Minneapolis takes a step towards ending a 34-year ban and allowing beekeeping within city limits.
The council's Public Safety and Regulatory Services Committee voted unanimously for a city ordinance allowing anyone living on 1/2 acre or less to have up to two bee colonies.
A lot larger than 1/2 acre but smaller than 3/4 acre can have four colonies; larger than 3/4 acre lot but smaller than one acre six colonies; one acre but smaller than five acres eight colonies;
For lots larger than five acres the number will be decided by the MACC manager.
Consent from all abutting property owners would be required, plus 80% of owners within 100 feet of the keeper's lot. The bee area would have to be fenced, with flyways devised with barriers of at least six feet to get bees to altitude quickly when the hive is less than 25 feet from a property line.
The ordinance requires would-be beekeepers to pay $100 for a permit and then $50 a year for a licence. Applicants would have to meet an educational requirement before getting the permit. Minneapolis Animal Care and Control (MACC) will inspect the premises at least annually.
The committee vote came after MACC spent eight months researching the topic and spoke with a number of individuals. In particular, University of Minnesota Prof. Marla Spivak provided significant information and feedback on the proposed ordinance. Spivak is nationally recognized for her work with honeybees.
MACC also spoke to Bill Stephenson from St. Paul Animal Control. Beekeeping is permitted in St. Paul and Stephenson says the greatest investment of time is the initial permit, but after that they have seen few issues.
To list your event on this calendar, send your information to info@BeeCulture.com
Beekeepers serving the community by removing a swarm or swarms of honeybees from locations where they are not desired will not be considered in violation of the law limiting the number of colonies while housing the swarm on the apiary lot for no more than 30 days.
The full council will vote on the proposal April 25.
This message brought to you by Bee Culture, The Magazine Of American Beekeeping
If there is one eternal truth in beekeeping, it’s that committed beekeepers always get a bit nervous when someone else inspects their hive, especially if that someone else has kept bees even one week longer. I’ve got a few years on Charlie bee-wise, but not that many. Even so, it makes my heart get all warm to see such concerns, because only people who really care have them. And the bees do so much better in the hands of those who care. Which is my way of saying that Charlie let me have a look at the White House honeybees today. Thanks, Charlie!
Before I go on, this needs to be said: everything touching on that particular place tends to get wrapped up in spotlights and drama, and there is a real danger of feeling self-important or personally special just because of that place and this time. When I share this with you, please keep in mind what this is really about: the bees, and their way of both supporting our environment and inspiring great wonder in those who look after them. I feel that we all owe Charlie a whole lot, and I want him and the Obamas (remember, it’s their back yard right now!) and Sam Kass (whose garden project makes it all possible) to get their credit, too. But I bet you want a look in, too.
This is how you work the White House bees: on a board set on two sawhorses, so you are high enough to work the top super of a hive that sits on a four foot hive stand. It helps to coordinate your movements and to balance anything you are up to with the other person up there! It is a surprisingly stable solution, with the plus that the bees that fall during a manipulation don’t end up getting stomped, and you don’t have to tuck in your socks to keep them from crawling up a pants leg! One unforeseen benefit of the hive scaffold: it is really easy to look up through the screened bottom board to see where/how tight the bees are clustering.
As you might imagine, a couple of key concerns for bees in this location are swarm control, and monitoring temperament. Our visit today was mostly around the former; to keep tabs on how they are building up and reverse the hive bodies if that seemed useful, and to make sure there were enough supers in place for the current and soon-to-be-upcoming nectar flow.
To my mind, Charlie’s queen is a good one for the job. The bees were extremely peaceful and gentle, and her pattern was OK, though not gangbusters. In a situation like this, I am all for the happy medium in terms of brood production! The drone brood was in the right place; she seemed to lay more from right to left than in a spiral starting in the center of the frame.
When we opened some drone brood, there was a minimal presence of varroa. There were no k-wings and I saw no mites on bees. The hive has three medium supers with drawn comb; there is a fair amount of nectar in the first two, so Charlie is out ahead of this one. They had put aside some honey down below, but I am seeing that at home, too. Nice white cappings.
Finally, as I was saying goodbye, Charlie got a call about another swarm at the north gate! I said I would take it if accessible. So we checked it out. It was clearly a second swarm, probably thrown off of the same nearby hive that produced the famous one last week: about 2 pounds (1 kg) of bees. Since I am giving away a split this weekend, I thought my friend might want this queen to go with it!
Charlie got me a box, poked some holes in it with a nail, and we borrowed some bolt cutters from the carpentry shop to lop a small limb off the swarm bush. Sorry bush! He sealed the box shut with blue gaffer’s tape.
To visit the White House Bees with Toni, visit her blog at http://citybees.blogspot.com. And watch for the May issue of Bee Culture, with an interview with Charlie, the White House beekeeper.The message brought to you by Bee Culture, The Magazine Of American Beekeepingwww.BeeCulture.com
--You Can Build a Chicken Tractor - Now in print for just $12.95!
--Successful Homesteading Now in Print
--The Future of Food
Powerful and empowering information you don't want to miss. So read on!
It's Finally Here! You Can Build a Chicken Tractor
If you've ever thought of keeping free range chickens in a chicken tractor, this book is for you! In addition to providing full plans and giving you step by step instructions on how to build your own chicken tractor, this handy guide gives tons of great tips, including great sources of free wood, how to recover your costs by selling chicks, chicken care and egg recipes. All for the great low price of $12.95. Ready to buy? Click here.
I've gotten requests from readers asking for a printed version of the back issues of Successful Homesteading. If you are interested in purchasing these printed versions, you can purchase them here.
The Future of Food
I recently watched a fascinating interview of Deborah Koons Garcia, former wife of Jerry Garcia (of the Grateful Dead) and a filmmaker in her own right. She wrote, produced and directed the film, The Future of Food. During that interview, she brought up some disturbing points about the food that we, as a nation, are eating.
It turns out that the FDA has given virtual carte blanche approval of genetically engineered food in this country despite the fact that there has been no real testing of the long range consequences of consuming this food. And by the way, if you think you've never eaten any genetically modified food, you're wrong. Genetically engineered food is in a large amount of the processed foods produced and sold within the United States today, and it is making all of us pretty sick.
According to Garcia, corn, cotton, soy and canola are all now being genetically engineered in the U.S. If things don't change, we could end up have nothing but genetically altered food, endangering our already fragile health and making us more prone to disease, allergies and asthma.
So how can we fight back and protect our health, as well as stop the Frankenstein food that corporations are trying to slip to us unawares? Here are a few tips from Garcia:
Cook From Scratch
It doesn't take much longer to fix a meal at home than it would to get into your car, drive to a fast food restaurant, stand in line to make that purchase, and then drive home again. Pursue the art of frugal cooking. Buy your grains in bulk from local producers, and make your own bread and .
Buy Organic
Not only does money talk, but right now in America, it virtually screams. Choose to purchase organic, whole foods rather than the processed junk. With all the money you will be saving by making things from scratch, you will be able to afford the quality, organic items.
Learn to Grow Your Own Food Organically
Keep a compost pile, and learn to build up your soil, so that it is a living, healthy environment for your vegetables, rather than just dead dirt. Keep chickens or goats, and add their manure to your compost pile.
Buy Local
Instead of eating out, stop by your local farmer's market, buy good quality, locally produced fruits, vegetables and honey, and cook at home. That way you know you're getting good quality food and supporting farmers who refuse to turn their farms into genetically engineered food factories.
Sell Locally
Do you have a surplus of organically grown tomatoes or other vegetables? Consider selling them in your local farmer's market as well. You'll make some homesteading income and make the future of food in America brighter.
And as always, happy homesteading!
Like this issue of Successful Homesteading? Please forward it to a friend! And if a friend did forward this to you and you like what you read, please subscribe here.
Comments? Ideas? Feedback? I'd love to hear from you. Just reply to this zine and tell me what you think! And thanks!
Greenpeace China recently conducted a survey on vegetables sold in China's large cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The organization found many pesticide-ridden vegetables; some of them even carry cocktails of many highly poisonous pesticides.
In the Greenpeace China report titled, “Pesticide Cocktails: Have You Drunk Some Today?” the organization said that residents in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou almost drink a cup of pesticide cocktail from their fruits and veggies every day. Among the pesticides found, five of them cause cancer. The report also shows that 89 percent of the samples found in these three major cities have pesticide residues; 20 percent contain illegal and highly poisonous pesticides; 60 percent have residues of at least five kinds of pesticides.
A commodity inspection official in Guangdong province said that the abuse of pesticides increased in recent years. “Farmers did not know much about pesticides eight or ten years ago. In recent years, the farmers started to focus more on economic returns and the appearance of the produce and apply pesticides heavily. Now the farmers don’t eat what they grow, they eat vegetables that require very little pesticide.”
Gao Dawei, a former professor of South China University of Technology who specializes in food additive chemicals, said that residues of multiple pesticides are more harmful to the human body than a single pesticide. “It’s a ‘synergetic effect’ as we call it in chemistry. A single chemical may not have much effect but several of them mixed together, cause the chemical reactions to amplify the effect. Most ingested poisons in the human body have such a kind of synergetic effect and hence a cocktail of poisons may cause more serious damage than a single one.”
However, Beijing published an official survey recently that states that 96 percent of vegetables in the city conform to national standards. According to a report in Beijing Daily on April 3, the Produce Safety Inspection Division of the Standing Committee of the Beijing People’s Congress announced that 96.75 percent of vegetables in Beijing passed safety inspections in 2008.
Gao, a commodity inspection official in Guangdong said that official inspections most of the time are not reliable because of the complex interests between the producers and inspectors. Gao said that China has very detailed regulations on produce pesticide residue but in reality they are not enforced.
“The (Chinese) standards were developed from international standards and are even stricter. However, when pests became (pesticide) resistant, the farmers must apply higher dosages. Natural disasters from pests have been getting worse these years and farmers will not have crops if they don’t use a lot of pesticides,” said Gao.
To list your event on this calendar, send your information to info@BeeCulture.com
To deal with the residues, Chinese people often choose to prolong the time of soaking and washing their produce. However, some pesticides cannot be cleaned this way according to Gao. “Water can only remove general water-soluble pesticides on the surface. I know at least two kinds of pesticides that can not be washed away. One of them is the acidic pesticides. They react with the produce and bind tightly to it. That is why approved detergents for vegetable cleaning often contain a little alkali. The other kind can permeate into the cells of the produce and nothing can wash it away.”
This message brought to you by Bee Culture, The Magazine Of American Beekeeping
Tuesday, 12 May 2009 Central Beekeepers Alliance Meeting Agricultural Research Centre, Fredericton, NB 7:30 p.m.
Want to learn more about Beekeeping?
Central Beekeepers meet on the second Tuesday of the month. Visitors and new beekeepers are always welcome! Most meetings include an educational session, group discussion, or hands-on demonstration for the benefit of beginning beekeepers in central New Brunswick.
The Agricultural Research Centre ("Experimental Farm") is located at 850 Lincoln Road, Fredericton, New Brunswick. Entry is from the parking lot at the back of the building, at door "B". For a map to the Agricultural Research Centre, see our Next Meeting page.
Burt’s Bees and NAPPC Award New Honey Bee Health Research Grants
SAN FRANCISCO, CA March 19, 2009 – The North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC) has announced five grants totaling $40,000 for university-based scientists to study differing problems, each of which may be a key cause for the massive Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) among honey bees. The grants are part of NAPPC’s tri-national campaign to identify a cause for the disease now decimating bee populations vital to crop production, and to improve the health of honey bees through a variety of approaches.
“It is vital that we find avenues for successfully combating health threats to the honey bee, most importantly the devastating CCD problem, but also other deadly hazards such as Varroa mite infestation, growing nutritional challenges and environmental stressors that are very likely contributing factors in CCD,” said Laurie Davies Adams, Executive Director of the Pollinator Partnership, NAPPC’s managing organization. “Without millions of honey bees and myriad other threatened pollinators, crops and food sources that comprise every third bite of the food we eat and many of the products we use every day will be uncertain,” said John Replogle, President and C EO of Burt’s Bees.
Find out what's new at Mann Lake www.mannlakeltd.com/catchthebuzz/index.htumFunded by Burt’s Bees, the NAPPC grants support year-long research by scientists at WashingtonUniversity in St. Louis, the University of Florida, Texas A&M, OregonStateUniversity, and the University of Minnesota. The studies will cover food and fungal hazards; effects of pesticides; genetic influences; field testing for physiology and behavioral problems; and bee immune systems. Click Here for summaries for these studies as well as ongoing projects funded in 2008. Progress will be reported at the annual NAPPC International Summit to be held October 22-23, hosted this year by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DCFor a Comprehensive listing of beekeeping events around the country and around the globe go to www.my.calendars.net/bee_culture/ list your event here send toTo info@BeeCulture.comThe Pollinator Partnership is unique in its commitment to dedicating every dollar donated for research to research. Donations are still needed and most welcome – gifts from $5 to $50,000 – and you can be certain that your funds specified for research will be spent solely for that purpose, to further the important cause of pollinator conservation/preservation. Click Here to learn how donations can be made to support honey bee research, or call 415-362-1137.Subscribe to the Apis newsletter www.apis.shorturl.comBurt’s Bees is an ongoing sponsor NAPPC’s “Honeybee Health Improvement Project” (HHIP). The HHIP task force is co-chaired by Danny Weaver, JD, former President of the American Beekeeping Federation, and Christina Grozinger, Ph.D., PennStateUniversity, and includes a number of respected researchers from across North America. NAPPC, a collaboration of over 130 environmental groups, government representatives, scientists, and corporate and private supporters from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, works to promote awareness and understanding of pollinators and to promote projects and initiatives to enhance pollinator conservation. This message brought to you by Bee Culture, The Magazine Of American Beekeepingwww.BeeCulture.com
Rain continues to be on everyone’s mind again here in Gainesville, Florida. It rained a whole lot up north and the rivers here (Santa Fe and Suwanee) are bursting their banks, closing roads. Gainesville got some of this moisture, but still could use more. We also had a record-breaking cold snap a few days ago. Fortunately, folks were able to cover and preserve their incipient gardens and the bees took it all in stride.
I have received a few nice remarks about the Global Beekeeping Calendar initiative at http://my.calendars.net/bee_culture. The Apis Newsletter in conjunction with Bee Culture magazine continues this ambitious project is an attempt to collect all the events in the beekeeping world at one place. I would be interested in your reflections on this effort and keep forwarding to me entries as they arise.
Changes are occurring at The Speedy Bee, the Southeast’s premier beekeeping newspaper. It is going quarterly and will also have a World Wide Web page. I have developed a lens for this publication, linking some articles that I published a few years ago http://www.squidoo.com/Speedy_Bee.
Another survey by the Apiary Inspectors of America is being solicited by beekeepers. The results of this survey will be compiled and published so that everyone can see how bees are doing in the United States. These results, along with those from the past two years, will be used to secure research funding and assistance for Bee health. http://home.ezezine.com/1636/1636-2009.04.07.15.51.archive.html
Two interesting sites have grabbed my attention this month. For those who Speak Spanish, check out http://apiculturasinfronteras. It has an interview with my friendo from Mexico Enrique Carrilo who comment s on honey production in his country and the effects of adulteration there and the rest of the market. The latest on Chinese honey dumping is found at http://home.ezezine.com/1636/1636-2009.04.08.08.36.archive.html “Five American food product producers file a $1-billion lawsuit seeking class-action status against a handful of major insurance companies and the U.S. government for alleged damages caused by dumped Chinese food products. The five producers are Sioux Honey Association, Adee Honey Farms, Monterey Mushrooms Inc., The Garlic Co. and Beaucoup Crawfish of Eunice Inc.”
Finally, take a look at my collection of articles for this month at http://www.publish2.com/newsgroups/april-2009/. These include topics such as scientists having second thoughts about CCD and how bees and humans are similar when challenged with cocaine (see the alcohol example in this issue of Bee Culture), how bees brains work, citrus psyllid control, Wyman’s of Maine gives to bee research, bees at the White House and more.
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Gleanings from the April 2009 Bee Culture:
In response to Ann Harman’s article on categorizing beekeepers, Dennis Durham, Alexandria. VA writes that he thinks three categories are sufficient: amateurs, semi-professional and professional. Meanwhile Chris Sennotte, Luther, OK believes in simplicity, that “we are all beekeepers.” Felecia Smith, Fairgrove, MI enjoys each and every issue of Bee Culture. Melinda Nelson, Garden Grove, CA thinks it’s possible to manage feral and managed colonies of Africanized honey bees. Margot Boyer, Vashon Island , WA questions whether it’s correct to say that CCD is not caused by pesticides. Read editor Flottum’s reply.
Editor Flottum waxes about the need to keep to the basics and listen to what the bees hear. He also has some nice things to say about the joint South Carolina and North Carolina meetings just concluded in Rock Hill, SC.
New items for the beekeeper’s kit include the book of the Soil Science of America, Response of Crops to Limited Water: Understanding and Modeling Water Stress Effects on Plant Growth Processes, a new hive tool and top feeder from the Walter T. Kelley Company, a Varroa brush for K & W Apiary and the new Apitrack Producer Module. http://www.apitrack.com/. Also included are new labels from Brushy Mtn, snap together hive bodies from Mother Lode Products and the IBRA’s Journal of ApiProduct and ApiMedical Science.
Read the honey report revealing how both production and prices for honey are up. See why it’s a mixed picture for California next year.
Clarence Collison takes a closer look at Alarm Pheromone. Read why it’s a releaser pheromone and the importance of minimizing it for small hive beetle infestation.
Tom Seeley discusses water collection in honey bee colonies. Read how bees decide to collect water and what this means for allied foraging of nectar.
Larry Connor rants about silly rules concerning selling local honey and using soap as an insecticide. Don’t get him started on yellow jacket bees and “crimes against nature.”
Ross Conrad takes on spring reversal. Read what he says about delaying (not stopping) swarming is a possibility and when it should be considered.
Steve McDaniel takes on an easy non-chemical control of Varroa. It’s simple, he contends, to manage drone brood and at the same time provide needed protein to wild birds. A real win-win situation.
Jim Tew, just off his surgery, writes about package bees. Read why he thinks some should look into becoming package bee producers in the future.
Walt Wright mentions that even the so-called “experts” don’t often take into consideration bee biology. Read where heat goes in a colony and how it is expelled. Then note that grease and feed patties get in the way and how the beekeeper might indeed help the bees avoid the problems this causes.
Jennifer Berry visits the Georgia Sea Turtle Center http://www.georgiaseaturtlecenter.org/ and finds some new uses for honey. Read what all this has to do with bunnies and tortoises.
Bob Darrell describes how to produce cut comb honey the easy way. It’s a good way to add value to honey. Read how one might get $6 to $9 a pound for the sweet.
Allen Hayes finds an idea in an old text book on producing a scale hive with a bathroom scale at its base. Read how the weight can be read directly using a periscope. This is just the ticket for the Nasa Project I reported on in the past http://honeybeenet.gsfc.nasa.gov/.
Fred Hembree believes every good beekeeper needs a notebook. Read why he says good records make good beekeepers.
Ann Harman attempts to determine where a picnic with the bees might go wrong. Read the ins and outs of having a gaggle of beekeepers over for an open-hive demonstration.
Michael R. Harvey analyses Kerkhoff Hives and the advantages of a two-queen set up. Read why there is a renaissance in this kind of hive and how they have been updated for Varroa mite control. http://rusticelementbees.com/.
Charles Abramson and colleagues from a number of academic organizations, including France, Turkey and Oklahoma look for similarities in how humans and honey bees tolerate alcohol. Read why bees are ideal subjects for this kind of study and why this is similar to the cocaine example above.
In all the news that fits, see a listing of Californians honored at the latest convention and a report on Jerry Hayes winning the coveted AAPA Award of Excellence http://www.masterbeekeeper.org/aapa/index.htm. See also a listing for http://ruralbounty.com/, with which you can find all kinds of local produce including honey.
Alan Harman’s Global Wrap up lists the UK’s plan to protect bees, Brazil’s record honey year, Costa Rica’s forgotten pollinators, Fiji flooding, and bee thefts in Japan. Read what folks think of food safety in the U.S.
Ed Colby in the Bottom Board says beware of idle chatter and “never assume.” Read his explanations and examples.
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