Category: Dan’s

Honey Bees

In 2011 my wife and stopped eating sugar. Neither of us trusts the science behind artificial sweeteners so that option’s out leaving one final sugary opportunity in our lives “Honey”.  I won’t go into the countless recipes we’ve mastered (honey margaritas are one my favorites) but it suffices to say we found ourselves going through a lot of honey. That led us to the question, “Should we be raising bees ourselves?” So we did.

Over these past months our bees have absolutely amazed us. Moreover we’ve learned that honey production is just one of many profound reasons to keep bees, here’s a few:

There aren’t enough of them: It’s estimated that in 2007 between 40% – 70% of all North American Bee Colonies died suddenly. Many experts now say that there are now virtually no colonies left in the wild. No one’s sure why but most suspect several factors have combined (Pesticides, Varroa Mite, foulbrood) to create really bad news for bees. The technical term for this is CCD or Colony Collapse Disorder. There is no cure for CCD in sight.

Our neighbors love them: With the potential for human allergies an urban beekeeper needs to alert his or her neighbors. We did and found our neighbors very open minded, now they’re amazed at the results our pollinators have created. We have indeed improved the ecology of our entire neighborhood. Yes we do intend to share the honey.

We love them: At least once a day we find ourselves sitting near the hive, watching intently. I’m not sure why but they’re strangely captivating, my family calls it “Bee TV”. Beekeeping has become a very fulfilling hobby and an integral component on our urban farm.

Would you like to know more? I’d love to help.

Dan@HeirloomGardensReno.com

She bought 20lbs of tomatoes…..

One sunny day last Fall, at our local Farmers Market. My lovely wife is always thinking ahead. I thought, “We’ll make a giant pot of spaghetti sauce then pelt the neighbors barking dog with the remaining ten pounds”! She had other ideas.

So we spent the next day scrubbing, slicing, blanching, boiling, measuring and pouring. It was our first attempt at canning and we weren’t completely sure we did it right but we were eventually rewarded with 15 quarts of pale, red goop. I wondered what we would do with all that food. By my calculation (at two scoops per day minus one jar thrown at the neighbor’s dog) this supply would last us well into 2014.

I couldn’t help but notice yesterday that all the jars of tomatoes are gone. There are a couple of jars of soup and at least one “killer chili” remaining but the tomatoes as I remember them are gone. I’m amazed at how well we’ve worked that and many other healthy fruits and vegetable into our daily diet. Local, healthy food and self sufficiency, what a concept! Thank you Valarie, for all you do. Gotta go now, I hear a dog barking.

Photo credit: farmers market tomatoes by Mook Elliot, from Flickr via Creative Commons license.