Buddha Belly Honey

Labor Day Harvesting at Home from our garden hive

Sat, 15 Sep 2012 16:12:45 -0700

Here are some photos from a ritual our whole family has come to love.
Hope you’re enjoying the start of Fall!
Nicole

The final product!

Harvest Season

Sat, 8 Oct 2011 18:15:35 -0700

Well, the summer was a whirlwind between advocating for ordinance change and attending to the garden, the bees and the chickens. We didn't even get to do any summer trips as the backyard kept us quite busy. We did enjoy some dinner picnics under the pergola enjoying tasty dishes from the fresh vegetables from the garden.

We received quiet a surprise about a month ago. Nathaniel's hen "Kick" became broody in April and we decided we would let her sit on 5 eggs I acquired. We were not positive if the eggs were fertilized or not but we thought it would be great to let her sit on them and teach the kids the process of where chickens come from. Of the five eggs, two hatched. One chick died. The boys were so sad and had a little funeral for it. The other chick that hatched was named "Peck". Here she is......

It was quiet cute because both hens wanted to mother this baby chick. What a lucky only chick! So the surprise came when one afternoon my friend Anna (and bee mentor) was over for a cup of tea in the backyard and we heard "Cock-a-doddle-do". We both turned around and looked at each other with our mouths open wide. Well Peck of course turned out to be a Rooster! Thankfully Tara Firma Farms in Petalumaprovided a home for Peck and here HE is at his new home and digs two days later
I think and hope he is doing great! "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. I felt great about his placement because he was free to roam just as at home.
Well Kick was upset to loose her chick and went broody again. Stay tuned.....

The Beehive Update:
I am happy to report that the girls are doing great. Sorry to say but the drones were kicked out about two or three weeks ago. I felt bad for the poor little guys. They just got kicked out to the curb. However, the reality is that they don’t pull their weight and continue to eat the stores of honey that are much needed for the hive to survive the winter months. The hive looks healthy. I have two deeps of honey and brood. I do not have mites so far. I feel fortunate. I am wondering if it has anything to do with the mint and lavender that we planted. If I do get mites I will treat with a dusting of powdered sugar a few times. I don’t believe in letting my bees suffer and die.

I took off the super to winterize the hive. I only had three and half frames in the super which were not completely full. I felt sort of bad taking the three frames but I needed to remove the super in order to prepare the bees for the winter. I left one frame that was not capped yet for the bees to forage on for the afternoon. They loved it. I removed the three frames that were not entirely built out and extracted at a fellow beekeepers home. It yielded about 14 lbs of honey to share with family, friends and neighbors. This is the private label and not for sale. It is delicious though!!! My husband, myself and the kids are looking forward to creating our Christmas label. We will show pictures of the finished product in another blog. Here is a photo (and video) of me doing the extraction -- A very educational and fun experience.

Harvest Season in the Garden:

The garden is doing amazingly well. We harvested tons of strawberries, some blueberries, alpine strawberries (my favorite), blackberries, raspberries, artichokes, apples, tomatoes, swiss chard, kale, broccoli, carrots, zucchini, squash, cucumbers, beans, peas, lettuce, basil, and figs. Here are some photos of the garden. The tomatoes were relocated this year. They did not do as well as last year, but it could be due to lack of very hot days.

The kids enjoyed working and romping in the garden and eating their harvest. We will post some fun videos on the website.

Advocating For Change:
In regards to advocating for the ordinance change please visit the advocacy page for an update. We will attend the next meeting on Tuesday, October 11th, 2011. I will post an update about what transpires.

Happy Harvesting,
nicole

Buddha Belly Honey Is Born

Fri, 2 Sep 2011 12:09:42 -0700

With my original marketing idea on the back burner, I registered the name Buddha Belly Honey with the county. In registering the name, I had to use my home address, as I did not have a business yet. When you register a business with your home address, you also need to obtain a home occupational permit from the town of Corte Madera (I did not know this). I applied with the town and explained to them that I just registered the name but only used my address because the business did not exist yet. The only business I would conduct from my home would be to use my computer and telephone.

The bees were now arriving. It was April 1st, 2011, when we had our hive installed on our property. I was excited and happy to embark on this new hobby and learn more about bees. Bill arrived at our home with all the equipment and the girls. Here they are.

Here is the Queen in a queen cage.

We placed the hive body up on cinder blocks at the very back of our property. Our property borders Open Space. You don’t want the hive to sit on damp ground and you also want to make sure that it is on a platform that is stable and level. Bill then opened the package of bees and dumped them into the hive body, banging it down several times. He then uncorked the queen cage and replaced the cork with a marshmallow (organic I hope!). Then he hung the queen cage on the inside of the hive body. He then placed the inner cover on, making sure all sides were even and then shut the hive with the outer cover. Finally, we took a strap and secured the hive from predators. It was an amazing day for me. I really enjoyed the entire installation. Our entire family was present. I never felt afraid or anxious at any time. It was actually a peaceful feeling being surrounded by bees. It sounds crazy, but it’s one of those things you had to be there and experience to understand how peaceful it makes you feel. We now had our hive.

Bill returned a week later. We were going to inspect the hive and make sure the bees released the queen from the queen cage and that the queen was alive. Everything looked in order in the hive. The bees were calm, and it was a successful inspection.

Two to Three weeks later we did another inspection, and we were looking for a brood nest, the evidence that the queen was laying eggs. We saw larvae in different stages, and they were building out the frames. The bees were amazingly calm. I thought, “this is easy!!!” Everything looked great; and it was….UNTIL…….

Complaint and Compliance

On April 19th, a notice was sent out to all my neighbors that I was applying for a home occupational permit. This just gives notice to your neighbors of what your business is and exactly what is entailed in using your home for your business. In my case, it only involved the use of my computer and phone to conduct business. If a neighbor had a complaint or concern, the onus was on them to come forth and present it. This is when everything changed. I have one of “those neighbors”. Over the four years that we have lived in our home, our next-door neighbor has been a bit difficult. I don’t feel it’s appropriate to give details about it here, but let’s just say all of our other neighbors are amazing. It is like having an extended family and we all look out for each other. At this point I had my hive already for almost a month and my chickens for two months. However, because my neighbor received the notification of my home business license. she felt compelled to then questioned me about my hive, and express her unhappiness about its presence. I simply told her that it was not related to my honey business, that it was simply for our garden. I tried to explain to her that we were teaching our children about food, pollinators and organic gardening. She only made me aware that it was illegal. I tried to educate her about the issue. I also left her with good information to read about the honeybees. I assured her again that this was not a commercial hive. I told her that if she had any issues about our landscaping project or anything we were doing in our garden, that we should discuss it as neighbors and try and resolve the issues together and be neighborly. She agreed, but what I did not know is that she had already filed a complaint with the town about my bees and my chickens. Unfortunately, her family has since made many false claims about my honey business and my hive. They can’t seem to understand that one has nothing to do with the other. My honey is purchased from a local supplier that practices beekeeping and harvesting of honey with the same values and thoughts as if the honey came from my hive. I am not a commercial beekeeper. I am simply advocating for the honeybee and it’s vital role to the environment as well as sharing my urban farming experiences with others.

Advocating For A Change

Before all this, I had no idea that keeping bees was illegal in my town. It never even occurred to me that keeping bees would be in violation of its ordinances. I also did not know that my neighbor had filed the complaint at this point. When I found out I took immediate action and notified the town of my situation by attending a town council meeting. I asked the town council to consider putting this on a future agenda as I felt the ordinance was old and outdated and was not in line with sustainability. I feel that we should all have the option to grow our own food and have chickens and bees as a part of our garden if we wish (within certain guidelines and considerations, of course).

This is when my story went viral. I was on the front page of our local newspaper the Marin IJ. There was also a follow up story in the Marin IJ. A writer from the USA Today newspaper contacted me as well to do a story and video. Then CBS News contacted me for a network news interview. All of these interviews both written and video clips can be seen on my Bee Educated pages of my website, BuddhaBellyHoney.com.

At this point everything started coming together. I began advocating for change. I was sharing my story and I decided that I would create this honey line now in the name of advocacy. The honey is delicious, local and it is made by amazing creatures and packaged with love and good intentions…I hope you enjoy it!!!

Stay tuned...

Introduction

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 11:21:25 -0700

My family and I live in Marin County, California about 20 minutes North of San Francisco. This is our family:

Yon is my husband. Nathaniel and Wyatt are our twin boys and Eily is our daughter. My husband and I are both 41 years old. Yon loves his family. He is a true family man. He is a great father and a very supportive husband. He loves to spend time with us as well as ride his bikes through the hills, mountains, and roads of Marin County.
Nathaniel (blue shirt) is 3 1/2 years old. He is so kind-hearted, always willing to share, and loves stories and animals. Wyatt (red shirt) is also 3 1/2 years old and twenty minutes younger than Nathaniel. He is a child full of life, voice, and loves to be close to mama.

Eily is 1 1/2 years old and is a little sweetheart. She loves to play with her brothers and really seems to admire them. She definitely knows what she wants, though, and will try to get her way (which happens a lot). She is kind and affectionate. Smiley Eily is her nickname as she is usually smiling. She is a Papa’s girl already!

Langley and Genevieve are our dogs. Langley is six years old. He is a true Aussie -- full of energy and always making sure everyone is safe and accounted for. He loves the children and is great with them.

Genevieve is twelve years old. She is a
Shi-tzu and is in relax mode. She is the sweetest dog. She is enjoying the golden years.

Our home is on a small lot that borders Rings Mountain with a nice flat area for our children to play and a hillside that had been mostly overgrown and too steep to utilize.We always thought that somehow we could use this hillside, but we weren’t quite sure how. We finally figured it out.

How can we create a more sustainable environment?
In October of 2010 my husband and I were in the design process of turning our overgrown hillside into a space where we could grow our own organic food, and have creative fun spaces for our children to enjoy -- A space where we could sit and relax, the kids could play, explore and learn about the outdoors. We have always been eco-minded but since having children we’ve begun to become more aware and our concerns are now amplified. We have been concerned about what and how our children were learning about food. It is quite disturbing to learn about where our food comes from and how things have evolved into basically eating food, which is loaded with chemicals, hormones, additives and preservatives. We had recently viewed a few films on DVD such as Food Inc., Fast Food Nation, and other films such as these that really make you think about what you are putting into your body as well as what we are doing to our mother earth. We try to eat organic and to make healthy meals at home. Our children seldom get candy or sugar. I also try not to buy processed foods. However, we still have lots to learn.

As our garden project progressed I was also reading a book, “Made From Scratch” by Jenna Woginrich. I found this book at one of my favorite stores, Anthropology. It looked like a fun and inspiring read. For me it was a book that was about getting back to your roots. I grew up in a home where my mother made a lot of my clothes, cooked and baked everything from scratch, and we had a garden. My father would make our outdoor furniture, and we never hired anyone to mow our lawn or do work around our home. This book gave me inspiration.

The first chapter was about chickens. I thought what an excellent idea. It would be another food source for our family (eggs) and the hens would also serve as a small amount of pest control and natural fertilizer. They could also be great pets for our children and they could learn about how to care for an animal as well as learn about their role in our garden and how they are a part of an ecosystem.

“Growing Your Own Meal” was the second chapter of the book. We had already planned on growing our sustainable garden. We were diligently working on our hillside. It was a lot of work. Here are some pictures of our progress. We worked with a wonderful gentleman, José Esperanza who owns a landscaping and home maintenance company in Marin County. He helped bring our vision to fruition. Here are a few pictures of our hill as it was in transformation.

The third chapter was about beekeeping. I found this to be the most interesting chapter. The idea was so intriguing to me as I knew the plight of the honeybee with regard to Colony Collapse Disorder. It just never occurred to me that I could actually be a beekeeper. I never pictured myself as one. What an exciting thought! I realized it would be so great to have pollinators for the garden and also to get another food source (honey) for my family. It would also be great to teach our children about bees and their vital role to the environment.

Here come the chicks.
By March of 2011 we were starting to plant our gardens and were also ready to get some chickens.
I contacted Mill Valley Chickens in January of 2011, as they offered a chicken-keeping class. I attended the class on a Saturday morning and took lots of notes. I placed my order for four chicks and awaited their arrival in early March for the boy’s birthday. Also it just so happened that an article had just come out in a local magazine about a gentleman who gave up the corporate world to build hen houses. I contacted Mario, who owns Holland Hen Houses to order a chicken coop. His coops are very “Marin” and look nice enough for me to live in! I thought the hens would make a wonderful addition to our garden and the coop was lovely enough not to upset any neighbors. In our town it is illegal to keep chickens. I figured I was only going to have a few hens, no roosters, so how bad could that be? I did ask my neighbors (except one) and all neighbors were fine with the idea. I also found out during my inquiries that many of my neighbors already kept chickens. I then panicked about having to take care of baby chicks inside my home with the heat lamp etc. I cancelled my order and bought three egg laying hens. They were about 9 months old. I figured it would be much simpler at this point to just be able to put the hens in the henhouse and not worry about our Aussie eating baby chicks or my children getting burned with a heat lamp. I made sure that the hens came from a reputable source and that they were disease-free. This is something that you must be very careful about. You can read about that on the Mill Valley Chicken website. Later I would venture to try the baby chick experience. The hens were great. They soon started laying eggs.

Here is our chicken coop and our three chickens. We have a Barred Rock named “Kick”. My son, Nathaniel named her Kick because she would kick the ground looking for food.
We have a Millie Fleur named “Bon Bunny”. Wyatt named her. Eily has a Cochan hen named “Bach”.

Can I get Bees?
After reading more about bees, I started to look into how to become a hobby beekeeper. I ended up taking a beekeeping class in January of 2011. Bill Tomazuski who owns Marin Bee Company taught an evening class at a local middle school. After his class, I started reading articles, magazines and books about beekeeping and Colony Collapse Disorder. I also went to see the documentaries Vanishing of the Bees and Queen of the Sun. After seeing these films, I knew I wanted to do something to bring awareness to bees. I called Bill and ordered a package of bees and all the equipment, hive and installation and two lessons. My bees were to arrive in the Spring. The garden was coming together so beautifully. We would have chickens, bees and a garden full of fruits, vegetables, herbs, eggs and honey!

Buddha Belly Honey is Born
During this time I was working with a great healer, Heidi Hans Scott, who owns Prema Innovative Therapies. She is a remarkable healer. She has helped me with the births of my children, and has been an amazing life-coach and healer. During our time together we worked on my goals and visions. She helped me open my mind and heart to resonating with what I wanted out of life. After one of our sessions, as crazy as it sounds, I had a really wonderful idea for a honey line/label. I told a few people about it and they loved the idea. After much research though, I realized that it would take some capital that I did not have to bring my idea to fruition. I decided to put it on the back burner until I could figure it out. We had three young children and were in the middle of this garden project, so I surely had enough going on. However, she encouraged me to at least register the business name, and this is how Buddha Belly Honey was born. I moved on it quickly and thought that at least I could slowly work on my vision until I had enough capital. I did not think I was going to start my business so quickly without my original idea, but there were some major events that happened that were the catalyst for making my idea change form. Since then, my vision has changed a bit but I think it has changed in a wonderful way. There will be more about this in my next blog. So stay tuned.

I am not a master gardener. I am not an experienced beekeeper or chicken keeper. I am merely a stay-at-home mom just trying to get back to my roots. In this process I hope to learn so much and share what I am learning with my children, family, friends and neighbors. My blog will take you through my process -- the ups and downs of urban farming, advocating for changes in ordinances and laws, and how to keep bees and chickens. I hope you enjoy this journey with me.