Small Creatures
Posted by Barbara Shinn on Feb 3, 2011 in Features
Waking to the ice storm this morning makes me humble. Winter has won. Three major storms in three weeks have left the vines sealed in ice, the earth securely blanketed in snow and drifts as high as the fruiting wire. Yesterday, the pelting ice began at noon and by 3:00 my vineyard crew had to call it quits; they were covered in a crackling layer of frozen sleet. Now, 20 hours later, the vineyard is crystalline, beautiful in its ephemeral icy gloss. I can’t imagine how a March thaw could be in store just 6 weeks away. While the white snow is beautiful, I am dreaming of the flowering vineyard floor in the spring.
This past fall we made special preparations in the vineyard for our cover crop to prosper. We planted new clover and chamomile seed in the rows in anticipation of the arrival of 50,000 honey bees. David and I will begin to keep bees this May hoping to make a good home for two hives. It is pretty daunting to think that I have the know-how to take care of such a complex “nation” as a honeybee hive, but with the wise guidance of two beekeepers in New Paltz New York, Chris Harp and Grai St. Clair Rice, the bees will hopefully forgive us our lack of experience.
Last weekend David and I drove up to the Hudson River region to attend a class that Chris and Grai taught centering on their quiet gentle approach that they have towards living with their bees. Chris was careful to let us know that at times the bees will exhibit their superior knowledge of all things great and small here on the earth and beyond. He taught us so much about these gentle creatures, their incredible stamina and their importance to the nature spirits.
Looking out the window now I wonder how I will feel this time next year with my first season of beekeeping completed, the earth dormant above the soil and the bees deep in their winter cluster of warmth.
Dear Barbara,
I am so happy to hear that you will be keeping bees at Shinn! My mother kept bees on our small farm in Crystal Springs, MS, when I was growing up. I still have a gallon jar of “her” honey, which has been aging for more than 35 years. I will bring you some when we come out to see you tomorrow at the Futures dinner. The honey has a very strong taste, being so old, and being mostly alfalfa-based, as I recall. It is raw, with pollen streaked through it like stars in the Milky Way.
Although we lived in the “city” of Jackson, my dad, a PhD. in biochemistry, bought about 45 acres in the country and kept and managed about 50 head of cattle and a large vegetable garden, when he wasn’t at work as a research scientist at the VA hospital. I grew up visiting the farm on weekends and helping to clear roads, working a bit in the garden, enduring the incredibly humid heat and joining the cows in seeking relief by sitting in the spring-fed creek!
You can take the girl out of Mississippi, but you can’t take the Mississippi out of the girl.
Warm wishes,
Alice Haining
BTW, last year I looked into the LI beekeeping club, with the hope of perhaps hosting a hive here on my property in East Setauket. This spring I will ask someone to come out to tell me if our property (only an acre) could support a hive. We are up at the top of a hill and our home, and the neighborhood, is surrounded by beautiful forest. We use no chemicals on our landscape, but I’m sure many of the neighbors do. One great thing happened last year: the home right next to us which had been for sale for 3 years was purchased by a friend of mine. During the renovations, I mentioned the value to honeybees and other wildlife of clover in the lawn, and the new owner planted some! I hope I can persuade them to use no chemicals, now that they have the place pretty much in order.
Down the road from us are two farms: Benner’s Farm, which is a working, partially organic farm, producing strawberries, vegetables, eggs, and educational programs for children and families, and the Sherwood Jayne property, which is preserved as a rural, colonial site and used for educational purposes. It’s lovely just to drive by it every day and see the sheep and the horses and the beautiful colonial home (circa 1700!) and the barn. In the fall they host an apple festival, with many local craftspeople participating, from Benner’s Farm, to woodcarvers, to quilters, to outdoor cooking demonstrations using wood fires and iron cauldrons, etc.
Here’s an interesting article:
Beekeeping Supplies
Superstore of Beekeeping Equipment for the Back Yard Beekeeper
http://www.bee-commerce.com
A disaster wrapped in a mystery, which has devastated agriculture in 35 states, has bypassed Long Island.
At least for now.
The phenomenon of vanishing honeybees, which produce that sweetest of foods and more importantly pollinate crops, has every level of government concerned.
The Secretary of Agriculture put a $90 million price tag on the effects of colony collapse disorder, or CCD, which happens when hives are abandoned by bees.
In June Congress passed a farm bill, granting $20 million a year to fund research into the phenomenon.
But Long Island beekeepers, who are equally clueless as to why bees elsewhere are buzzing off for good and dying, agree that the small industry here – about a dozen keepers of 20 colonies or more – has been spared due to isolation and the lack of giant agribusiness operations.
Bees forage up to five miles from their colonies, pollinating flowers and crops and through unerring instincts always return to their home colony to produce honey. But for the past two years many bees have taken flight never to return. There are as many theories why as people you speak to, including a fast moving virus, the proliferation of cell phone towers which disorients bees, pesticides used in growing fields, or severe weather conditions.
Splendid isolation is cited by Ray Lackey, owner of Bohemia’s Sweet Pines Apiary, as one factor keeping hives humming here. Lackey has 35 colonies located on the Twin Forks. Ten colonies are used to produce honey for sale and the remaining are under contract to farmers for pollination.
In business for 27 years, Lackey has been director of the Empire State Honey Producers. Long Island is isolated because practically no commercial migratory beekeepers come through here to work for farmers, Lackey said. The integrity of the hives has been preserved, Lackey said.
“In other areas, people buy packaged bees from the South to replace bees and they bring in parasites,” he said.
Long Island’s real problem is imported honey from South America and Canada undercutting the price of the local sweet stuff, he said.
A rare Long Island beekeeper who has been stung by CCD is Peter Bizzoso, owner of Manorville’s South Paw Farms. Bizzoso, the most recent beekeeper in a family line that stretches back to the mid-19th century, has about 200 colonies. He doesn’t harvest honey but solely contracts with farmers for pollination.
Last year Bizzoso lost 175 colonies to CCD, but this year he has seen no sign of it. He blames a virus which causes a form of diarrhea in bees who then take flight from the colony. “If they do this in winter they freeze to death,” he said.
CCD still is a mystery, however, Bizzoso said. “It’s like cancer,” he added. “We know what it is but we can’t cure it.”
The National Resources Defense Council, an environmental organization, has reported that if CCD remains unchecked, $15 billion worth of American agricultural products are at risk.
Long Island produces about $250 million from agricultural products, according to the Long Island Farm Bureau. Crops pollinated by bees here include fruits, vegetables and flowers.
Frederic Rambaud, owner of Hamptons Honey, works about 120 colonies on the East End. His colonies are kept healthy by being as organic as possible, he said, which also might be a factor in staving off CCD. Honey is harvested in July and late September. Under optimum conditions, a colony will produce up to 60 pounds of honey.
In other parts of the country, beekeepers remove all the honey at both harvests and feed their bees’ sugar water during the winter. But his bees are left enough honey to feed on during the winter.
“Bees were not meant to feed on sugar water,” Rambaud said.
All beekeepers use smoke to keep their charges calm when working with them and most beekeepers burn newspapers in their smokers which can adversely affect bees’ respiratory systems.
“We burn herbs in our smokers,” he said.
Correct colony management might have bolstered the bees’ immune systems, Rambaud said. “We don’t look at bees as cheap labor,” he added. “We treat them as partners.”
Lackey believes Long Island colonies will thrive, even though challenges lie ahead. “Bees are resilient creatures and we’ll breed resistance to anything that comes our way,” he said.
Ambrose Clancy can be reached at ambrose.clancy@libn.com.
Credit: Ambrose Clancy