Tell the Bees

...e information on keeping bees in Los Angeles, see Anderson’s website, kirksurbanbees.com. Anderson will also capture swarms and give them a new home. To attend a meeting/class see the blog of the Backwards Beekeepers, (backwards in the sense of going back to a chemical free style of beekeeping). Even if you aren’t in Los Angeles, the Backwards Beekeepers site has a lot of nice tips and information. And what an amazing group people! In the midst of...

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I Made a Bee Vacuum

...gotten smashed on the ground–maybe run over by a car? This attracted other bees. There were a lot of bees in the air too. Thankfully it was a holiday weekend and very few people were home and the bees were not at all aggressive. After pondering what to do in this not great situation, I pulled out the vacuum again and, after a few minutes, we had the rogue clusters vacuumed up and added to the box we wanted them in. We came back after dark a day la...

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Are We Keeping Too Many Bees?

...ate). Natural beekeeper Michael Bush has many good reasons for not feeding bees except under certain limited circumstances. One of the unintended consequence of feeding bees is that you could easily contribute to an overpopulation problem. It would be better to let populations decline and stabilize, in my opinion. One good thing that might come out of London’s alleged bee overpopulation problem, that the article points out, is that the situation m...

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The Urban Homestead

...and your local indie bookstore This celebrated, essential handbook for the urban homesteading movement shows how to grow and preserve your own food, clean your house without toxins, raise chickens, gain energy independence, and more. Step-by-step projects, tips, and anecdotes will help get you started homesteading immediately. The Urban Homestead is also a guidebook to the larger movement and will point you to the best books and internet resources...

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