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HoneyLove and Dunn-Edwards Paints Team Up to Help Save Honeybees

October 18, 2016

de-color-of-the-year-2017

LOS ANGELES (October 18, 2016) – Dunn-Edwards Paints has partnered with HoneyLove, a nonprofit organization that encourages urban beekeeping and educates people about making their garden bee friendly by avoiding pesticides, providing water and shelter, and adding pollinator-friendly plants.

“We just announced our 2017 Color of the Year, and it is called Honey Glow,” explained Sara McLean, color expert at Dunn-Edwards. “So we’re donating 10 percent of proceeds of paint tinted in Honey Glow to HoneyLove.”

honey-glow-room

She describes Honey Glow as a warm, golden yellow with orange undertones. “This is a great color to make a bold statement in a room. It pairs well with earthy, neutral palettes or colors like chocolate, red, gray, green and orange.”

McLean selected Honey Glow after extensive research on color trends in everything from pop culture and fashion to world events and local street culture. “Honey Glow embodies the trend toward the warming of all colors – from neutrals to non-neutrals,” she explained. “And it’s an everyday reminder that we need to protect honeybees.”

Tweet this: To celebrate @DunnEdwards 2017 Color of the Year, Honey Glow, 10% of sales help save honeybees #savethebees @iheartbees #ColorOfTheYear

Last year, beekeepers lost 44 percent of their honeybee colonies, and seven species of honeybees were recently added to the U.S. endangered species list. “If bees are not around to pollinate our food crops, we won’t be able to feed the current population,” explained HoneyLove director Paul Hekimian. “If the bees go, we go – literally.”

Tweet this: Last year, beekeepers lost 44 percent of their honeybee colonies! @iheartbees and @DunnEdwards team up to help #savethebees

“Most beekeepers paint their hives, either to look great in their garden, or if there are a lot of hives, the different colors help bees find their way home,” Hekimian explained. “Since Dunn-Edwards is one of the most environmentally responsible paint companies, we were eager to team up with them.”

Tweet this: Did you know beekeepers paint their hives bright colors? @DunnEdwards and @iheartbees team up to #savethebees

Learn more about urban beekeeping and how you can protect honeybees in your own yard and your community right here at HoneyLove.org. For more ideas and inspiration with Honey Glow, visit Sara’s blog, specs+spaces, and watch this video about the inspiration behind the color:

Dunn-Edwards is one of the nation’s largest independent manufacturers and distributors of architectural, industrial and high performance paints and paint supplies. The company is dedicated to preserving and protecting the environment, and produces its coatings in the world’s first and only LEED® Gold-certified manufacturing plant. For more information, visit www.dunnedwards.com, www.instagram.com/dunnedwards, www.pinterest.com/dunnedwards, https://www.houzz.com/pro/dunnedwards
www.facebook.com/dunnedwards and www.twitter.com/dunnedwards.

 

Read full story · Posted in News

Backyard Beekeeping Ordinance Update

October 18, 2015

by Katherine E. Peterson—Los Angeles Department of City Planning

The Backyard Beekeeping Ordinance (CPC-2015-578-CA, Council File No. CF 12-0785) was unanimously adopted by the City Council yesterday, Wednesday, October 14, 2015. The Ordinance received 15 “Yes” votes and 0 “No” votes.  For more details or to review/download documents submitted to the City Clerk, including the City Planning Commission Staff Report and action, please refer to the online Council File at the following link:

https://cityclerk.lacity.org/lacityclerkconnect/index.cfm?fa=ccfi.viewrecord&cfnumber=12-0785

What’s Next?

According to Section 250 of the City Charter, the Mayor has 10 days to act on the ordinance, meaning he can act on it on the same day, or 10 days later. Assuming the Mayor approves it, the City Clerk’s Office will then post the adopted Ordinance for a period of 10 days and a 30-day effective date will begin after that. Simply put, the earliest an Ordinance can realistically go into effect is 40 to 50 days after it is adopted by the City Council. When we have an effective date, we will notify the individuals on this interest list by email.

Feel free to forward this information to anyone you feel might be interested. If you received this email via forwarded message from someone else, and you would like to receive updates directly from the Planning Department, please email katherine.peterson@lacity.org and ask to be added to the interest list. Please type “Add Me to Backyard Beekeeping Notification List” in the subject line and provide your group/organization/company affiliations and contact information (please include at least your zip code).

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Thank you,

Katie

—

Katherine E. Peterson
Code Studies
City of Los Angeles Department of City Planning
Phone: 213-978-1445
katherine.peterson@lacity.org

Read full story · Posted in News

LA CITY COUNCIL ***FINAL*** BEE VOTE WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14!!

October 11, 2015

BEEKEEPERS! THIS IS IT! 
LA CITY COUNCIL ***FINAL*** BEE VOTE WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14!! 

It began way back in November 2011 at the Mar Vista Community Council…

For years we collected thousands of petition signatures both in person and online…

We inspired 20+ motions in support of beekeeping from Los Angeles neighborhood councils…

Raised awareness through countless articles, tv/radio interviews, outreach presentations to local groups and schools…

And now beeks, this is the last and final vote when the Los Angeles City Council has the chance to legalize urban beekeeping in our fair city!

AGENDA: http://ens.lacity.org/clk/councilagendas/clkcouncilagendas399045_10142015.html

We are item #22 on the agenda. Meeting begins at 10 a.m. Plan accordingly.

**Remember to wear your HoneyLove t-shirts or Yellow & Black! Time to show up and celebrate!!

Read full story · Posted in News, Yay Bees

Queens and Inspections

August 6, 2015

by HoneyLover Susan Rudnicki

One of the most important regular events in the life of a beekeeper is the inspection of the hive to verify that the queen is laying and the workers are vigorous. It’s late July, so the queen is laying less and the bees are not as focused on brood rearing as they were earlier in the year, but we still must inspect the brood nest every 3-4 weeks to verify that the queen is doing her job. 

I often hear newbees say that they “know” they have a laying queen because they see the bees bringing in pollen. This is not a reliable sign; even a queenless hive will show the pollen gatherers robotically still bringing in pollen because that’s their job!

The only way to know the status of your Queen Mother is to actually see eggs and open brood. You do not need to see HER, only the evidence of her work. Proper smoking technique is essential for calming and observing the bees, so if you do not know what that is please read up on the HoneyLove website. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7RAgCEtaME

If your hive stack is several boxes high, it is best to go to the bottom level first by setting aside the other boxes so not all the bees are driven to the bottom box (crowding them) by the smoking and inspection process. Foragers returning will also add to the number in the entry box, so place the boxes in a stack in reverse order to be able to look into the bottom level first.

Alternately, If your hive is grumpy, place a towel or piece of plywood over each box as you remove it so the individual bee boxes are isolated from each other and contained. Check the frames in the first hive body for eggs and open brood. Eggs are very small and it is essential that you be able to identify them. Use a strong set of glasses or a magnifier if you need to.

Older hives—two years or more—will often abandon the lowest level the first winter and most brood rearing will occur in the next level up while excess bee bread and honey will be stored in the bottom box. There is no satisfactory answer from experts as to why this happens but it is common.

Sometimes a colony loses their queen and a worker (or a number of workers) begin laying drone eggs as compensation. There can be entire frames of capped and open drone brood. This is called having a “laying worker hive” and obviously leads to a dead end. Sometimes the bees do not have the resources of eggs less that four days old to make a replacement queen, so in their desperation they will draw queen cells that contain only drone eggs laid by the workers.

This is a very confusing sign if the beekeeper has not been attentive and missed the change in population dynamics by way of regular inspections. It is imperative that the beekeeper act on the situation, though, as the colony is fated to die out.

Know what a good brood frame looks like by practicing attentive observation on a queen right hive. A laying worker hive can be remedied by newspapering in a swarm, putting the queen right colony under the queen-less colony with a double screen board and leaving the stack for two weeks, then combining them. There are a number of additional fix-its; Michael Bush’s site has an exhaustive list of the many remedies at http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslayingworkers.htm

In closing, frequent inspections year-round is the key along with on-going education.

Read full story · Posted in Newsletter Articles

WATCH: Saviors of Honeybees @Ford #GoFurther

June 8, 2015

The Saviors of Honeybees in the City of Angels

Ford Go Further | Everyday Heroes

Honey bees are responsible for $15 billion in U.S. agriculture crops each year, and pollinate 80% of the world’s plants.

What’s alarming is beekeepers are losing up to 50% of their hives every year, often vanishing without a trace or explanation. For Ford owners Rob and Chelsea McFarland, keeping these bees buzzing has become a passion, and they’re turning the city of Los Angeles into an unlikely urban beekeeping haven through community outreach, education and, of course, a few beehives of their own.

To learn more about urban beekeeping and how you can help keep these important bees buzzing visit, honeylove.org.

Read full story · Posted in HoneyLove Buzz

HoneyLove featured on Good Mythical Morning

June 5, 2015

10,000 Bees Beard with Rhett & Link!

We put 10,000 bees all over Link’s face!

To learn more about Urban Beekeeping and find out how you can save the bees, visit http://www.HoneyLove.org

For colonies, honey and other bee products, visit http://www.BillsBees.com

Check out Good Mythical Morning’s YouTube Channel for daily episodes: http://bit.ly/subrl2

SUBSCRIBE to HoneyLove on YouTube: http://full.sc/MRAY21

 

Read full story · Posted in HoneyLove Buzz

Thanks for the buzz! @smdailypress @sspitzSaMo

May 7, 2015

SMDP

Reality vs. fantasy (Culture Watch)
by Sarah Spitz

SAVING BEES

…Speaking of sustainability: there would be no food without bees.

Join local non-profit organization, HoneyLove (www.honeylove.org) for its 2015 Yellow Tie fundraiser. Wear yellow, pose for Yellow Carpet photos, and enjoy great food, fun drinks, local honey tasting and music by the Leftover Cuties, in support of HoneyLove’s mission to protect honeybees and inspire and educate new urban beekeepers! Go online to find your ticket.

It takes place on May 17 from 6 to 9 p.m. at The Cook’s Garden by HGEL at 1033 Abbot Kinney Blvd. in Venice. Children dressed as bees get in for free. Your ticket is here: YTE2015.eventbrite.com.

[Read full article on SM Daily Press]

YTE15_slide

Read full story · Posted in HoneyLove Buzz

Bee Informed Partnership Hive Scale Project

December 15, 2014
Susan BIP Scale
via HoneyLover Susan RudnickiHave you ever wondered how our local, LA Urban beekeeping differ from other areas of the country? I just read the other day that beekeepers in Wales expect about 25 pounds of honey per year on their hives—33 pounds is a bumper crop!   This does not seem like much. Our bees are active year ’round, making brood, honey and drones. This growth is very different from temperate climate bees and, as well, we are using Africanized hybrid ferals—a relatively rare population to survey. We now have a opportunity to participate in amassing data on our specific niche by the generosity of HoneyLove who purchased the SolutionBee Hive scale for me to monitor a hive in my backyard garden.

The project is managed by BIP (the Bee Informed Partnership)  and the hive data is automatically sent to their website as well as the SolutionBee team, the manufacturers of the hive scale (purchased from Brushy Mountain). The colony I selected came from a large swarm hived on April 27, 2014 which has proven to be super productive and nicely behaved. They now occupy 3 deep boxes and 2 mediums after seven months and have produced 60 pounds of honey.  I have also raided their brood nest for frames of brood for weak nuc hives. They are VERY strong bees and a pleasure to work.

The goal of the project is summarized below, as taken from the initial offering to participate sent out by BIP. I am having great fun with this, watching my bee’s growth graph going ever upward in weight gain. For the first time I am also having to learn how to use a cell phone—my son’s iphone—as the data recording and uploading device. Arghh!  —this is not my strong suit.

The Bee Informed Partnership is dedicated to helping beekeepers make informed data-based management decisions. Monitoring weight changes in colonies has huge potential to help us understand disease and parasite population growth, as well as the timing of management practices. We are seeking some innovative beekeepers who are willing to help us develop and beta test the hive scale tools’ ability to develop a system that will provide the best regionally specific management practices based on real time data. We are collaborating with NASA’s Honeybee Net, under the direction of Wayne Esaias, to test this exciting effort.

Why hive scales?

Hive scales weigh individual colonies at regular intervals, keeping track of strong nectar flows, swarming, and other conditions that affect management decisions.  Beekeepers may respond to rises in weight by putting supers on, inspecting colonies for swarm cells, and extracting full honey supers. Conversely, weight loss may indicate a need to feed colonies, robbing or indicate the colony has swarmed and is at increased risk of becoming queenless.

With new digital hive scales, beekeepers can track the weight of colonies without having to do a hive inspection. The scale we are using for our beta testing will utilizing Bluetooth with an Android device (e.g., Android phone or tablet), and a visit to the apiary is required to read the data. The data can be viewed on the device or be uploaded via cellular or WIFI communication. However, in the future these same scales when used with a data collector will allow for data to be automatically uploaded via cell phones or cell phone service data plans that allow for remote monitoring.

Armed with data from hive scales and other disease monitoring efforts, the Bee Informed Partnership hopes to make predictive models of honey flows and disease population growth. These models will help us develop an “alert system” that will make management recommendations based on real-time and regionally specific data.

As to my particular case,  I don’t expect the disease/pest monitoring aspect will be so relevant to my bee population. The varroa mite has not been a great destroyer of my bees in the past and they seem to manage the pest well on their own. When Spring comes, it will be interesting to observe the growth of the brood nest and respond with management techniques to overcome swarming tendencies.   One thing is sure—that time will be sooner than any other part of the country.

Read full story · Posted in HoneyLove HQ, Newsletter Articles

The Flowers of Winter

November 8, 2014

by HoneyLover Susan Rudnicki
Corymbia_ficifolia_1

Flower-nectar and pollen are the life’s blood of our bees and—even though we are in the month of November—much is in bloom in the city. Many plants from the Southern Hemisphere bloom in Winter and irrigation of city gardens blurs the droughty conditions naturally seen in the wild lands of California.

I’m often surprised by the relatively sparse knowledge beekeepers have about the plant resources that are so fundamental to bees’ health and prosperity. We must try to hone our observational skills on the plant life around us and what those blossoms are offering our bees. When we pay attention, we can easily conjecture what bees will be storing in their combs and how colonies may be growing. A LOT of beekeeping is taking a long view of a process and not so much a set of strict rules of what to expect.

Here are a few things in bloom I’m seeing now:

  • Melaleuca quinquenervia (Paperbark tree)—white, bottlebrush flowers and thick, squishy, peeling white bark.  There are several types of melaleucas.
  • Eucalyptus of various kinds—E. ficifolia (now called Corymbia ficifolia)—Huge trusses of flowers in shades of red, pink or orange. E. camaldulensis (Red River Gum)—white or pale yellow flowers. And E. globulus (Blue Gum)—white flowers.
  • Schinus terebinthifolius (Brazilian Pepper Tree)—Tiny but profuse white flowers.
  • Callistemon rigidus (Bottlebrush tree)—red, bottlebrush flowers.
  • Rosemary, Lavender and Basil—all have the small flowers bees seem to be most attracted to.
  • Citrus trees—lemon, orange, lime.

Take a look around and notice something new. What plants are attracting the bees’ attention in your neighborhood?

Read full story · Posted in Newsletter Articles

NEW! HoneyLove inspired Christian Science Monitor article

November 7, 2014

Chelsea and Rob McFarland lure people into a sweet science: urban beekeeping

Honeybee populations are under attack but the founders of nonprofit HoneyLove believe bees’ best future is in cities.

By Daniel B. Wood, Staff Writer

West Los Angeles, Calif. — Butterflies and hummingbirds flit in the shafts of light behind Chelsea McFarland as she tells a group of about 20 interested volunteers – residents ages 6 to 66 from around this West Los Angeles suburb – what they can do to combat the dramatic worldwide depletion of the honeybee.

“Instead of one guy with 60,000 hives, our hope is that we can inspire 30,000 people to have two each,” she says to the volunteers who sit on folding chairs inside an auxiliary greenhouse on the grounds of Venice High School Learning Garden.

Between 1947 and 2005, the number of bee colonies in the United States declined by more than 50 percent, from 5.9 million to 2.4 million, she tells them. Researchers are now saying the once-mysterious disappearance is likely due to a combination of viruses, pesticides, and contaminated water, which makes bees more susceptible to everything from stress to parasitic mites. The bees pick up insecticides through dust and residue on nectar and pollen.

The recent Saturday gathering aims to reverse the trend. Ms. McFarland’s hope is that the information will ignite a passion within the listeners to (1) spread the word and (2) adopt a whole slew of ideas that can dramatically boost the bee population.

Those actions could range from becoming a full-time urban beekeeper – building and sustaining hives of bees and harvesting the honey – to planting a bee-friendly organic garden with bee-friendly plants, such as lavender, glory bushes, jasmine, rosemary, coreopsis, violets, thyme, wisteria, bluebells, trumpet vine, sunflowers, cosmos, and coneflowers.

Taking action also could be as simple as building a clean, outdoor, nonstagnant water source on one’s property.

“The best science tells us that the future of the honeybee is within the urban environment,” McFarland says. “Cities actually provide safer habitat than the farms and rural areas traditionally associated with beekeeping.”

That’s because urban areas offer more diversity of plants, and they are available year-round – not just in a single season, like most of the 100 crops that bees pollinate which make up about a third of the average person’s diet.

Bee pollination is worth $15 billion a year to the US farming industry, McFarland says. Bee depletion is also predicted to affect the beef and dairy industries by reducing the pollination of clover and other hay and forage crops.

The Committee on the Status of Pollinators in North America told Congress in March 2007 that if the disappearances – known as colony collapse disorder – continued unabated, managed honeybees would disappear by 2035.

That would also result in higher prices for nuts, fruits, and vegetables, and possibly increased imports of cheaper fruits and vegetables from overseas countries where CCD is less prevalent…

[continue reading on csmonitor.com]

Read full story · Posted in HoneyLove Interviews, News