The Smell of Bees

...wall next door to my friend’s house. If you know what this smell is, please leave a comment as I’ve been unable to find a good answer. I’m guessing that it’s a mixture of many smells: fermenting honey, pollen, wax, propolis, pheromones, etc. And I’m sure that the bees can parse out these smells as easily as we skip around the internet. Micheal Thiele describes beehives as, “a giant nose.” To us this hive smell is a complex mixture of smell notes,...

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Getting Those Bees Back to the Garden

...rial beekeepers and the role these practices play in the overall health of bees. This is not even to mention the profligate use of water to grow almonds. Johnny said that these beehives reminded him of Stalinist apartment blocks he photographed on a recent trip to the Ukraine. I don’t intend this to be an editorial against the Langstroth hive (I think you can use a Langstroth responsibly but certainly not in the concentrations seen in these pictur...

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118 Eric of Garden Fork on Old Houses, Queen Bees and Ramps

...k returns to talk about the struggle of owning an old house, raising queen bees and the over harvesting of ramps. During the show Eric mentions: His live question and answer session Will of the Weekend Homestead New York City water tower video Raising queen bees Better Bee Pacific Ready Cut catalog New York Times article on the over harvesting of ramps Growing your own ramps Eric’s cornpone disaster If you’d like to leave a question for the Root S...

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Making Beer in Plain Language

...via the Bad Writing Contest Huh? At least the terminology surrounding beer making ain’t that obtuse, but it certainly could use some simplification. For novice home brewers, such as us here at Homegrown Evolution, the terminology creates an unnecessary barrier as impenetrable as a graduate school seminar in the humanities. Let’s see, there’s a mash, a mash tun, a wort, some sparging, malting, all the while specific gravities are measured and hopsi...

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Butter Making Demo at the Natural History Museum

Join us for what I promise will be the Burning Man of butter making this Friday evening at the Natural History Museum. We’ll be doing a hands-on shake your own butter demo with live drummers. Best of all it’s freeeeeeeeeeeee, but you need to RSVP. And there’s more: MUSIC with COASTIN (5-7 pm) and Evan Weiss from Junk (7-9pm) BUTTER MAKING with authors, Erik Knutzen & Kelly Coyne (*timed-ticket required) POTTING SUCCULENTS (*timed-ticket required)...

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