Pour Some Honey on Me ~ part 1

Pour Some Honey on Me ~ part 2

Part 3 ~ What can YOU do?

“If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive.” – Abraham Lincoln

So….What can we do?  Can our individual efforts truly pay off for the honey bee and help get them back on track?  What efforts can we concentrate on at this time, when we really don’t yet have an exact diagnosis for this world wide phenomenon of disappearing honey bees?  I vote yes!  We can help, and we can make a concerted effort that will result in a truly positive experience and be of a big benefit to the bee.  If all the previously mentioned contributing factors has chipped away at the overall vitality of the honey bee…what specific things can we do to help push back on the other side of the fulcrum point?  Let’s see what place you come in for the race to save the humble honey bee, and create local,  strong populations of this valuable insect!

Gold Medal Effort! ~ Get a Hive -With hives disappearing at a significant rate in some areas it is important that we keep the population strong by maintaining hives in several locations.  You can get a hive in a couple of different ways.

The first way of course is to outright buy a hive.  If you go this route…you have just taken on a big time obligation.  So do it right!  Take a class, get your bee suit, and pay lots of doting attention to the new little inhabitants of your property.  Like a first born to a family you can give your first hive an overabundance of care and attention…but they will thrive under this type of care and concern.  If you add additional hives later you will learn of the resiliency of bee colonies but you will definitely (like a parent) know what is still important to keep them at the peak of health!

Typical Residential Backyard Hive

The second way to acquire a hive is through a local honey producer.  With our little farmer market garden I have now been approached twice by different producers to see if we would be interested in letting them put some hives on our property.  The pay is fantastic pollination of all your vegetable and fruit crops and 6 lbs of delicious honey per hive per year!  And since they take care of everything else with your bees it is pretty much a bargain.   This will allow you to learn more as and see if you will eventually be ready to make the big jump and start care taking bees yourself.  With my kids now cured of any desire to grab a bee for a closer look I think this is the route I personally will be taking!

Silver Medal Effort! ~ Feed the Bees Needs! – Maybe you are a bit nervous about having a bee hive in your backyard.  Curious kids and dogs can make for a precarious situation!  Or you know your lifestyle isn’t exactly one that will see you in a bee keeper’s suit on the weekends taking care of your beeziness, collecting honey and such!  Ok so that is fairly understandable.  But the next best thing you can do is to make sure if some worker bees show up in your yard that you have some good things for them to take back to the hive with them.  That would include a water source.  As some areas have fairly limited levels of water and bees need this precious resource to keep life processes in order.  I have seen in late August a virtual highway of bees about 12’ up in the air, traveling all together to a single water source (in this case a landscape pond at my uncles residence,  in the arid foothills of the Sierra Mountains).  Obviously the only water source around for miles as this steadily humming line of bees flying back and forth without break, was a complete foreign sight to me.  I had only seen this kind of organized mass movement of insects when it has come to ants…especially leaf cutter ants in Costa Rica to be exact!  Quite wild!  So a water feature is nice but you can certainly get away with having a bird bath or other similar water feature… just remember our little friend will need a good landing spot that they can access the water from.
What else do our little pollinators need?  Well obviously something to pollinate!  Pollinate and to gather pollen & nectar from.  In the best of worlds if you could direct your plantings of offer a food source for our bees for the entire year!  Now of course this can be impossible in areas that freeze and get snow bound.  I’ve yet to see a bee in a snow storm…or even an area with snow on the ground.  They are responsive to heat and when it warmsnn to a certain level they will pop out of the hive and busily get to work seeking out flowers.  In Colorado this may only start in late April…but in the bay area of Northern California those kinds of days can fall right in nnJanuary and February… not all of these days but enough that it is worth having something for the bee to feed on.

Busy Bee Collecting Pollen from Hawthorne Tree

Here is a link to a list of plants that are significant food sources for the honey bee here in my local geographic location ~ http://www.themelissagarden.com/plants.html .   A lot of these plants can be used in different locations nationally.  You can get a list from your local beekeeper, bee club, or producers of local honey if you want to really want to have a comprehensive list of plants to work with.   In about two months after publication of this blog you will be able to use your PlantSmart sensor to filter your recommended plant choices into a new category… ‘Attracts Bees’…yay!  The inside scoop is that there are going to be 732 plants that will tagged as bee attractors….so be on the alert for when we do our next upgrade release.  At that point it will be quite easy to pick your plants for feeding bees…it will be a direct filter for you in the selecting of plants.

Bronze Medal Effort! ~ Buy local honey! Supporting your local honey producers will be huge in keeping up local populations of bees.  The more customers or local honey that is sold the more they will be encouraged to make.  A good honey producer will pamper and take diligent care of his or  her hives and help maintain a local, healthy population of bees.

Honorable Mention Effort! ~ At the very least plant a row of sunflowers!  These long lasting summer bloomers are a treasure trove of pollen, and will look great against any fence line or in your kitchen garden.  Just make sure it’s a pollen produce, like ‘Lemon Queen’… there are many hybrids out there that are now pollenless for use as  non messy cut flowers.

* photo credit to Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

So how did you do!?  Or what will you be inspired to do to enhance the future of our best little pollinator?  In all honesty if just some of us did the minimum effort the results would be exponential by the end of the day!  Hope you all are willing to play for a medal!

Part 1 ~ We Need the Bee!

The fruit of bees is desired by all, and is equally sweet to kings and beggars and it is not only pleasing but profitable and healthful; it sweetens their mouths, cures their wounds, and conveys remedies to inward ulcers. ~ Saint Ambrose

Honey Bee on Euphorbia Flower

Last September I was casually strolling through my garden stopping here and there to quickly snatch the occasional out of place weed in my sprawling, chaotic beds.  My littlest one had strayed behind a bit to look at the deep red Sedum that was teeming with happy honey bees.  Before I could give him the usual warning, the temptation was apparently too much, and before I knew it, he had grasped one in his little hand and got promptly stung!  My daughter … the recipient of a couple of stings by this point… knew exactly what was up, and with much enthusiasm dashed to her little brother’s side to see where the stinger was protruding from his hand.  His little hand (soon to be even more plump) had a tiny, venom pumping stinger right in the middle of his palm!  An expert of many stings my self, (over 400 times and counting by my estimate!) I deftly snatched the offending stinger out and we quickly (through more than a few tears) got his hand sandwiched between two ice packs to numb the pain.  Keeping a careful eye to make sure my son didn’t show any symptoms of a more ominous reaction to the sting, I was reflecting on how all other insects with this stinging ability was held in such contempt and fear…and at the very least considered a vile pest that needed to be eradicated when discovered!  The honeybee, on the other hand, due to its multi beneficial contributions may very well be revered as the most important insect in the world!
Now a lot has been written lately about all the different insect pollinators that are out there, and what we can do to encourage the propagation and housing of these beneficial insects on our properties and in nature.  This will prove to be vital for the future of several plant species including many that we are dependent upon for food.  But the fact remains that honey bees are responsible for 80% of all insect pollination!  Without such work from our buzzing little friends, the entire world food network could possibly collapse with huge decreases in fruit and vegetable production that are vital now with the world population already quickly outgrowing our ability to feed everyone!  Now this fact alone makes the honey bee VITAL for the future of agriculture, and perhaps for life as we now know it, but what else does our humble little worker bring to the table?  The list of benefits and contributions is impressive, and even when discounting the fact that our world food supply is heavily dependent upon the bee, it would be hard to say this insect is not our best little friend with six legs!

One of Two Wild Beehives on Vichy Farm at the Nook of a Black Locust Tree

Here is the list of other contributions to our lives that the Honey Bee brings to the table:
1) Pollen – So the main job of the bee, as we think of it, is moving from flower to flower gently passing along the genetic material necessary for seed development and vegetable
and fruit production…but the bee has no idea that it is pollinating.  It just happens to be a by product of the collection of pollen.  This collected pollen (averaging about 66 lbs per year per hive) is one of the most nutrient dense foods in the world. Its make up is 35% protein, 10% carbohydrates, and is loaded with vital enzymes, vitamins, and minerals.  This is a fantastic food source for both bees and humans.
2) Honey- This is the main food source for bees year round.  Honey will vary due to geographic locations as it is sourced from the nectar produced in local flowering plants and trees.  Of course we value honey immensely for its delicious flavor and medical benefits including its antibacterial qualities and for those who consume locally produced honey enjoy its ability to help fend off allergies from local flora.
3) Beeswax and Propolis – Beeswax is used by bees to build their honey combs and used by us humans for drugs, cosmetics, candles, and artists’ materials, and even for wood / furniture polish.  Propolis is produced by bees from sap collected from local trees and used as a repairing material in the beehive sealing small cracks and fissures.  We humans use it again as a health supplement and it is the main ingredient in some fine wood finishers and varnishes.
4) Royal Jelly – An almost mythical substance that is made up of digested pollen and honey.  The bees use this to feed all young larvae for the first 2 or 3 days.  If a lucky larvae has been chosen to be the future queen of the hive it is fed nothing but Royal Jelly to maturity resulting in its transformation into a queen bee.  Nothing else distinguishes the young larvae into becoming one of the many thousand sterile worker bees or becoming queen of the hive.  For humans this valuable substance (reaching prices that is paid for imported caviar!) is consumed as a dietary supplement (it has the full compliment of B vitamins), and has even been used as a fertility supplement.
5) Bee venom – Really?  Yes really!  Being rich in enzymes, peptides, and biogenic amines (there are at least 18 active compounds that have been identified in bee venom that have pharmaceutical properties) bee venom has been used internationally for years now and just gaining popularity here domestically.  ‘Bee Venom Therapy’ is used for many medical ailments including arthritis, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, Lyme disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, and is even used for muscular dystrophy.  This along with all the other health benefits provided by the beehive is called Apitherapy.
How about you?  Is there some special benefit you are receiving from honey bees?  Or do you know of someone who has received unique treatment of an ailment with use of Apitherapy?  I would love to know just how our little friend has affected your life!

Quivira Winery – A Study on Biodynamic Farming Part 1

Quivira Winery – A Study on Biodynamic Farming Part 2

So as I couldn’t possibly fit all the photos I wanted in the first two parts of this blog I wanted to share some more shots of the Winery Estate Grounds.  Both the landscaped grounds and the Biodynamic gardens themselves.  So enjoy and hopefully you get a chance to come out and see this winery in action!  Biodynamic Action!!

I just loved this antique 'Barrel' tractor (now planter) to greet us at the entryway of the winery

This Wisteria covered arbor was the perfect transition into the Estate Gardens

The Biodynamic Gardens!

New starts from the Greenhouse ready for planting in the raised beds

Fennel starts in the recycled redwood raised beds

French Fingerling Potatoes just getting started

Fava Beans! Fixing Nitrogen to the soil and oh so tasty when paired with Liver and a nice glass of Chianti!

I love this garden border of fruit trees and strawberries

Young cauliflower head emerging from the foliage

The estate beehive in the middle of all the action!

The Estate Chickens in their luxuriant coop!

Ponds are always a hit with the little ones!

Verbena 'Homestead Purple' showing off its big time color!

Fernleaf Yarrow just starting to reveal its yellow color...what a contrast against the purple of the Verbena

Lamium (Spotted Nettle) just starting to bloom

Phormium 'Sundowner' makes a big statement at the garden entrance

Cordyline 'Sundance' is defintely the focal point of this bed