the economics of hobby beekeeping

Remember the book "The $64 tomato"? Well, I did some calculating to figure out how much a jar of honey was costing me to produce. The bottom line - it's an expensive bottle of honey. (more....)

another farmers market

I sold honey again at our local farmers market. This time I sold all 2 dozen lbs I brought with me and took orders for about 30 more. Now I've sold all of the honey I hoped to sell - about 60 lbs, half of what I had. The trick was bringing Suzie! She is a great sales dog! She got lots of attention at our little table.



I also brought a basket full of gourds to sell. I sold a few at 50 cents each, but not many. I thought they looked pretty and maybe helped sell my honey. These were all from one giant vine that was a volunteer in my garden. I let it grow with no idea what it was. One of those compost contributions. I also had a nice butternut squash volunteer as well as a million tomatoes. the butternut produced four nice squashes - I pulled all the tomatoes.

Here's a picture of me just after I set up my table at the Farmer's Market. I ended up selling 15 jars. Pretty good I suppose for a very small Farmer's Market.

honey for sale

I'll be selling my honey tomorrow at the Lincoln MA farmers market. Come by and try some if you're in the area. It's in the morning, 9:30 am to 1:30 pm. It will be the first time I've sold my honey. I wonder how it will go. I've produced over 100 lbs since I started keeping bees two years ago.

more honey

Yesterday I bottled 10 pints, 15 lbs, of honey for us to eat. It's spicy and sweet, medium amber. Really good. (more...)

honey CSA

Joan's hive location has been approved for the meadow next to the community gardens! Yeah!! And she has a nice new website advertising her CSA: Little Red Truck Farm - Honey CSA. I signed up for my share today. Her hives will be set up in April.

honey bee on crocus

Here's a sight I've never seen before. A honeybee on St Patrick's Day! I think this is a sign of a good season coming :)

Honeybees usually don't show up in my yard 'til late June (post). But here it is only March! - not even Spring yet - and a beautiful honeybee as fat as can bee is loaded down with crocus pollen. Maybe he's from Joan's hives, which are up on her second story deck a couple blocks from me. I'm so glad they've made it through the winter.

Joan had concerns last year year that her bees would not survive the winter, since last summer was so rainy and cool and the bees stored very little honey.

Joan is going to set up a honey CSA in Belmont this year, hopefully near the community gardens to help with pollination there. The hive locations have not been set yet. It's a lengthy procedure to go through the committees and approvals needed.

My husband spotted this article in today's Boston Globe: New York city has approved beekeeping! Awesome! Its the thing to do now that Michelle has a hive on the South Lawn...

honey CSA

I think this may finally happen!

Last year, I read somewhere about a honey CSA. Since honey's one of my favorite things and since we had poor pollination last year, this seemed like a super idea. I've been looking around for a bee keeper and finally came across a woman who maintains beehives and is interested in running a CSA. I am SO excited!

The idea is to set up probably 2-5 hives in a location near the community gardens in Belmont. The beekeeper will decide how many shares to divide the honey into and cost per share. Benefits will be very local organic honey, garden pollination, and an educational component. Interested CSA members can watch, learn, and potentially participate.

I was talking with the beekeeper about where to locate the hives. Bees like warm sunlight, southern or eastern exposure. They should be at least 20 feet from a walking path. We have several possible locations picked out and will make calls to get final approval.

One potential problem is beehives are high risk now with colony collapse disorder. While vegetable CSAs always have something to distribute even in a bad year, a honey CSA has the potential of coming up completely dry. (Kind of like a tomato CSA would have done this year.) But the rewards could be very sweet.