A Beekeeper, a Farmer, and a Man with Big Ideas Walk into a Farm. . .

List some of your favorite things. Go ahead. Here are mine:

  1. Honeybees
  2. Prairie flowers and prairie grasses
  3. Organic vegetable gardens
  4. Farming
  5. Tractors
  6. People who have grand ideas
  7. People who are not fearful of those grand ideas
  8. People who make things happen because they say “If not me, who? If not now, when?”
  9. The Cincinnati Zoo
  10. Grassroots movements
  11. Green Bean Delivery
  12. Etc.

There might possibly be a movement afoot, Reader. There might possibly be an exciting, easy partnership developing. Among people who are the kind of people who simply get along and trust one another and want to work together. For a greater good than if we worked alone.

This movement of like-minded and why-not-us people reminds me of what’s happening in the once-neglected space behind Eli’s BBQ. We’re all sort of squatting together in an urban lot…the gardener, the orchardist, and the beekeeper. And it’s so awesome we can hardly stand it.

This new movement will be organized yet flexible. We’ll think about it. But we’re moving forward as we think. And we’re not squatting. We belong here. It’s all arranged.

Mark Fisher at the Zoo farm

 

Ben, Casey, and Kevin of Green Bean Delivery

 

The Feeding Dilemma

Once again, it’s time to start worrying if the bees will live through the winter. It’s just the weirdest thing to begin planning so early for winter, but the bees do it. They probably don’t worry, though…they simply do what they can do and that’s that. Maybe they’re too busy to worry. Maybe I should get busier, too.

All of my hives are full of bees and are bursting with brood. Even the new little split is coming along nicely. But yesterday’s inspection showed that none of the colonies have much in the way of honey stores. I keep telling myself that we still have a few months of fall foliage and all those bees can probably collect enough nectar to convert to honey before super-cold weather.

I remain committed to not treating the bees. I guess that means that I’m not going to feed them either. I don’t know. I don’t want to coddle them, but I don’t want them to starve, either.