The Lazy Man's Hobby

Beekeeping has often been quoted as "The Lazy Man's Hobby" and it's really quite true. If you only have a few hives and you take a minimalistic/organic approach there really isn't a whole lot for you to do. You simply check the hive every 10 days or so to make sure the bees aren't having any issues with disease or space constraints. There is much more work to be done during fall and spring than winter and summer, but most of the time you are just leaving the bees alone. This leaves a lot of downtime that needs to be filled.

I've spend my time reading the bee source forums, a great resource to all things beekeeping. Any question you may have will quickly be answered by beekeepers all over the country and there are countless threads in which you can just read to learn more about bees. I've added the link on my side bar if you wanted to check it out!

I've also been thinking about what I can do to promote urban beekeeping here in Edmonton. I haven't really heard much from the city developers my counsellor got me in touch with other than "we're looking into it." While my original train of thought was to try to get beekeeping legalized, which will eventually happen judging from other cities around the world, I have thought of a great plan to get bees into the city that avoids the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard). I would call it "Buzzing With Business" and it would be a program that would allow local business with accessible flat rooftops to have a hive. My main issue is that I would still need to get the city on board to provide permissions because quite frankly it would be hard to get businesses on board if it was illegal for them. If enough business signed up it would allow for training of people who wanted to learn about beekeeping as I wouldn't be able to manage all the hives. The best part is the hives would be out of site and out of site = out of mind. After a couple of years pass without incident it would provide valuable evidence to the city for legalizing beekeeping.

As for my other projects I'm still really keen on getting some Newbee TV episodes filmed and edited. I would love some input from my readers though! I need episode ideas and as it will be focused towards new beekeepers/people who want to become beekeepers, what sort of things would you like me to cover? Post below in the comments!

I will be heading out to the hive tomorrow if the weather is nice, I'll post up with some pictures so everyone can know how my bees are doing!