[Pollinator] SF Gate: It's a great time to be a honeybee in the city

[Jennifer Tsang]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/04/22/MN6P1IRE2S.DTL

 


It's a great time to be a honeybee in the city


Meredith May, Chronicle Staff <mailto:mmay at sfchronicle.com>  Writer

Friday, April 22, 2011

 
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2011/04/22/MN6P1IRE2S.D
TL&o=0&type=printable> Chronicle Home and Garden Editor Deb Wandell (left)
and r...
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2011/04/22/MN6P1IRE2S.D
TL&o=1&type=printable> Bees with fresh comb.
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2011/04/22/MN6P1IRE2S.D
TL&o=2&type=printable>
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2011/04/22/MN6P1IRE2S.D
TL&o=3&type=printable> Reporter Meredith May (left) and Chronicle Home and
Garde...More...
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2011/04/22/MN6P1IRE2S.D
TL&o=4&type=printable>  

As the rest of the country tumbled into recession, Ray Olivarez's business
took wing.

Olivarez sells honeybees, not to large commercial beekeepers who rent their
hives to pollinate agricultural crops, but to the growing group of backyard
hobbyists worried about the disappearing honeybee. Increasing demand,
diminishing supply and a thriving locavore movement means Olivarez Honey
Bees Inc. in Orland (Glenn County) has tripled its customer base in the past
decade.

"More people are growing their own fruit and vegetables and trying to be
more self-sufficient now, and they want to make sure their garden is
pollinated," said Olivarez, who shipped 22,000 packages of bees nationwide
this season, including two that made their way to the rooftop garden at The
Chronicle, where staffers have taken up beekeeping. 

Started ahead of Earth Day, the experiment, the first by a major U.S.
newspaper, aims to provide sanctuary for the honeybee, pollinate the rooftop
garden and educate readers about the world's most important pollinator,
responsible for 40 percent of the food we eat.

Urban beekeeping is so popular, breeders are selling out by May and using
waiting lists to manage the demand. 

"You can't even buy the equipment, the suppliers are in such short supply,"
said Laurie Davies Adams, executive director of Pollinator Partnership in
San Francisco, an international network of 130 environmental groups,
government representatives and scientists.


More keepers


There are nearly 200 members of the San Francisco Beekeepers' Association,
and an untold number who prefer to go uncounted.

The number of backyard beekeepers nationally has increased 20 to 25 percent
in the past three years, said Kim Flottum, editor of Bee Culture magazine,
and author of "The Backyard Beekeeper."

Among those, Flottum said, rooftop beekeepers are the fastest growing group,
in part because New York City health officials in March 2010 removed a ban
on urban beekeeping. First lady Michelle Obama
<http://www.sfgate.com/barack-obama/>  inspired more people to try the hobby
when she had hives installed on the White House lawn as part of her healthy
foods drive. Paris has bees atop the Opera House; Washington D.C. has hives
on the U.S. Department of Agriculture roof on the mall; and here in San
Francisco, there are bees buzzing above the Fairmont Hotel, Bi-Rite Market,
Wine.com downtown on Sansome Street and Glide Memorial Church. Google's
Mountain View campus also has hives.

"It's actually better to be a bee in an urban setting than in the country,"
Flottum said.

Cities have more plant diversity that blooms year-round, a constant water
sources from sprinklers, fewer bees per acre to cut down on competition and
less exposure to agricultural pesticides, he said.


City living


San Francisco is perfectly suited to the small-time hobbyist, with its
microclimates and buffet of plants. Drought-resistant natives are the most
beneficial, Davies Adams said. 

"Bees seem to be able to forage wherever you put them," said Paul Koski, a
San Francisco beekeeper for 20 years. "Out by the ocean, in the sunny
Mission or in SoMa, they seem to be able to find enough to forage on to
thrive." 

The plant mix creates a sturdier bee more able to resist mites and fungi
thought to bring on colony collapse disorder, which has been decimating
hives since 2006. 

In contrast to commercial beekeepers, who rent their hives for $150 apiece
to pollinate agricultural fields, mainly in the almond groves of the Central
Valley, backyard bees get a varied diet. 

"Commercial bees pollinate almonds for a month. Then apples for a month,
then blueberries for a month," Flottum said. "Imagine you or I eating a
cheeseburger every day for a month. It's not good for you."

Nor are the pesticides sprayed on the fruit and nut crops, which the bees
ingest and then recycle into the architecture of their hive, contaminating
the honey, propolis, wax and royal jelly.

"It's like outgassing in sick building syndrome, or paint fumes, it's
constant low-level exposure to environmental pollutants and pesticides,"
said Arizona entomologist Stephen Buchmann, international coordinator of
Pollinator Partnership and author of "Letters From the Hive."


A taste of honey


Robert MacKimmie, who tends 45 hives in San Francisco and sells honey at
farmers' markets under the City Bees label, says the city's biodiversity
gives each neighborhood a different honey taste. 

McLaren Park honey is darker, with notes of wild fennel and manzanita.
Mission honey is more floral, buoyed by the warm sun on flowers in and
around Dolores Park. The Inner Sunset is light and creamy, thanks to
eucalyptus.

"We have some of the most remarkable city honey in the world because we have
a Mediterranean climate with plants from everywhere, so something is
blooming year-round," MacKimmie said. "People are very aware of what's going
on with the honeybees now, and with (author) Michael Pollan and the whole
local food renaissance, plus they are learning bees are not that difficult
to raise, at least not at the start.

"My question is, how many of these people are continuing beekeepers into the
second and third year?" he said.

The average newcomer abandons beekeeping after three years, discouraged by
hive losses because of mites or viruses, or fatigued by the amount of work
required to ensure the hive is healthy and has enough room to expand, Davies
Adams said.


Good intentions


David White, one of three principal owners of the popular Mission District
restaurant Flour + Water, intends to stick with it. He's importing a
holistic hive with a wax paper cover from Germany called a bien, which can
be opened with less intrusion to the colony. The hive will go on the
restaurant's roof as a way to educate customers and friends about
pollination. Honey is an afterthought.

"Sure we'll use the honey in our restaurant, but we're doing this to first
and foremost to care for the bees," White said. "When you look at the long
list of all the foods that wouldn't be here without bees, and hear that in
some places people are pollinating by hand because the bees are gone, then
we feel we have a responsibility to educate ourselves and our customers." 


Honeybee Chronicles 


Follow the hives atop The San Francisco Chronicle in the new column,
Honeybee Chronicles, that premieres Sunday in the Home & Garden section.
Staff writer Meredith May will file monthly dispatches, detailing
developments in The Chronicle's foray into rooftop beekeeping.

Tip: Wondering which natives to plant for bees? Find out by typing your ZIP
code into the Pollinator Partnership's website at
<http://www.pollinator.org> www.pollinator.org.


Urban bees by the numbers 


2 million The number of flowers that bees need to visit to make 1 pound of
honey

50,000 Approximate number of bees in a hive when colony reaches full
strength.

5,000 Approximate number of bees in a 3-pound package.

2,000 Number of eggs a queen lays per day

15 Speed (in mph) a honeybee can fly

5 Number of eyes per honeybee

3 miles Maximum radius in which honeybees forage from the hive.

3/8 inch the amount of "bee space" between frames bees need to move about
freely in the hive. Anything under will be sealed in propolis, anything over
will be covered with comb.

1/12 teaspoon Amount of honey one bee will produce in her lifetime.

Sources: "The Beekeepers Bible," (Stewart, Tabori & Chang; 2011), Marin Bee
Co. 

E-mail Meredith May at mmay at sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/04/22/MN6P1IRE2S.DTL

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20110425/4e12e50f/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/gif
Size: 5204 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20110425/4e12e50f/attachment.gif>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/gif
Size: 4978 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20110425/4e12e50f/attachment-0001.gif>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/gif
Size: 3207 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20110425/4e12e50f/attachment-0002.gif>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/gif
Size: 4972 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20110425/4e12e50f/attachment-0003.gif>