Bees

[gothwalk]

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

I’ve been meaning to post this for some time, and am only now getting around to it. I’d like to draw your attention to a blog about beekeeping, titled “Beemused”. Amanda and Justin (who’ll be familiar to those of you on LJ as cissa and cosmicirony) are documenting their adventures in beekeeping, and doing a sterling job. My father has kept bees for years, and while I’m allergic to and phobic of bees, the whole thing still fascinates me.

Comments

[aidian.livejournal.com]

There's a slow series of posts on kuro5hin.org (does anyone besides me actually read that anymore?) over the past couple years called "tales from the hive". If you're interested in bee stories, it's really, really good. I was a member of the northeastern kansas beekeeper's association for a year, once, myself. :) I didn't keep bees, but I learned about them, went to meetings, and was introduced to quite a few bee-derived products (namely interesting things you can do with wax and honey - candles, foods, health and beauty, decorative thingies, and so forth). I actually miss getting their monthly little newsletter. I may actually sign up again someday just for that - it was like $8 a year for membership or something. There may be a beekeeper's association lurking near you, too, unbeknownst to the public at large.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

I did a quick look, and saw no bee-related stuff. How should I find it? I'd be happy to post a link- interesting bee stuff can be hard to find.

bee material

[aidian.livejournal.com]

I did a search for "tales from the hive", found the author, and looked at his posted stories. There are five, spread out since 2005.
(http://www.kuro5hin.org/user/xC0000005/stories)

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/10/27/19408/317
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/4/18/203511/484
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/5/7/11496/37623
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/7/16/222933/069
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/9/13/212244/867

Very, very well-written IMO.

These stories also look like they're posted on the guy's website, along with a good amount of other bee-related content, at http://www.voiceofthehive.com/
Also, here's some Northeastern Kansas Beekeeper stuff, which some folks may or may not find useful. http://home.kc.rr.com/busybeehoney/

Helpful? :)

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear. That's dangerously fascinating.

I may have to build a small annex to the castle-in-the-air that involves moving to the country and renovating a deserving old house and building a beautiful garden and having BIG TREES and vegetable beds and and and. Because bees would fit right in, there.

First catch your private income, alas.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

We live in darkest suburbia, and have placed our hives so they're pretty much invisible to the neighbors. I figure after we've had them a couple of years we can be more blatant- if no one had a problem with them then, it's hard to see how they'd be a problem only after people knew about them! Still, for now we're being discreet. And the bees themselves are quite cooperative with this.

I also have a Plan to acquire chickens. :)

chicken scratch

[aidian.livejournal.com]

CHICKENS! I want chickens for eggs seriously but I don't have a yard at all. I'm going to order this: http://www.chickenvideo.com as soon as I can afford it anyways, just to learn for the future. I emailed the lady who made the site and video, and she seems quite nice; and the clips of the video at least look like it's very useful for learning how to raise chickens easily for a beginner from egg or hatchling to cookpot and about every step in between.

Allow me to also share an anecdotal chicken story, swiped from a now-defunct website. I found it so amusing at the time I had to save it.

http://www.aidian.org/text/apples.html

[cissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the mention! :D I am definitely in love with our girls. Not requited, of course, but still. :)