Search Results for: label/bees/page/7/2011/04/making-it

415 results

Trapping bees out of a kitchen vent

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Bees
3 Comments
...c” box (a cardboard box that holds five frames) that contains open brood comb, cells with eggs and larvae, from another hive. The workers can̵7;t get back into their old home, adopt the brood comb in the box and use it to create a new queen. The process takes at least four to six weeks since you have to wait for the old queen to stop laying eggs and for all the bees in the wall to make their way out. At then end of the six weeks the bee...

Continue reading…

How to Remove Bees From a Tree

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Bees, Gardening, Trees
18 Comments
The Los Angeles Fire Department responds to the North Hollywood bee incident. Photo: LAFD. First let̵7;s cover how not to remove bees from a tree. My beekeeping mentor Kirk Anderson described an incident that took place this week in North Hollywood, What happened was a HUMAN was cutting his tree down. It came down alright, with the bees that were in the tree. The bees didn̵7;t expect or enjoy the trip to the ground. The home owner ran wi...

Continue reading…

Tell the Bees

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Bees
5 Comments
ical free style of beekeeping). Even if you aren̵7;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 our challenging economic times, it̵7;s groups like this, forming around a sense of group cooperation and problems solving that are going to really shift the paradigm in the coming years. Let̵7;s hope that Backwards Beekeeping groups will form all o...

Continue reading…

Moving Bees Out of a Meter Box

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Bees
3 Comments
Nuc box (new home) on left–utility box enclosure (old home) on right. I got an email the other day from someone who had a beehive in his electric meter box, a popular destination for bees in this area. It was a very small hive that had taken up residence just a few weeks ago. The house was about to be put up for sale so I had to get them out pronto. I brought along a cardboard nuc box–a temporary hive box used to transport b...

Continue reading…

How to Prevent Bees From Living in Your Walls . . . or Welcome Them In

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Bees
4 Comments
I love and keep bees. That being said, I̵7;d prefer not to have them living in the walls of the house. Now, a hive can live in a wall for years and cause no harm–forget about the horror stories told by exterminators (they are, after all, selling poison). But if you have to remove bees from a wall it can be an expensive job if done correctly. I̵7;ve removed hives from walls and it̵7;s both hard on the bees and the beekeeper. T...

Continue reading…

Radical Beekeeper Michael Thiele Ventures Into New Territory

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Bees
9 Comments
Thiele with an unorthodox hive–picture from his website Gaia Bees. One of the lectures I went to at the National Heirloom Exposition in Santa Rosa earlier this month has really stuck with me. It was a talk by radical biodynamic beekeeper Michael Thiele that, frankly, I walked into biased against. But by the conclusion I could tell that the whole audience, including myself, left deeply moved by what Thiele had to say. The reason fo...

Continue reading…

Cutting a Beehive Out of a Wall

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Bees
6 Comments
Bees in a wall! Last week, along with two other “backwards beekeepers” Russ and Sue, we relocated a hive of bees that had taken up residence in a garage wall in East Hollywood. It was a “cut-out” in beekeeping parlance. The property owners did not want to exterminate the hive and we were able to give them a new home in Sue̵7;s idyllic garden. Backwards Beekeeping guru Kirk Anderson sent us some tips via email. It&#...

Continue reading…

Remember to Label Those Jars!

Mr. Homegrown
Food, Food Preservation
10 Comments
e no idea. They were probably the result of some late night canning frenzy two years ago. At the time I probably thought to myself, “I̵7;ll label them in the morning.” Not only should the jars be labeled, but it would also have been nice to have some notes on the recipe I used and where the fruit was sourced from. To this end I̵7;ve started a preservation diary in a useful program called Evernote. Perhaps I should get a tatto...

Continue reading…

Bees: Shown to the Children

Mrs. Homegrown
Animals, Bees, Reviews
9 Comments
...wonder why this has been lost, and then try not to despair for civilization. Take this passage about intruders to the hive, from the chapter called Workers in the City (in the book, the hive is conceptualized as a bee city). It̵7;s poetic and morbid and violent fascinating–all things I would have loved as a child: Sometimes a mouse or a snail enters the hive, and then indeed there is great excitement. Imagine a great elephant-like crea...

Continue reading…

Thirsty bees

Mrs. Homegrown
Animals, Bees
14 Comments
keeping a bird bath or even just putting a saucer of fresh water out for them. You can do this even if you don̵7;t have a yard–try keeping a saucer of water on, say, a balcony railing or in a window box. If you keep it full, and in the same location, word will spread and the bees will come and belly up. It may take a couple of weeks for a worker to discover the water source, but once she does, she will take that information back to her...

Continue reading…