Keeping bees with the City of Albuquerque

1 Mar

The City of Albuquerque is seeking a beekeeping intern!

Besides getting free beekeeping training from TBH superstar Les Crowder, you’ll also get to hang with me out at the Candelaria Farms hives in Albuquerque’s North Valley. It’s a rural quiet spot amidst the City’s bluster; a place that creates moments of comet-like beauty such as a flock of Sandhill Cranes flying overhead as you walk up to check the hives between client meetings or classes or otherwise dreary deadlines. The result? Pure connected creaturely bliss.

[Download an internship application | Deadline is March 14, 2012]

Just this afternoon, I was greeted by a group of Sandhill Cranes near my hives at the Candelaria Farms Open Space in Albuquerque, NM

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The Gift of Honey

21 Dec

Happy holidays, fellow beekeepers, readers, and honey lovers! Thank you for reading, commenting, and sharing your experiences here on my site. Here’s to 2012 supporting healthy hives full of rich floral honey to share with friends, family and the peanut butter-honey sandwich eaters in your life.

My niece Ella sends her thanks.

Ella making peanut butter-honey sandwiches with "Aunt Coco" honey.

Bees in Winter: Scenes of Hibernation by Ella, Nina, and Sasha

28 Nov

What do bees do all winter anyway? According to my elementary school nieces, here’s what goes down inside a hive full of girl bees waiting all winter for a sip of spring nectar…

In Ella’s words:

If I we’re a bee I would sleep all winter and I would decorate my house with flowers also I would decorate it with snowmen pictures in the summer I will collect pollin from flowers!

Winter Bees by Ella, age 6

According to Nina:

If I we’re a bee I would paint my house with gold and black paint my bed would be lime green and my job would be to pollinate I would do anything to become a bee for just one hour all I would like to do is to soar I just hope they have cherrys to eat if not  I would eat honey bees are fassanating creatures.

Winter Bees by Nina, age 8

Sasha’s thoughts on bees:

Have you ever thought what it would be like to be a bee?  I have and I think it would be awesome to be a bee for even 1 second!  If I were a bee, in the winter, I would chatter with my friends all night as we snuggled up in our honeycomb, trying to stay warm.   My friends and I would drink warm honey all day long.  It would be HEAVEN for me!  I would have a smokey fire in my room to keep me warm all winter.  I would probably get loney, though.  I would miss my parents and my sister bees.  I would especially miss my baby brother bee, Luka!!!  After the cold winter, I would get up and smell the fresh Spring air. I’d spread my wings, leap into the air, and gather pollen for the queen to make honey.  PERFECT!!

Winter Bees by Sasha, age 8

Pepper Spray Cop, Casually Killing My Bees

22 Nov

Guard bees no match for Pepper Spray Cop

Wonder what time the pub opens tonight... there's a honey wheat on tap I really enjoy.

Lighten up, ma'am, what's a few dead bees when you've already lost your civil liberties?

Find more Pepper Spray Cop at:

How I winterize my bee hives

21 Nov

Propolising the hive for winter

It’s quite simple really. My winterizing philosophy is a three-pronged approach; the holy trinity of hive survival, if you will, and it goes like this:

  1. Go into winter strong: If a hive is weak, I’ll combine it with another before November using the newspaper method. If I only have one hive, I’ll combine with another bee friend. If none of the above work, then I’ll feed sugar syrup for October and November. And I DEFINITELY overwinter with 3 deeps. See my earlier post for details on overwintering with 3 deep boxes.
  2. Reduce the entrance: Using one of those wooden entrance reducers, I’ll close up the front door a bit so that the girls can better defend themselves from opportunists.
  3. Allow for ventilation: I’m of the mind that the bees best regulate their hive themselves and so my job is to allow them this ability. In other words, I leave a crack in the cover that sits on top of the screened top board and otherwise don’t insulate or tape the hive. This enables the girls to add or remove propolis depending on how much ventilation they want throughout the winter. In Albuquerque, as our temperatures vary greatly from November to March, this gives the bees the chance to decide what they need at any given time.

And that’s it. No fancy heating pads or blankets over here, because I want to support bee genetics that don’t rely on human intervention to survive the winter. It’s a bit of tough love perhaps, but my hope (for the bees) is that this non-interventionist approach builds local bee genetics that are gentle with humans but tough when it comes to surviving mites and winter.

Good luck, girls! May the strongest hives survive.

Honey for Thanksgiving! Recipes that Support Local Bees

27 Oct

Sugar? How very unauthentic. How very, dare I say, un-American.

This Thanksgiving, why not go old-school with a healthy dose of honey added to your traditional recipes? European colonists brought honeybees to North America in 1622, so you can be sure that cooking with honey from your local beekeeper is the original Patriot Act.

Honey Pumpkin Pie

Honey Pumpkin Pie

CRANBERRY SAUCE

Burnt Honey Cranberry Sauce | Orange Cinnamon Honey Cranberries | Honey Mustard Cranberry Sauce

TURKEY

Whiskey Honey-Glazed Turkey | Soy & Honey Glazed Turkey  | Turkey Roasted in Honey

BRUSSEL SPROUTS

Honey Balsamic Roasted Sprouts | Brussels with Sriracha, Honey & Lime | Roasted Sprouts with Honey & Pecan

PIES

Ginger-Honey Pumpkin Pie | Honey Pecan Pie with Bourbon Cream | Honey Pecan Pumpkin Pie

The Secret World of Beekeepers

13 Oct

Once a month, the initiates gather. From all corners of the ancient Rio Grande valley, we come like seekers on the clandestine path. Once a month, we enter the hallowed chambers…

In other words, here’s what goes down at beekeeping meetings throughout the year for Albuquerque beeks.

October 2011 ABQ Beekeepers meeting October 2011 ABQ Beekeepers meeting October 2011 ABQ Beekeepers meeting
2011 Spring Field Day Continue reading →

The Pollen Files: Chamisa

10 Oct

Though lacking a certain pizzazz, a certain, ahem…. radioactivity found elsewhere in New Mexican chamisa, our backyard shrubs bloom gloriously each fall and right when our beehives need the protein for winter. As we speak, the lurid market is open for business.

Chamisa (Ericameria nauseosa) may smell like a wet armpit and cause allergies to flare, but it’s xeric and reliable and a tasty high-protein sunburst for both native and European bees.

Pollen baskets full from the chamisa market

Honey Recipes: Fig Honey Jam with Bay

12 Sep

Each autumn when figs ripen and the honey jar starts to fill, I crack open my copy of a frou-frou cookbook by the woman known in France as the Fairy Godmother of Jam, Christine Ferber, and turn to p167.

There on p167 is a simple recipe for the most grown-up ambrosia your lips shall encounter — Fig and Honey Jam with Bay. I’m sure it’s divine with all sorts of bourgeois goodies like foie gras but I eat it straight out of the jar after a long sweaty day slinging websites.

Fig & Honey Jam with Bay

  • 2 1/4 lbs figs
  • 3  1/4 cups sugar
  • 3 1/2 oz honey (I like a darker summer honey.)
  • 6 bay leaves
  • Juice of 1 small lemon
If you’re lazy, just cook this all up slow and long on the stove. Then seal into jars.
Alternatively, you follow these more complex instructions including an option to add pectin, which I’ve never needed.

Utter Hive Destruction: Signs of a Dead Beehive

5 Sep

More gross than a thousand creepy ex-boyfriends is this: A wax moth-infested beehive.

Hive overtaken by wax moths

Two months ago, this hive was booming. But when it exuberantly swarmed in July during one of the hottest and driest summers on record in Albuquerque, we already knew the end of the story.

It goes a little something like this…

  1. First, the girls can’t/won’t/don’t raise a new queen.
  2. Next, their numbers dwindle.
  3. Then, the delicate balance of nature tips in favor of wax moths and ants and robber bees.

And thusly skin-crawling putrefaction occurs in the hive as moths build tunnels through wax comb and ants pilfer the remaining honey. It’s a race to the bottom and the few remaining worker bees struggle hopelessly like violinists on the sinking Titanic. They scurry and gather and clean but are destined for death.

Opening such a hive is a visceral endeavor for you’re not sure whether to cry or wretch. If it weren’t for a stiff drink afterwards, I’d probably do both.

A dirty landing board means the end is near.

Wax moth webbing shows they've moved in.

The few remaining bees can't keep up.

Wax moth larva crawl everywhere.

At this point, we’re focusing on our strong remaining hives and will let this one sadly languish until winter’s hard freeze. Both bees and moths will have perished then and we’ll clean and freeze for a fresh start next year.

And so the tale of this hive ends. Except that I happen to know there’s a little Lebowski on the way and that the early spring split from this hive is going strong, strong enough to survive the winter and promise new birth next year.

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