Our grow-your-own project is underway. Right now, we’re in the planning stages. In February, we get a month of “business as usual,” to order and plan for the upcoming decrease of fossil fuels in our food system. Starting in March, we’ll only have a quarter of our trips to the grocery store and less shipping … More Foodmageddon: Grow, Glean, and Forage Over Two Million Calories for a Year?
We are expanding our work to develop mite-tolerant bees and strategies for other beekeepers to follow suit, and you can be part of it! We’ll be creating a bee yard with 60 hives, and each one costs about $150 to build. We’re looking for businesses, organizations, and individuals or groups who are interested in adopting … More Adopt A Hive! — Partner with Us to Help Bee Research
In addition to getting together our solar panel system, plans, and permits, we’ve been working on a grant proposal to greatly expand our bee breeding program. This application was written for nonbeekeepers. A more technical grant proposal is in the works for a beekeeper-specific organization. We have made a habit of sharing our grant proposals … More Where Have We Been? Writing a Bee Grant Proposal
This September 7th at 10 a.m., we’ll be giving a presentation on beginning beekeeping at the Edgerton Public Library. This free and public talk will go over some of the basics folks should know before taking the plunge and starting a backyard apiary. We’ll cover the bee life cycles, seasonal activities, equipment, how to get … More Upcoming Bee Presentation: Beginning Beekeeping, Sep. 7, 10:00 a.m., Edgerton Library
The Low Technology Institute is expanding its focus on honeybee research. In the next months, you’ll see blog posts describing the on-going and upcoming projects we are carrying out. Subscribe to our blog below to make sure you never miss a post. Varroa-Mite Tolerant Bee Breeding We’re selectively breeding isolated bee colonies in order to … More We’re Expanding our Bee Research. Join us!
Every year I get an email from the Bee Informed Partnership. They’re asking for beekeepers to fill out a 20- to 30-minute survey on our practices and results in our bee yards. As far as I know, this is the most comprehensive and popular survey of beekeeping in the US, netting an estimated 11 percent … More Bee Informed Partnership Releases Study Results
I recently received a call from Patrick Stutz of Stutz Photography, asking if I would help him with an upcoming show. Yahara Bay Distillery in Madison is putting on a Preserve Festival to celebrate food and its preservation. You can see an article covering the festival from the Wisconsin State Journal and find more details … More The Honey Thief — Recent Work with Stutz Photography on Display at Yahara Bay Distillery
I’ve been splitting hives since I started keeping bees 4 years ago and I’m still on my original line of bees (meaning I bought one nuc four years ago and am still going). This Saturday afternoon at 3:00 P.M. I’m going to start splitting my hives. The weather is cool, but I don’t want to … More Come Learn to Split Beehives This Weekend: 3 p.m. Saturday
In the last report, we found that the institute bees survived the “polar vortex” -30°F (plus windchill) temperatures but the research hives, which were split heavily and smaller in size, did not. It is now reaching flying temperatures most days (>50°F) and the bees in all four institute hives have been out. Institute Hives … More Bee Report — Early Spring is Here
After the polar vortex visited us with -30°F temperatures, we warmed up to the mid 40ºFs, and I took the opportunity to check on our bees. At this time of year, the bees are not hibernating, as many people think. They form a cluster around the center of the hive and shiver themselves together to … More Bee Report — Midwinter Check
