Friday, May 13, 2011

foraging in spring

Natures treasures found beneath a dying elm tree. 
It's always sad to be losing these amazing trees to the Dutch Elm Disease but out of death comes life....

Ramps (wild leeks), Poke shoots, Nettles, and Morels as our ingredients for an amazing wild lasagna!




Casey pulling the bark off a recently fallen tulip popular that is still fresh enough to work the bark off and turn it into a beautiful crafted basket.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

We Be Buzz'n

We've been talking a bees for awhile now and at the end of the fall we started piecing together the equipment needed. A few months later, we have 3 established hives and they all seem to be happily moving in and out finding a great source of dandelion, now buttercups and soon black locust flowers. We have been taking a monthly course in beekeeping from Dave Papke on the other side of the river who is an experienced beekeeper with lots of wisdom to share. We're discovering a huge network of people keeping bees and we're learning how to be helpful in the cycle of honey bees pollination. With more and more pesticides and mite infestations in our environment, the bees struggle to be able to survive so we hope by tending to them and keeping them happy to be "working toward a sustainable future one flower at a time"
If you look closely, you will see these worker bees loaded with pollen on their back legs like saddlebags carrying pollen colors of yellow, orange and white. These insects are mesmerising to watch in their daily routine and even have a dance called the waggle dance to notify others in the colony where the best nectar and honey sources are. All of there senses and direction are driven by the sun. 
A look inside one of our hive frames. The queen has been laying her eggs and tiny larva are forming and the worker bees are collecting their honey and storing it for the new bees to come. 

check out our new rap we wrote after our first beekeeping workshop...

"We Bee Buzzn"
by dream like a bear
(casey and eli's band)

We bee buzz'n
busting back bonkers over bees
bee dealn, free wheelin
bee buzz'n
we're gona get a nuc,
buzz'n with bees not no nuclear here
we got a super deluxe
deeps and shallows, 
screens to keep the mites out
but we'll tell you bout that more another day
so spring is clear,
the nectars near, the brude is breeding
we bee buzz'n,
you may jiv'n but we be hiv'n
you maybe beat box'n
but we be bbbbbbbbbee buzzzzzzz'n