The Celtics Hive (it is green)

I have one hive that isn't thriving in the same way the others are. The Celtics Hive. The green one on the end. The other hives have 6 or 7 frames in the second hive body pretty much drawn out and are filling it up with honey. My Celtics hive, the queen hasn't really moved up into the upper hive body. So I called my BeeMentor Nancy and she recommended that I feed them. So I have put a boardman feeder jar inside an extra super, on top of hive body two and I also sprayed each frame with a little little bit of sugar water to attract them up. I am only going to do this for this week. Nancy thinks there might be something called "drift" happening because of the way I have my hives situated.

FDA Guidance: Non-Medical Antibiotic Use in Animals a Bad Idea

By Katherine Hobson
June 28, 2010, 3:11 PM ET


The FDA says that using antibiotics in animals simply to increase production or spur rapid growth is a public-health hazard.

This notion isn’t new to Michael Pollan acolytes or repeat readers of “Fast Food Nation,” but the fact that the FDA is issuing draft guidance on the issue signals it may be ready to take more aggressive measures — including instituting new rules — if voluntary efforts don’t succeed. “We’re not handcuffed to the steering wheel of a particular strategy at this point,” said Joshua Sharfstein, the agency’s principal deputy commissioner of food and drugs, in a conference call with reporters. “I’m not ruling out anything we could do to accomplish these important public-health goals.”

The concern is that the widespread use of antibiotics in both animals and people fosters resistance in the microbes that afflict humans, making infections more difficult and sometimes impossible to treat. (And, as we reported last year, resistance also makes infections more expensive to deal with.)

CLICK HERE for whole story.

Front Door.

Cool. Thanks Jeffrey.

GrandHoney!

Smoking the bees..

The baby ducks love the sprinkler

Super Guard Bee! Pow.

Today we saw one of the funniest bee moments that we have ever seen. We had just finished up checking out the hives and we were starting to pack up and put everything away when we saw something happen in front of the dark green Celtics hive. A bee from one of the stronger hives had come over to the weaker hive and the guard bee noticed... she jumped forward and tackled the bad bee onto the mat in front of the hive. She literally shot forward and tumbled over the bad bee and once they were on the mat the guard bee returned to her job of guarding the hive.

Baby Blue Cochin

Sweet Sugar.

David Mas Masumoto (thanks mama @parkhere)

My Mama went to SF and all I got was this awesome David Mas Masumoto poster from Point Reyes Books. She said it is particularly cool because it is letterpressed and signed! Also I was called "Peach" when I was little cause I didn't have much hair :)

WE FARM MEMORIES
by David Mas Masumoto, peach farmer

We farm memories - fruits that catapult us into
remembrances of things past: a story of eating fresh
produce and knowing who grew it. If our work is
done correctly, it's no longer our peaches by rather a
personalized story of flavor. I think our furits are art
and want them to tell a story worth remembering.

A great peach can transport us to someplace else: the memory
of a tree in a backyard; thoughts of family in summer kitchens
canning or making jam; summer visits to a farm where we lost
our peach virginity and truly tasted flavor for the firs time.
These stories join our meals and create a social connection
between places, people and food.

With stories, we never eat alone.

Hive Mind - Illegal beekeping in NYC catches on

By Lessley Anderson

On a fall morning before work, 29-year-old Meg Paska climbs a rickety ladder, opens a trapdoor, and steps out onto the roof of her vinyl-sided row house in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Set incongruously against the Manhattan skyline and the satellite dishes of neighboring roofs, a healthy cloud of honeybees swoops in and around two white box hives.

It’s illegal to keep bees in Brooklyn, Manhattan, or any of the five boroughs, but Paska is one of a growing number of New Yorkers doing it anyway. The New York City Beekeepers Association, a hobbyist group started a few years ago to provide new beekeepers with Paska’s Brooklyn bees on honeycomb Removing the honeycomb; pumping smoke into the hive to calm the bees training and supplies, already has 180 members. New York City honey is showing up at area farmers’ markets and mainstream specialty food retailers. Paska, who does marketing and project management for a children’s clothing company, gives the honey to friends and sells it at a local market. Over the past few months, she has been contacted by scores of fellow Brooklynites wanting to see her hives and learn how to get started.


Oh ya, that's my friend Meg!
CLICK HERE to read whole article

I'm sure they now know each other, now

Merry-Go-Round and Sugar met this week. I think they may have known each other their entire life, they just hadn't met. Sugar was a sweet sweet white bantam cochin and Merry-Go-Round (owned by my friend Susan Orlean) was a silver laced wyandotte, I think.

Sugar was a good listener. She was quite and sweet. This spring she "adopted" a little white leghorn who needed a companion. The leghorn is lost without her. Lola the black bantam cochin seems to be filling in, but not with the same sweetness as Sugar. I miss her.

I'm sure Merry-Go-Round was just as sweet. I hear she was a big talker and very social. She lived with donkeys too. And, honestly, she was a chicken celebrity. I imagine her with sunglasses and a swagger.

Sugar and Merry-Go-Round seem like happy friends. One a good talker with stories of donkeys, the other a great listener who enjoyed the company.

I am so sad Sugar isn't physically at the coop anymore. I bet Susan feels the same way. But as Mom says, we were lucky to have them part of our lives, no matter how long.

Shout out to CookingTeens

The Secret Life of White House Bees - from whitehouse.gov

Posted by Jason Djang on June 23, 2010 at 01:04 PM EDT

When White House carpenter Charlie Brandts told some of First Lady Michelle Obama’s staff about his latest hobby in beekeeping, Chef Sam Kass was quick to ask him if he knew how to make honey that could be used in the White House kitchen. Fortunately, not only did Brandts know how to make the honey, but he also had a spare beehive at home that he was happy to donate to the White House. Now Brandts is the White House’s official beekeeper tending a hive of approximately 70,000 bees near the new Kitchen Garden.

Watch this new "Inside the White House" video on the first ever White House beehive:

Cool.

CLICK HERE

The Buzz Over Beekeeping - On Point Radio

CLICK HERE

American bees are disappearing, but not in a lot of American backyards.

As bees have generally come under pressure all over, a new wave of individual Americans have stepped up to start and tend their own hives.

Backyard beekeeping is hot and cool at the same time — part environmental, part epicurean. A meditation on buzzing beauty. A path to nature, and to sweet pots of honey.

Maybe there’s a hive in your back lot, or a honeycomb fresh on your kitchen table.

This Hour, On Point: we’re catching up with America’s new wave of backyard beekeepers.

Hives! - Be careful so no bees get squished.

City Chicks Flock to Urban Rooftop Farm from urbangardens.com

Hey Paula, Annie, Lis, Meredith, Bee and Meg Thanks for inviting me

CLICK HERE TO READ

Please support.

My bees are happy

Went out to the hives this past weekend to find them all filled to the brim. My bee mentor said "You need more supers now, they need more to do!". It was super cool and really exciting to see all of that honey. Now I need to let them enjoy the summer.

Backwards Beekeepers (hat tip to Clare)

Adding supers 'cause bees need more space!

Tougher E.P.A. Action on Factory Farms - From NYT

Veronica Lukasova
for The New York Times

Bowing to pressure from advocacy groups, the Environmental Protection Agency will step up efforts to monitor the nation’s thousands of factory farms.

This week the E.P.A. reached a settlement of a lawsuit filed last year by environmental groups arguing that the agency needs to pay closer attention to the effects of the livestock industry on waterways.

READ MORE HERE

Guest Blog Post from - Cooking Up a Story

Cooking Up A Story offers a variety of (documentary-style) shows and news about sustainable food and living and those working to change our world for the better through agriculture, ecology, and the environment. Launched in May of 2006, CUpS strives to bring the people behind our food to life through the craft of digital storytelling and veteran journalism.

Call of the Honeybees

Ever since Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring” first appeared, warning us against the dangers of chemicals in our natural world—we seem to be entering a new, more dangerous period, where the accumulated human effects upon the environment are producing an obvious toll. In this story, another human soul speaks out, this time, about the plight of the honeybees.




The impetus for this story originated over the past several months. A number of alarming stories were coming from news outlets that honeybees were facing a mysterious syndrome— Colony Collapse Disorder— that was leading to substantial population declines of honeybee colonies throughout areas of the world. I asked a friend of mine, who happens to be an entomologist, if he could refer me to a honeybee expert. He said, funny I should ask, he had just gotten out of a conference, and it’s being considered a big deal. He referred me to a couple of experts that included Dr. Lynn Royce. Read more...



Picture of Dr. Lynn Royce in the field tending her bees:

FRESH in Boston! This movie is cool. WATCH IT