

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-3280887010783013672009-03-07T14:51:00.003-05:002009-03-07T17:30:05.108-05:00

Pollen......sticky.Look at the shadow of the wings.The bees were all over the crocuses today.

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-25113133718136094202009-03-04T13:12:00.004-05:002009-03-06T14:50:15.672-05:00

3/6 UPDATE: The schedule I printed out earlier this week turns out to be last year's. The chicken & bees workshop, which I attend then, is not running again. The BBG has since righted the error, and this is what's happening tomorrow.Damn few blooms without bees. Owen Taylor of Just Food and Sarita Daftary of East NY Farms will be presenting a workshop on “raising chickens and bees in the city”

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-90677053364531295332009-03-03T21:40:00.003-05:002009-03-03T21:50:19.420-05:00

Recall that into the early 20th century, the western end of Long Island, now Queens (where you will find Flushing today) and Brooklyn, was a substantial agricultural area. Slowly, but surely, we are bringing a tiny little bit of that back. The Rev. L.L. Langstroth patented a movable frame hive that is still very much in use today. Note also the long tradition of clerical beekeeping alluded to

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-58912837248612052192009-03-02T16:13:00.005-05:002009-03-02T17:03:58.252-05:00

I ordered a few things today from Brushy Mountain and Mann Lake. Jacket with veil, gloves, top feeder, & smoker. I'll go into detail about these at another time.

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-73747765584512668002009-03-02T15:33:00.002-05:002009-03-02T15:43:07.221-05:00

In this blog I will be documenting my experiences with, and practical discoveries about, the keeping of bees. As I glean through the rich history of the human/bee relationship, I will also post things about the culture of beekeeping (art, politics, philosophy, science, and whatever else) of this endless fascinating topic.Some years ago, after a lifetime of being vaguely disquieted and unnerved

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-67065440431956431922009-03-02T08:27:00.006-05:002009-03-02T16:58:49.410-05:00

Amarilla recently sent me a link to Virgil’s Georgics (Book IV), where the master describes beekeeping in ways that sound awfully familiar. Virgil was one of the first to write about beekeeping, not including the Egyptians (Eva Crane cites 2400BCE as the date of first evidence of hive beekeeping). Always a good man to lead you through the circles of hell, that Virgil, but I digress.And it is by

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-58375047405884140962009-03-01T22:22:00.003-05:002009-03-01T22:29:30.355-05:00

Beekeeping is more art than science. Two beekeepers will probably have three opinions, so take these idiosyncratic FAQs with a spoonful of honey.How many bees are in that hive?The hive was started with three pounds of Italian honey bees (Apis mellifera lingustica) raised in Georgia. Three pounds equals roughly 10-12,000 bees. If all goes well, at the peak of the summer we could have 50- 60,000

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-17423451099839553212009-02-28T22:29:00.005-05:002009-03-02T16:59:34.365-05:00

Bees in the wild often nest in trees, and many cultures would make like Winnie the Pooh (but more successfully than the bear of little brain) and raid these hives to get the honey. So if you knew about a good nest, you were likely to want to either keep its location secret, or claim it for yourself. Individual marks on trees, like rancher’s brands, often resulted. These come from the Ukraine

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-8372173397510354902009-02-27T09:38:00.005-05:002009-03-02T17:00:44.029-05:00

In Lucas Cranach the Elder’s c.1525 "Cupid Complaining to Venus," the little trouble-maker has stolen some honeycomb and is being stung for his efforts. With all that nudity, you bet there’s a moral: “life’s pleasure is mixed with pain.” The bees bear a heavy burden of metaphor. See here and here, just for starters.

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-89781999178639870192009-02-26T14:47:00.004-05:002009-02-26T20:34:11.120-05:00

This wedge of slumbering green is where we are going to locate our hive. O, I’m sorry, did I forget to mention that bee-keeping is not currently legal in the confines of NYC? It is in Atlanta, Chicago, and San Francisco, to name just a few places where it isn’t only legal but encouraged, but not here. Bees and wasps are classified as venomous insects, and along with tigers, elephants, weasels,

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-75448671607071762862009-02-26T12:39:00.007-05:002009-03-02T17:01:55.666-05:00

A hive tool is essential for working with Langstroth hives. They are used to crack apart frames and pry them up. They are also for scraping excess propolis, pounding/pulling nails, warding off muggers, etc. etc. They are usually made of forged steel, are sometimes chrome-plated, and, if you look hard enough, you can even find ones still made in the U.S. This is the classic hive tool. They

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-11494034064325939282009-02-26T09:29:00.001-05:002009-03-02T17:03:16.078-05:00

Worker honey bee, Apis millefera, with fully laden pollen baskets, in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, summer 2008.

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0