Posted on 02/03/2011 3:36:22 AM PST by Daffynition
Beepods are handsome, made-in-Wisconsin wooden beehives designed for optimum bee comfort and user-friendliness. The cost? Under $500. Now show me the honey ...
Along with backyard chicken-keeping, urban beekeeping is another exercise in countrified self-sufficiency that’s really picked up steam over the past couple of years and been embraced by city dwellers … the latest “urban agricultural must-have,” as the New York Times put it back in 2009.
The whole bees-in-the-city movement reached an unofficial climax back in March when the ban on residential beekeeping was lifted in New York City (although NYC beekeepers had been practicing and celebrating it quite openly for some time) which showed aspiring apiarists that if you can do it legally on a rooftop in Manhattan, you can do it pretty much anywhere. Other cities that allow residents to keep bees include Denver, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and Santa Monica. And for a list of cities and towns where beekeeping was still banned as of August 2010, check out The Daily Green’s map of No Buzz Cities.
For many beginning beekeepers, the numero uno concern, aside from the appropriate apparel, is where to house your new buddies. In this past, I’ve featured two cool, city- and suburban backyard-friendly options for seasonal bee boarders: Jason Neufield’s Bombus Shelter and Johannes Paul’s Beehaus. Today, I'm taking a look at Beepods, personal wooden hives that have gotten a fair amount of buzz (sorry, couldn't resist) around the green blogosphere over the past few days.
(Excerpt) Read more at mnn.com ...
The pesticide that Bayer makes that we are talking about here is a neonicotinoid.... and what makes it so lethal is that it is systemic,meaning the pesticide does not just lay on the surface,but rather travels thru the plants system and up to the nectar.
Not only are the bees then bringing the tainted nectar back to the hive, eating it themselves, feeding it to their young, but also that means the pesticide is in the honey YOU EAT!!!!!
Thanks for the post. I had a hive and they swarmed on me last year.Gonna do more research and reading and gonna get me some more bees. Bees= honey, wax for finish on my blacksmithing items, mead.
To Hotmetal..... the swarming instinct is very strong in all beehives in the spring so it’s a hot topic for all beekeepers. If you would like to send me your email address in FReepmail, then I will send you a copy of my class notes for the class I am to teach in a few weeks on “Swarm Prevention”.
oh, and I forgot to add..... Yummmmmmmmm Honey Mead!
These look interesting and cute but not at all practical. Do the frames fit into regular extractors? Guess I’m too old fashioned but I’ll stick with my standard hives and supers.
We have honey bees visit our garden every year. Not as many as I’d like, but some are better than none.
No they do not. The bees in these hives have to build the comb off of top bars.... so the comb is irregular in size. There is a top bar only (no sides and bottom like a frame has. So you can imagine the mess when you extract.
Top bar method was designed to be used in 3rd world countries where they had to keep the price on equipment down to the bar minimum.
You are correct with that reply. We used to have over 50 hives in that configuration when I lived on the farm about 60 miles east of Austin.
I had 4 different kinds of bees in my garden at the same time last year. Although, I live in the country. What they were after, apparently, was the stevia I let go to seed. I had to wait until after dark to collect seeds (they don’t get ready at the same time) and otherwise do anything at all in the bed with my stevia. It was like some swarm horror movie. And all of the little stingers had attitude about that!
This year the stevia goes somewhere else.
Brushy Mountain Bee Farm Dadant
Kellybees
Betterbee
I talked with a person last Summer concerning bees and he mentioned something with how seeds are genetically engineered to be pest resistant.
>> Are bees making a comeback? Did they ever get to the bottom of what caused the die-offs of 2-3 years ago?
> Two-three years ago is only when the media discovered bee colony collapse. I remember seeing posters about it on a display at the entomology department at UC Davis when I first started grad school there, in 1994. It has been an ongoing problem.
> The answer to your question is, no. Right now, the hypothesis is that the bees are suffering from a combination of viral and fungal infections which, together, wipe the bees out. But no one has proved anything yet.
A combination of things: virus, bacterium, varroa mite, small hive beetle, etc. Another factor was one-crop harvesting from commercial hives. Commercial beekeepers would move their bees from one crop to another that cover vast expanses. Honeybees need a variety of food (pollen) and drink (water/nector). If you put them on one crop, like ONLY almonds in CA, they get stressed. Imagine ONLY eating Snickers Bars for a majority of your life (bees live a few months)...that would undo you eventually.
Anyways, my hives THRIVED during the "die off". I enjoyed being next door neighbors to an OwlGore moron who thought the earth was dying because of my SUV. He just KNEW that we would be starving to death because carbon buildup had killed off all the bees......except mine and everyone in my beekeeping group.
Anyways...I've been at this for 7 years and loving my new hobby!!! THanks for the thread!
FReegards!
Bee Bump! :)
Thanks for the insight on bee keeping containers.
I had looked at both styles, and plan to set up some bee hives in the spring.
Have a shipment 28 new trees for our orchard ordered. They were due to ship yesterday, but the weather here is so bad it may be delayed a day or two. our farm is mostly cultivated land, with a little pasture. Primarily cotton and wheat (for rotation).
We have not kept chickens on our farm in over 60 years, but I plan to add some in the next month.
May be over reacting to the passage of HR2749/S.510/HR2751 FDA Food Takeover, but don’t think so.
What I am doing will not cost that much, and it may later have benefits.
Your timing was on the mark. I have told my wife that if we did not have enough sun light in our small potential garden area this year, that I was going to take up bee keeping.
Thanks, R_D
Your farm sounds fantastic! And your orchard will love the bees and produce a whole lot more fruit.
A little advice.... start out by buying a “nuc” rather than a “package” of bees. The packages are bees only and you have to install them into your hives and wait for them to fill the frames with waz before they can even begin to lay eggs or store honey. Thant will put you behind an entire year.
A nuc is a small temporary hive with just 5 frames, but already established with a viable queen and brood and all. You can put those five frames into your regular hive, then add five more empty frames which the bees can quickly draw out the comb on because they have plenty of brood already to hatch out and become good new little workers.
You can then save the little nuc box to use in the future for hive splits and queen rearing to grow your apiary.
ooops..... waz = wax
One such approach would be the engineering of seeds to produce Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxins. Bt is a natural bacteria that lives on plants. I can see where engineering flowering plants that depend on bees for pollination to produce Bt toxins might be a problem.
Many plants produce nicotinoids as a natural pest-control mechanism. And we eat them.
The issue is using the pesticides correctly. For instance, applying the pesticide only when the target insect is vulnerable, so as to minimize overall pesticide use.
How can you be sure the queen will use the bottom boxes as a brood chamber? What if she sets up shop in the top boxes - then you just move them?
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