The Beekeepers Association of Northern Dutchess will meet at the Tivoli town hall / library at 7 PM. The subject this month is "BEES." All welcome!
buzz on
sam

Bees teach patience, resilience, and thankfulness for nature’s gifts. They teach us to work with them rather than control them. Today, bees have been forced to work in an agricultural model that poisons and malnourishes them. The demand for performance requires selective breeding, shallowing their gene pool and creating a welfare state for our bees– hives that cannot survive without chemical treatments and artificial feed. They live on plastic comb and are not allowed to swarm. Then they are at the mercy of a climate destabilized by Global Weirding. And yet the bees still thrive. They are wild.

And they are rebelling.

The practice now known as “American Beekeeping” is repulsive, and I am determined to destroy it. Not for the sake of the bees, who will bee just fine once these sacrileges cease, but for the sake of the beekeepers and every person’s relationship with land, food, love, and fear. Call it a not-so-hidden agenda. Call it Anarchy.

The bees in the Hudson Valley are having an EPIC YEAR. Seen above are the bees of my dreams: Wild Hives that give a middle finger to an industry that says bees need treatments and management. Would you like to meet this Epic Hive, removed safely from a demoed building in Copake to the Anarchy bee yard in Milan? Would you like to learn how to keep bees and let them keep you? To learn more (or less) then come to our 3rd annual Beekeepers Association of Northern Dutchess (B. A. N. D.) Potluck Field Day. We will meet at Cedar Cliff Farm once again to play with the bees- weather and bees permitting. Sunday July 25th, starting around 1 PM.

The bees are fattening up, so bring something to help the humans along!

Bring a veil. (Well, nobody ever does.) I didn't need one when removing this hive.

I am humble in front of these bees.

Greetings!
Remember that The Fog and Thistle CSA in Germantown, NY still has farm shares available. 20 weeks of fantastic veggies! www.fogandthistlefarm.com

May 17th - Hartwick College, Oneonta, NY
Bee Talk at 12:30PM. I hear there will bee free pizza and free opinions.

May 20th - Raritan Valley Beekeepers Association, Somerset 4H Building, 310 Milltown Road, Bridgewater, NJ, 7 PM - I'm in my home state of mind. Go bees! $5 suggested donation for the club.

May 25 - The Beekeepers Association of Northern Dutchess (B.A.N.D) Tivoli, NY
Bringing it all back home. We will meet 7 PM at the Tivoli Town Hall and talk until we get booted out.

coming in JUNE, check for date - Prospect Rock Permaculture, Johnson, VT
Come out to a Field Day on Keith's land. We will inspect some various hive designs, build some boxes, and talk bees! Suggested donation for permaculture doings.

June 8 - The Barnstable Beekeepers Club, Cape Cod, MA, 7:30 PM. Something's buzzin on the Cape.

NEW - June 9 - Providence, RI - Radical, open bee talk. All out. keep posted for more info.

June 12 - The Brooklyn Botanical Garden Centennial "Bee" Day Celebration, Brooklyn, NY
Catch me doing two talks, "Live Bee or Die" and "Bootcamp for Beekeepers" and also at the Anarchy table all day. Find out what the buzz is about.

NEW - June 13 - Dean St. Garden, Brooklyn, NY - Hands on bee demos, maybe some splits to make. Let's see how the top bar hives are doing.

June 22 - B.A.N.D. meeting, 7 PM, Tivoli, NY

July 24 - The Empire State Honey Producers Annual Picnic, Ithaca, NY. I'll bee there.

July 28-August 1 - The 2010 NE Treatment Free Beekeeping Conference. I'll bee in on the beginners section at the start and buzzing off the whole show. www.beeuntoothers.com to register. register early!

Is anyone else out there BUGGIN OUT?
beeace,
sam

Click the title above to download the book. A life-long work in process. Really needs another edit, some second opinions and fact-checking, but Enjoy. If anyone wants to publish it, go ahead. If Derrick Jensen wants to write a prologue, that would bee awesome. Use it. Abuse it. These machines kill facists. Continued apologies for lack of pictures, drawings, grammar, decency, just hope it helps you out.
Buzz. I'm back from Arizona. check this out -http://www.vimeo.com/10159341

2010 ANARCHY APIARIES ALMANAC

Buzz, that's right! Days getting longer.. the sun will shine! Getting done 2010's version of the Anarchy Apiaries Almanac. It's not all that differnt from the 2009 Anarchy Apiaries Almanac, but there is a great new bear story.

It's FREE and will always bee free.

I've promised this to a lot of folks- the link will be here soon. (I don't know how to do it yet.)

UPCOMING GIGS:
March 5-7+, Oracle, AZ
The Southwest Treatment Free Beekeeping Conference. Yes, we are building an army.

March 14, Coral Springs, FL, 4 PM
The Broward County Beekeepers Association: Top Bar Beekeeping in Florida.

March 30, Fairfield, CT
The Backyard Beekeepers Association. Anarchy Beekeeping with the Top Bar Hive.

March 31, Bard Prison Initiative, Bard College,
Annandale, NY

April 1, Keene, NH - Monadnock Beekeepers Association. wow, Spring is coming.

April 24-25 - Outlaw Beekeeping in the Fine State of Mississippi

what would make a beeautiful world?
bee beeautiful
sam

bee it
beecause
you beelieve it.

SOLD OUT. I am for the moment sold out of beehives for 2010.
thanks.
sam
anarchyapiaries@hotmail.com

Lots going on. Always. Upcoming gigs:

January 12-16, Orlando, FL
The American Beekeeping Federation mega-meeting. Catch me raising hell for 1.5 hours Saturday morning. You can also catch me sleeping in my bee truck.

January 30-31, Ashville, NC
The WNC Bee School. this will surely bee amazing. I'm around for the first weekend only.

February 6-7, West Palm Beach, FL
The Southeast Organic Beekeeping Conference. Buzz on!

March 5-7+, Oracle, AZ
The Southwest Treatment Free Beekeeping Conference. Yes, we are building an army.

March 30, Fairfield, CT
The Backyard Beekeepers Association. Anarchy Beekeeping with the Top Bar Hive.

April 1, Bard Prison Initiative, Bard College,
Annandale, NY

that's it for now. but is it enough? help me spread the love, honey.

About as bad as it can get

For a year without tomatoes, I’ve had some of the best tomatoes of my life (from out of state). Some great seeds were saved in a tough year. Who says you have to do better each year, all the time? That doesn’t sound sustainable.

Reports coming in show that this year has had the worst honey production in US history. No one can remember a leaner time. The Hudson Valley led the way with record breaking rainfall. I think there were four dry days in June. July was hardly any better. With so much surface water, plants did not have the need to send roots very deep. Even when the sun came out, the nectar just wasn’t there.

I am thankful for the rain. Yes, that’s right. The terrible stress and depression of watching so many bees go hungry has abated as the season nears its end. The communities I live in have helped me through it. I harvested no honey and did feed 1200 pounds of sugar, just taking the edge of hunger off of the 300-some top bar hives. I do not like to feed bees - consider how the ph balance is alterered to favor disease (the real killer of hives, not the varroa mite). Feeding bees as a general practive lets them grow to depend on it. This year, however, feeding was necessary to keep a core population alive. Several still will not make it, some will go south, but the remaining core population will be robust and stronger for surviving a tough season. The bees will be OK, and next years queens will carry on these tested genetics. The more bees die, the more they live. We are always safe.

The more I see the less I know... (continued)

I'm selling hives for May 2010 on a sliding scale: each hive includes the full size box, all the top bars, extra dividers to make a split, cover, and the 2010 Anarchy Apiaries Almanac/Top Bar Beekeeping Handbook. that's everything needed (minus the ATTITUDE). you provide cinder blocks or some sort of stand.

$150 - 3-4 combs of brood, bees, and a queen
$200 - 4-5 combs
$250 - 5-6 combs

I'm taking 25% down to reserve hives. let me know how many of what you want.

bees will (likely) be available first or second weekend in May for pickup in Germantown, NY. our meetings will recommence in the spring too!

best in bugs,
sam
406-396-8357
anarchyapiaries@hotmail.com