Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Bees in Cohousing?

[John Beutler (jabeutler]

Hi Ann:

We have a total of 23 acres in LV; about 14 is in the "back 40". One 
third of that is a newly planted forest (several hundred free trees from 
the county), another third is a warm season grass meadow, and the last 
is community gardens and chickens and other utility stuff. For the 
amount of honey we could get, it seems hard to justify planting multiple 
crops just to make nectar in all the right seasons unless we were to get 
into farming the crops for their own sake, which nobody here is 
interested in at present. Honeybees forage up to 6 miles from the hive, 
FWIW. Southern climates apparently favor bees a whole lot over this 
area, all of the new bees come from Georgia, etc.

Cheers

JAB

On 10/19/2013 9:41 AM, Ann Zabaldo wrote:
> Hi John --  a question 'cause I know nothing about keeping bees  ... why not 
> plant bee friendly crops?  You have 30+ acres in your community.   Or is the 
> amount of plants needed for nectar for bees an extraordinary amount?  Like 
> zillions of acres per hive?
>
> I'm interested in this because of the whole "urban farm" movement and, in particular, 
> "spin farming."  http://www.spinfarming.com/buy/
>
> This is a blog post I wrote on the intersection of spin farming, veterans and 
> community -- just a possibility:
>
> http://www.cohousingblog.com/2011/11/11/cohousing-spin-farming-and-vets-2/
>
> Best --
>
> Ann Zabaldo
> Takoma Village Cohousing
> Washington, DC
> Principal, Cohousing Collaborative, LLC
> Falls Church VA
> 703-688-2646
>
> On Oct 19, 2013, at 7:57 AM, John Beutler wrote:
>
> > We've found that the bees are just too busy to participate fully in
> > community. They hive their own......seriously though we had a couple of
> > new hives this year under Ann's direction, but the Small Hive Beetle
> > overwhelmed them and they flew the coop. In our region, apparently,
> > there is not enough nectar to give very good production of honey,
> > according to the local beekeepers, so feeding them sugar is important to
> > keep a strong hive.
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > JAB (Liberty Village Cohousing, Frederick, MD)
> >
> > On 10/18/2013 2:34 PM, Michael Barrett wrote:
> > > In that many cohousing communities have words in their founding documents
> > > aligned to a " protect nature, tread lightly, save the planet" axis, I'm
> > > wondering how many communities keep managed honey bee colonies (hives) as a
> > > community or private enterprise.
> > >
> > > At Shadowlake Village at present we have 8 hives (and 3 beekeepers) and are
> > > approaching our third winter with bees. Before starting, with two bee
> > > keepers and three hives in 2011, some of us were dismayed to face
> > > significant opposition from a few concerned community members. However this
> > > was peacefully resolved, and since then everyone has come to appreciate, or
> > > at least tolerate, our tiny furry workers as they go about their business.
> > > And the "very local" honey seems to be hugely appreciated.
> > >
> > > Michael Barrett - at Shadowlake village, Blacksburg, Virginia, where the
> > > bees are almost done packing away their winter larders.
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