Tag Archives: bees

Nov 20 2011

Cool idea for an urban beehive concept

 

Philips urban beehive concept

Philips idea of urban beehive as blogged by CNET

This is a unique approach to an urban beehive. 10 points for creativity though I don’t know how practical this would be. As the plight of the honeybee becomes more known we will see more and more innovative ways to work bees into our everyday lives.

On the one hand it would be great to have a garden hive in every backyard, on the other if you have a bunch of hives that are not managed correctly you may create more problems with disease and pests than you solve by supporting a larger bee population.

Read the entire CNET blog post by clicking here.

Nov 12 2011

New Warre Beehives

Warre BeehiveToday I nailed down my hive system by buying two Warre hives from Darren at House of Bees. Though Darren does not want to get into the business of shipping hives, if you live in the Pacific Northwest and want to pick up your hive he would be happy to sell you one. He also has a booth at many of the NW bee conferences. As I mentioned in the last post I looked at several places to buy hives. Fortunately I met Darren at my first West Sound Beekeepers Association meeting. He sells a very high quality Warre hive system with many upgrades including; observation window, feeding solution built into the quilt box, screened bottom board, and beveled topbars with built in spacers….. all wrapped up in fine workmanship. I know this sounds like a commercial for House of Bees (ok so it is) I really believe in supporting local service providers and when you find one that is knowledgeable, provides a good product and is excited about what they do you should share it with the world.

Next step is to paint the hives and find where I’m going to keep them in the yard. I thought I had two good places picked out but with Darren’s coaching I’m looking elsewhere.

So….for now, since I’m long on hives and short on bees I’m not quite yet a “beekeeper” rather a “hivekeeper” 🙂Warre Beehive, top bars

Nov 4 2011

Basic Philosophy

Nature has its own course. If a thing is on its own natural course, trying to bend it to your will or change its path to suit your needs only increases the friction, frustration and tension for both you and the thing. To work as a partner with nature you are best to 1) help and encourage  it down its natural course, 2) keep your own ego out of it, 3) If you don’t agree with the course the thing is on, stop trying to change it and let it go….you can only change yourself, you cannot change the thing. 4) This applies to plants, animals, people…..and bees.