Day 5 - Beekeeping

I was introduced to beekeeping about 7 years ago and we have only bought honey once since then...and with our honey-eating family, we go through a bunch. Beekeeping is catching on like raising chickens. I have four other friends locally that are now with a hive in their yard and unlike chickens (or other pets) bees can pretty much take care of themselves even when you are taking a vacation!!

My bees have been really busy lately and I figured that I needed to add some space. Boy was I right!! In one hive I could barely lift the top super...that means that there is a whole heck of a lot of honey in there. Typically one can expect about 2 gallons a year (8 quarts @ $20 per quart for local honey = $160) from a hive. Last year I may have taken too much, but we extracted 7 gallons. Some is given away to neighbors and as gifts that are always well received, but we do eat a lot ourselves.

So, I added a super to each of my two hives and expect to harvest sometime in July, leaving whatever they can make the remaining part of the season for surviving the winter. I will have to say though that there seems like a flower for all seasons in our town for the bees to forage.

The harvest for today:
1) One aprium ($0.50)
2) Kale ($3.00)
3) Pint of blueberries ($4.00)

Total (Year-to-Date): $30.00

The Idea of this Blog

My goal from this blog is to show how a typical person can grow an organic garden that provides some kind of produce for themselves 365 days a year (366 on leap years). The official start of the "year" will be July 1st and I will give a list of what has been harvested and try to show what something like this would cost in a grocery store.

My family lives on a typical lot (1/8 of an acre) in a small town in Northern California. I have planted fruit trees since moving here and I will list them in a future post. We also have 8 small veggie garden plots and currently have two bee hives (for honey and pollination).