an Iowa life | bees and local food
The queen inside Toto was wandering around last weekend Before I start, we all need to prepare for the alphabet soup. USDA stands for the United States Department of Agriculture. It has a division called FSA (Farm Service Agency). Through the FSA county office (the county where the hives were),…
A tornado took my colonies and a deadout hive on March 5, 2022. That was one month ago. Since that time, I’ve had many generous people assisting me — going on-site while I was out of state to assess and make surviving colonies right, offers of splits, donations of money…
I get a package every year to stay in tune with my students. This year, I installed a 3 pound package on a chilly, windy day. It came with a queen that was placed with the package for 48 hours, meaning that I could direct release her (as opposed to…
My paternal grandmother married into a culturally Dutch family with a Scottish name (Campbell). There seems to be a Celtic (the shared language of Scots) tradition called “Telling the Bees,” in which every hive is informed of a keeper’s major life event (deaths and marriages). I have found paintings and…