The Brooklyn Bee

...g Island, and advice from a beekeeping supplier. Howe said that the key to urban beekeeping is maintaining good relations with the neighbors since bees have a tendency to swarm on occasion and people are always shocked to see a basketball sized cluster of bees hanging out on a local light post. He deals with these sticky situations through careful neighborhood diplomacy and, of course, free honey. Howe argues that his honey is more organic than co...

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The New Urban Forager

...On a hot, humid day along Houston’s Buffalo Bayou, in the shadow of four abandoned concrete silos, a maggot infested corpse of a pit bull lies splayed across a sheet of black plastic. Nearby, a pile of asphalt roofing material blocks the path I’m taking down to one of the most polluted waterways in Texas. Not a promising beginning to an urban food foraging expedition. (Read the rest of our foraging essay via Reality Sandwich)...

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Your Urban Homesteading Vocabulary Word of the Day: Slumgum

...of slumgum. Don’t leave your slumgum outside like I did. It turns out that urban night critters such as skunks and raccoons also love slumgum. Some mammal dragged mine off and ate it! Side note: check your library’s online digital resources. The Los Angeles Public Library offers the Oxford English Dictionary, and many more online reference resources, for free to anyone with a LA library card. Stay tuned for a longer post on beeswax processing in t...

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Urban Homesteading and Homeowners Associations

...ne. I’m curious to hear from readers who live in an HOAs. Did you get into urban homesteading before or after moving to an HOA? Have you ever gotten in trouble? What did you do about it? Do the benefits of living in an HOA outweigh the restrictions? And there are less restrictive HOAs. I once met a couple who live in an HOA in Orange County, CA that allows chickens. Flagpole antenna. Source: The Doctor is In Some HOA residents take a stealth appro...

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An indispensible urban tool: the titanium spork

...preparation for a long hiking trip, but it soon proved its utility in the urban environment. It’s always in my bag, a permanent part of my “everyday carry”, and I use when I’m eating food from home as well as in situations where I’d otherwise be forced to use plastic flatware. I love its simplicity and utility. The prongs of the spork are substantial enough to work as a fork, but aren’t hard on the mouth when it’s used as a spoon. I have another...

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