Swarming

"If you want honey you have to be
 prepared to be stung" Rosanne Daryl Thomas

This link has the amazing photo-shot that Matt did of the swarm capturing day 

http://www.matthaber.info/Bees/index2.html

Sunday afternoon May 16th I got the call. We had a swarm of bees at the Algarden. I was so excited and happy that this happened this year that I have gotten to know and learn more about the bees to feel comfortable dealing with a swarm and not last year when I would had just freaked out.

Swarms happen because the hive population gets too big and can no longer support all of its members in one hive. The queen then decides to make a new queen and half of the bee population fly off with her in search of a new home. The queen is at the center of this swarm, the worker bees are holding on to each other and protecting their queen while they send out scouts to look for a suitable new home. In the wild this would be something like an empty log but in the city this could be someones basement or walls so it is very important to prevent swarms in an urban setting.

Time was of the essence, I needed to get there and capture the bees into a new box before they migrated to a new location. Unfortunately I was on the opposite side of SF during bay to brakers. Agr I was never so agitated by the endless drunk Elvis', Waldo's and Gorilla's o yeah and the Avatar's-there were a lot of those. Get out of my way Fruit loops I got bees to tend.

I finally made it and there were 2 hives on the apricot tree. I circled them so you can easily spot them. I had to get up there with a ladder, cut the branch and bring that over to the new box hive.

We were all very excited about the action, but I think Kitty was the most, he did not blinked and he was all over the action, even climbing on the roof to get a better view - I love this cat.

I only had one extra box, but since there were two hives we had to improvise another one to place the second hive.

Check out Kitty -meow

I called up Andreas and Amanda because they had been interested on learning more about the bees and want to get their own hive. Amanda got to try out her new cover. I was really glad to have some help and Andreas took all this pictures. Matt and Jane were also there helping out.

Bees are really mellow when they are swarming because they are focusing their pheromones  (the chemical they emit when they sense danger that warns other bees) on following the queen. I got up there and was able to hold the swarm with my bare hands. They are warm and fuzzy :)

I communicated my intentions to them so they knew what I was about to do. I learned this at my bee communication class at the Melissa garden.

The first swarm was easy because it was in a small branch. But the second swarm was a little harder because the branch was thicker and heavier. As I cut the branch a bunch of bees fell to the ground. Next time I will be more prepared with a box below in case this happens.

But there were still thousands of them attached to the branch.

How cool is that?

I jerked the branch in top of the box and they all fell into it

Welcome home little ones. I promise to do the best I can to take care of you 

I tried to find the queen but as usual I did not.

As we set the bees on the box, a third swarm got formed on the tree from the bees that fell of to the ground so I had to go up on the tree again to collect them. Except this time they were attached to a main branch that I could not cut. I had to gently brush them into a container, but they did not liked that - AT ALL. Up to this point I was not wearing my right glove so I could touch the bees and feel them. They were upset with the brushing and went straight for my hand. I got stung a few times and Amanda who was below me holding the ladder got attacked too. I'm guessing the queen was in that last swarm formation and as I brush them I touched the queen which made them really mad. I transfered those bees to the box and I think the queen was there so they calmed down and slowly they all went into the box.

Wow, that was exciting!!!!

Bee tending 101 for Amanda 

We had to move three swarms but really it was just one big one, probably what happened was that the queen flew to different spots and the bees were following and congregating around her scent. Eventually the bees on the second box went into the other box following the queen pheromones so we had just one box of bees.  

I added the rest of the empty frames to the box, one frame of capped honey from the other hive so they would have some food to get started and filled the feeder with sugar water. I placed containers with water at the base of the table legs to prevent ants from climbing into the hive. I covered it after most of the bees went in following the queen, and here it is our new hive. Mission accomplished!

Today I have a very swollen hand, that makes it hard to write this, and a huge sense of accomplishment for being able to tend to my swarm and provide them with a new home.

Catering

The Algarden Cafe got its first catering job. It was for a Regenerative Landscapes Conference at MIG, the design firm where I work when I'm not at the Algarden. It seem appropriate to have a local, organic lunch served at this sustainability talk with different City planners and officials worried about our future.

It was a new challenge for us having to serve at a different location and for 40 people. So we scanned the garden to see what we could harvest and serve for that many people.

The menu:

• Wilted Chard and Fava green salad
• Kale, leek and goat cheese tart

• Berkeley wild yeast sourdough
• Double mint iced tea

The lunch was a total success, people loved it and we had enough people to feed everybody.

This are my co-workers

A lot of people came to talk to me afterward and told me how much they loved the idea of having an actual hands on implementation to the planning strategies that they work on. There is a huge gap between planning and implementing, there are many constrains and blocks on the way, but any action as small as it might seem is a step on the right direction. And I do believe that liberating ourselves from the industrial food production is a simple step that we can all start to take. Stop buying food that came from across the world, or is extremely processed, meet your farmers, buy local (food and manufactured goods), plant something and develop a relationship with your plant. Plants are awesome beings and our existence depends on them so lets show some love and respect.

Since the beginning of April, and the lunches at the garden I started to keep track of the produce that was harvested from the garden. Keep in mind that the lot is only 1/8 of an acre.

Here's the breakdown for the month of April:

• A total of 101 pounds harvested
• 100 meals served

Basically a pound of produce per meal

What was harvested?

Kale, chard, collards, beets, horta (beet greens), lettuce, arugula, favas, lemons, sweet peas, Peruvian peppers, mustard greens, celery, radishes, herbs, strawberries, leeks, New Zeland spinach

Not included on that weight but also harvested from the garden animals:

honey & eggs

Earth day

It was a beautiful day full of flowers and strawberries. It was also an excellent day on the moon calendar to plant. It is always good to consult the farmers almanac moon calendar before planting. I've found it makes a huge difference on the growth of my plants.

There was a lot of  work to be done to get our summer planting in place.

There is a lot more pressure to grow food now that my urban farm experiment has become a cafe.

I started by taking out the compost to our new beds to be planted and get them ready with nutrients. We had already removed the winter crop-favas which are rich in nitrogen and let the chickens do their job in the chicken tractor.

Look at this amazingly rich compost - It's been composting for about 6 months.

It all went to the tomato patch along with a few buckets of chicken manure -mmhhhhh!

Awesome work team!

This are the potato towers that we started. It is good to grow potatoes like this in chicken wire columns because the soil does not get very saturated and you add soil as the plat grows. When the potato plant reaches the top and the the potatoes have grown you simply pull the tower and the potatoes come out instead of having to dig for them.

We also planted all my little squash, pumpkin and beans sprouts, and corn seeds on the keyhole planter for the three sister as companion plants. They work well together because the corn provides climbing support for the beans, the beans provide nitrogen, and the zucchinis provide leaf mass and shade for the other plants to retain the moisture in the soil

We got a tomato patch!!! 9 different varieties

I will also plant some bush beans so they can provide nitrogen and shade at the base of the plants.

The best part is going back to the office smelling like manure and dirty hands- adventures in lunch time farming

Happy earth day today and everyday!

Algarden Lunch + Bootiesattva Zome

This Friday we had another lunch at the Algarden and it was absolutely lovely and amazing. It was very special in many levels, one major thing was the presence of the Bootiesattva zome with its magical powers, but the people who came also contributed with their radiant energy, the weather was perfect and the food was outstanding. We also celebrated Tim's birthday. I was happy to see many friends there and also new faces who were recommended to come by friends. We had 25 people, and although I had a hard time keeping conversations, we managed to build the zome, cook, grill, set up and serve the lunch promptly and keep everybody happy during their time at the Algarden. 

The menu this week:

Warm cabbage, chard and onion salad with apples and walnuts

Purple kale and leek tart with goat cheese

Grilled young fava beans marinated with olive oil and sea salt

They were the hit! (And the easiest thing to do)

Flowerless sugarless chocolate cake-Special diabetic request

Fresh honey comb 

Lavender infused lemonade

The shade structure this week: The Bootiesattva Zome

Here are all the zome parts. Assembly start time 10:08 am

This was the fourth time that we built this zome and we were trying to break our time record. Previous time was 1 hour and 45 minutes

I love this picture -Welcome to my spaceship, beautiful forever!

And my beautiful love - SO beautiful!

Even the poppies got excited

Two zomes in one garden, how lucky am I?

Completion time 11:38. Record time 1.5 hrs. yeah!!! 

That's what happens when you work with the zome masters

And now, chilling time in the Zome

It was really wonderful to see everybody enjoying the zome and the food and the garden. 

I was about to explode with joy

Happy birthday Tim!

Com'on, pretend like your having fun

Special guest Rockstar Anchi, who came to our garden after meeting with Michelle Obama at her Refugee Farm that promotes urban farming. Go Anchi!

You can read about it here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/16/michelle-obama-visits-san_n_540440.html?ref=twitter#s81733 

I have to say that this special event would not had been possible without the help of many people. Starting by the garden owners who continue to support my ideas and generously share their space with us.

A huge special thanks to my favorite mathematicians, Chris, Rob and Steve. You guys Rock. I loved watching you geek out on your math theories under the zome. You are so cool that you are making me start to like math...

Thanks to the chickens who provided us with the eggs for the tart and cleared out the fava been patch getting the soil ready for the next season. This was a chicken tractor improvisation for the day. The chicken crib did fit on my key hole planter.

Thanks to my bees who provided us with a delicious dessert

But they are also responsible for the pollination of  1/3 of all of the food that we eat

And thanks to Julia for her lovely smile, enthusiasm and delicious cooking.

It was truly a lovely event and I feel enormous gratitude for everybody who came and made it possible. 

I also feel a lot of excitement for next Friday. I hope you can come!