Keeping Bees in the City – Baltimore Beekeeping and Bee Services
Sorry about my lack of recent posts! I am still around and my bees 🐝 are healthy.
Above is a photo of one of my several sunflowers 🌻 in my yard. I have taken a bit of break on the blog but, my hope over the next few weeks is to post the many photos and stories that I have documented over the last few months so please stay tuned!
Best Wishes!
Michelle
I met Will one of the farm managers at the site to look at the hives. We discovered one of was lost during the winter.
Will was excited to see the honey frames and posed for me above. I will be back to the Farm because they have donated equipment to BeeMore for use and rehabilitation.
I will be holding an event here in May stay tuned for more information.
Have a great Sunday!
Michelle
People often ask me how and why I started beekeeping and BeeMore and it all goes back to the garden. This morning, I dropped by the offices before an Earth day event and I was inspired by these seedlings which started off like this…
or probably more like this last summer 
So it’s great to see the early evolution of these plants before we put them in the garden when the weather warms a but more.
Happy Earth Day!
Michelle
Over the last few weeks, I started some flower seeds inside because of the recent Nor’easter. My hope is to get a jump start on the pollinator friendly plants.
I thought that I would share some tips on indoor planting that I found on the internet.
Good Luck 🍀
I will be getting my 1st set of new bees on April 7th. So look out for some new bee 🐝 posts.
Michelle
I am currently a taking the UME Baltimore City Master Gardener course and last week we talked about pollinators which is one of my favorite topics. It sparked me to look at my garden and what I plant. Last year, I planted sunflowers and they were great in my garden. I found that sunflowers attracted a myriad of bees and other pollinators.
This year as part of my work with BeeMore, I am going up my game a bit by planting additional sunflowers at different sites. I found some great resources on this and the ongoing Great Sunflower Project.
I will share more on my efforts to support Project Sunflower.
Michelle
Since its the winter and my post from the hives are limited. I wanted to add some interesting bee facts that I found on the internets.
Fun facts about bees:
I thought that some of these facts may be helpful getting to know more about the ever important bee.
Michelle
Today, I was pleasantly surprised to find active bees building comb in Hive 1 at the Woodland site. See video below:
I only checked because I have been working on the greenhouses at Woodland for the winter season. I have been amazed by the greenhouse results so far. Below are some photos from my other project which is greenhouses. It has been exciting watching the progress.
Thanks for checking out the site and now I will be making at least two bee candy bars!
Michelle 🙂
The “real” fall has finally arrived in early November in Baltimore. Above are some photos of the Woodland garden from this week and I was lucky enough to have some help from Sophia on Monday.
This week it has been colder than its been all year and damp. I am always commenting (rather complain about) the dampness of Maryland despite growing up in the constant humidity of Miami, when it rains here and it under 50 degrees it’s really cold to me.. So this week when the temperatures hit 42, I was freezing.
The good news was that we can retire the summer crops but, the bad news was that it meant saying goodbye to some of these plants (the last gasp of my various tomatoes). Over the last few weeks, we moved seedling into the hoop houses at Woodland and we have been preparing the moisture levels in the houses for new plant life. This my first year using hoop houses and I am excited about this project. I will share more photos of the winter oasis.
As for the bees… Not much movement for the last few days because of the dreary weather. Below are two days of photos. I fed the hives and when I thought all was calm, the guard bees on the more active hive let me know they were still around. The other hive was more docile.
Otherwise, I have been working on my indoor business activities and preparations for the winter. Hopefully, the weather does not take a turn for winter soon and the Friday freeze will be brief.
I will keep you updated!
Michelle
Here are some photos from mid-June 2017, when we 1st installed the hives at the Park Heights Community Health Alliance site on Woodland avenue. I am lucky that my husband Warren (aka Hedgepeth) is a technology enthusiast and took some great photos with his new Mavic Pro drone which gave a bird’s eye view of the day. You can see that I am working on the farm while he flies over and around the hives.
I will include some video on a separate post of the video of him installing the hive earlier in the month.
I thought these photos were neat so I wanted to share!
Michelle
