Thanks for reading the beekeeping article in this week’s Local iQ. Welcome to my personal beekeeping website.
Interested in Albuquerque beekeeping? Here are some resources:
Or, if you’re just looking for a website, here’s my consulting firm.
Photo by Joy Godfrey
Oh my! Me and the 40,000 vixens that call my backyard home are bashfully giddy about our feature in this week’s Local iQ. If it looks like we (me and the bees) are in love with each other, it’s because we are! Over the past 3 years, beekeeping has become one of the simple joys in my otherwise high-tech life.
“Bees are a reminder of our interdependence on one another,” Foster said in a recent interview. She elaborated that having bees in her life has changed the way she looks at nature. “I notice the rhythms now.”
Read the full article at Local iQ
Thanks to writer Kay Vinson and photographer Joy Godfrey for checking out my girls and learning more about Albuquerque’s amazing community of local beekeepers.
Local chef and co-owner of Jennifer James 101 (they use our honey at the restaurant!) dropped off this sumptuous article on urban beekeeping yesterday: The Everything Guide to Urban Honey.
Informative and artistic, it’s a convincing testimony that urban beekeeping is back and here to stay.
From the series:
Psst… got bees swarming on your property? Report a bee swarm in Albuquerque.
"Bee dog" photo by Erik Abderhalden | Find more adorable dogs in bee costumes at http://www.beedogs.com
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Asking whether bees are dangerous is like asking whether dogs are dangerous when the reality is this: Dogs bite.
In fact, in the U.S. 1000 people every day seek emergency treatment for dog bites. And the cost of managing canines is a significant burden on a community.
Even in Albuquerque, one of the top 3 calls to the City’s 311 line relates to reporting, complaining, or otherwise managing our urban dog population. (I used to manage the City website, that’s how I know ;-)) The unfortunate truth is our furry best friends can be a big fat headache. But we love them, and some might argue need them.
So too with honeybees, another species long domesticated by humans and one we’ve come to depend upon. The benefits of bees to a community, a recent article in the NY Times (via Sweet Hive Chicago) discusses, far outweigh the risks. Here’s why:
So hug a honeybee, compadres. And if you’re allergic, stay away from wasps which tend to be responsible for most “bee attacks” in the populated areas we call home, sweet, home.
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It’s time to go hug a honeybee for National Pollinator Week.
Last week, Albuquerque Councilor O’Malley did just that — she donned a bee veil and came on down to the beehives I manage as a volunteer for City Open Space. We tasted a golden buttery honey right off the comb and talked about how bees contribute to our local economy (seriously, you can’t even ask the state question without honeybees). For me, it was an honor to share my hives with an elected official, especially one so concerned with quality of life in our city. Here are a few photos of “beekeeper” O’Malley and her crew:
Thanks to Councilor O’Malley, the week-long pollinator party is getting started with a honey tasting and proclamation during Monday’s City Council meeting. If you’re a beekeeper, friend of bees, or just a honey afficionado, come on down!
And if you can’t come tonight, consider checking out these other events occuring throughout Albuquerque.
2010 POLLINATOR WEEK EVENTS IN ALBUQUERQUE
The Google beehives
While Facebook makes headlines this week with its cultish secret insignia, its more mature competitor Google consistently opts for the high road, installing for example, 4 new bee hives on its property in Mountain View, CA.
What a perfect match! Google & the bee hive: Both are (or create) systems where the aggregate of individual behaviors produces something otherwise impossible or uninspiring. Honey, in the case of the hive and brilliantly pragmatic tools or groundbreaking systems like Android, in the case of Google.
Me and my little hives tucked away on the edge of America are so grateful! Just think of all the high-profile attention these newest beekeepers will bring to the challenges facing honey bees in our modern world.
Ventilation is not what most new beeks consider when crafting their first bee hive. But that’s just what Sonoma beekeeper, and my personal favorite philosophe des abeilles, Serge Labesque recommends to keep your hives healthy.
After 2 seasons keeping bees, I couldn’t agree more. Even in the American Southwest, known for being dry as a bleached cattle bone, I find condensation, mildew, and even lichens each spring after opening our hives. To me, the girls don’t need more insulation, they actually need less.
In fact, a survey I conducted with local beekeepers in 2010 shows that nearly twice as many beeks winterize their hives by ensuring there’s adequate ventilation than by suffocating their dames with a downy blanket.
From the 2010 Albuquerque Beekeepers Survey
But Serge Labesque takes ventiliation to a whole ‘nother level by leaving his hive bodies unpainted, save for the joints. As he described at last year’s NM Beekeeping Summer Seminar, the idea is that unpainted wood can breathe, allowing the bees to have more control over ventilation. Here’s what Labesque’s hives look like.
And so voila! We’ve decided to go au naturel this season, leaving our new boxes unpainted. We simply bought unassembled hive bodies from Mann Lake, uncorked a bottle of champagne one Friday night and set to work.
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Learn more:
I don’t know about you, but tracking hives with paper and pen seems awfully…. well, 20th century.
And thus I’m thrilled to find out that someone’s built just the app I’ve been looking for!
Beetight: Online Hive Tracking
This weekend I plan to give it a whirl. Are you already using Beetight? Let me know how you like it…
UPDATE: My girls were featured in an even more recent issue of Local iQ with photos by Joy Godfrey. Enjoy!
I’m still blushing, it was such a chic morning.
On location (that location being my backyard) for Local iQ magazine, Albuquerque photographer Wes Naman was tramping about the garden this morning shooting things like the mural by Quip, the beehive, and a crumbly-ass Fu Manchu statue I picked up one summer in the South Valley. Editor Kevin Hopper was on site too and was genteel enough not to notice all the weeds and wacky detritus emblematic of a lazy gardener like me.
Look for the girls and/or the garden in next week’s issue of Local IQ.
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Photo by Joy Godfrey
mistress beek 
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