Tag Archives: Bees

Apple River Farm Tour, July 15, 10AM – 4PM Visit our Farms!!

Well, we’re just one day out from our first annual Apple River Farm Tour – yahoo!!

Pack your sunglasses, grab your insect repellent, and your sunhat for a great day of self-guided tours of up to 9 local regenerative farms. We’re beekeepers, flower growers, humane livestock stewards, chicken keepers, and mushroom growers, apple and berry producers, maple syrup producers, and lots more!

Brochure & Map

Scan the code or click here for your brochure and map.

And after the day of tours, there’s a relaxing event at Dragonfly Garden, just south of downtown Amery.

 

 

 

The participating farms include:

  • Blackbrook Farm
  • Bull Broom Keep (that’s Dave and me)
  • Northwood Mushrooms
  • Schoen Valley Orchard
  • Threshing Table Farm
  • Turnip Rock Farm and Cosmic Wheel Creamery
  • Two Bees and a Bud
  • White Pine Berry Farm
  • Z-Orchard

See you soon!!

Elderberries – pratfalls, hazards, harvest – and wasps

My bad! This update is to correct slander to our friends, the bees, and to provide helpful info about the differences between bees, hornets, wasps and yellowjackets.

August 30

Was it just a few weeks ago that lovely elder flowers were in bloom? August has just flown! The day’s are getting a bit cooler now and it’s a race with the birds for the berries.

Yesterday afternoon, I spent about an hour and a half picking ripe elderberries (Sambucus nigra) on state land that abuts a friend’s farm. What a thicket! The area is a jungle of 10-ft high elderberries, tangled vines, and a treacherous mat of foot-snagging fallen branches.

Elderberries – Sambucus nigra

The sun was high and some of the vines were thorny. I was very glad for my thick jeans, long-sleeved shirt, and wide-brimmed hat. I worked for those berries! Over and over, I’d reach up to a hanging cluster, snip the thick main stem, and drop the heavy berries into a bag. About an hour in, I tripped and fell to my knees when I failed to high-step over fallen brush. No harm done.

But, just as I was thinking I was done for the day, I felt hot pain on my left thigh. A yellowjacket (not a couple of bees) had made its way up my pants leg and wasn’t happy about it. It panicked and stung several times. I crushed it through my thick jeans to stop the assault. It hurt!

Once home, I changed out of my elderberry-stained jeans and discovered the inert body of what I at first thought was a bee. After some research, I now know it was an aggressive yellowjacket, a type of wasp. The difference between bees and this insect is evident in the markings on the lower abdomen.

Yellowjacket

Like all wasps, yellowjackets have a segmented body — a nipped-in waist — and are decorated with yellow-and-black geometric patterns. And where a bee can sting you only once, yellowjackets and hornets can sting multiple times.

 

 

 

Bee on echinacea

Here’s some more information about the differences between bees, wasps, yellowjackets, and hornets.

Back to the elderberries: it took well over an hour to strip the fruit from the stems. Now, that’s a messy job! Thank goodness for disposable gloves. Unfortunately, my t-shirt got the worse of it. I’ll have to see what I can do to lift that ink.

About four quarts of berries now rest in the freezer until I have time to process into a heavy syrup. That syrup is the foundational ingredient of my immunity-boosting tonic for the cold/flu season (also includes honey, echinacea and brandy). It’s really helped the last three years.

As for the insect stings — the area’s hot, red and swollen. The first thing I did was rub some lavender essential oil over the area. Then I splashed on witch hazel, and combined tinctures of echinacea, plantain and St. John’s Wort.

Today, Aug. 31st, I’ll apply a compress of freshly mashed plantain leaves combined with dried holy basil moistened with a strong tea of boneset, skullcap, and yarrow. These should help reduce the swelling, heat and pain.

There is so much life and bounty around us. Interested in herbs, shrubs and trees that provide herbal remedies? Leave me a comment or email me, sylvia@bullbrookkeep.com. Thanks.

Sylvia

Chat with Erin Rupp, Pollinate MN: encouraging weeds, old-fashioned flowers, hedgerows for the sake of the bees

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Chat with Erin Rupp, Pollinate MN: encouraging weeds, old-fashioned flowers, hedgerows for the sake of the bees
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Uniform grasses, manicured farms, absolutely clean fence rows, monocultures as far as the eye can see, bare ground, all-hybrid plantings – these artificial landscapes are robbing us at least twice. Once, because they don’t supply bees and other pollinators with the food and shelter they need. And again because without pollinators, we humans won’t have the diversity of fruits and vegetables we need for our food supply.

So, what to do?

In this Deep Roots Radio interview, Erin Rupp, founder and executive director of Pollinate MN shares observations about the population declines of bees and other pollinators, and why this matters to us – gardeners, farmers and food lovers. She also describes the types of plantings and habitats needed to encourage pollinator growth and health.

I hope you enjoy the interview.

Sylvia

March 28, 2018 honey pastry chef challenge spotlights threats to bees, impact on ag and food supply, and delicious solutions

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March 28, 2018 honey pastry chef challenge spotlights threats to bees, impact on ag and food supply, and delicious solutions
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I can’t wait: on March 28th, 2018, I’ll be one of several people confronting a tough assignment. We’ll have the enviable job of judging honey-based pastries created by some of the top women chefs in the Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN metro area and nearby Wisconsin.

You’re invited to savor the dozens of sweet and savory foods featured at the 5th Annual Dandelion Honey Pastry Chef Challenge, and event created to train a spotlight on the critical role bees and other pollinators play in American agriculture. (Details)

Unfortunately, honey bees, along with the more than 400 native Minnesota bee species and many types of flies, are suffering shrinking numbers due to pesticides and herbicides used on farms and gardens, disappearing habitat, and disease. Without them, dozens and dozens of food crops wouldn’t be pollinated, and we couldn’t enjoy almonds and other nuts, apples and pears, watermelon and squash, strawberries, cotton and tomatoes, just to name a few.

I hope you’ll enjoy this Deep Roots Radio conversation with Kristy Allen, founder/CEO of Beez Kneez Delivery LLC, the Minneapolis-based organization that created and runs this event, and offers beekeeping classes, equipment and local honey.

See you on March 28th!
Sylvia

Jessica Manderfeld – about sensory exhibit of bees in art, food, drink and agriculture

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Jessica Manderfeld - about sensory exhibit of bees in art, food, drink and agriculture
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Honey Bee


Bees – a hot topic in agriculture, food and in art.
Bees are essential to the pollination of hundreds of crops all across the United States. Bees’ critical role is why scientists, farmers and food lovers are alarmed by hive collapse and environmental threats to these pollinators.
Bees’ contribution to food, cosmetics, and beverages, like mead, are on display at the gallery space of the Farm Table Foundation in Amery, Wisconsin. The exhibit was developed by, and features the detailed artwork of, Jessica “Turtle” Manderfeld, the foundation’s marketing and creative director.
With extensive formal training and experience in art and cooking, Jessica’s paintings are reminiscent of the detailed botanical drawings of yesteryear.
For information about similar exhibits focusing on wildlife and habitat conservation, visit www.naturalheritageproject.org.
I hope you enjoy this Deep Roots Radio interview and plan a visit to the exhibit:

Sylvia

Dec. 3, 9-9:30AM CT. Live, why bees matter

We’ve heard about it again and again: the bees are dying off, whole hives collapsing or just disappearing. Recent news stories told us the transplants we buy at local greenhouses contain pesticides that’ll kill bees. And we know that without bees and other pollinators some of our favorite foods will simply not grow. At all!

Join me and co-host Dave Corbett as we chat with Erin Rupp, executive director and founder of Pollinate Minnesota. What do bees do in winter? And how do they communicate with one another? And just what do they mean to the veggies and fruits eat?

What: Deep Roots Radio interview with Erin Rupp, Pollinate Minnesota ED/founder
When: Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016, 9:00-9:30AM Central Time
Where: WPCA RADIO, 93.1FM and streamed live on www.wpcaradio.org
Why: Many fruits and vegetables depend on pollinators, like bees, to carry pollen from plant to plant so that fruit and seeds will grow. No bees, no fruit! Learn how Pollinate Minnesota is working to protect and encourage these critical workers in our food system.

Sylvia