By Chase Emmons

Over the past month, a lot of people have asked what was going to happen to our birds for the winter. We’d tell them not to worry and that we’d find a good winter home for them so they could come back in the spring. Most people would just snicker, figuring “winter home” was a euphemism for holiday stew pot. But no, we really planned to secure a good home for them, even if it meant they had to stay there permanently. Heck, they still have another 2 years of good laying, so stew pot would be a waste anyway.

Well, just so happens that my neighbor up in Western MA had a huge chicken coop, a bunch of birds, they get total outside freedom during the day, organic feed, basically chicken heaven, and he had room for our five girls. We made the deal, and then it was up to me to get them up here. It seems the best time to introduce new birds to a flock is at night. They’re too groggy to fight right away. So I hung out in the city until about 9:30pm when I met Ben and Laena at the farm. I had two large dog carriers and no seats in my minivan, so the plan was sound. We put some wood shavings in the carriers, then scooped the groggy birds out of their coop and into the carriers. Down the elevator and into the minivan parked in the loading dock. Whole scene was relatively surreal, but everything went according to plan. They were totally chill in the back of the van for the entire 3 hour drive. They didn’t even seem to mind me listening to Howard Stern for most of it, though their only other choices would have been Shade 45 or Electric Area.

At 1:30am I got home and shuttled them over to the coop, one by one. My neighbor has a huge flop eared bunny that lives with the chickens and thinks he’s a chicken. The resident birds didn’t seem to care at all, but when he came out to greet our birds, they screamed and jumped like the world was ending. Pretty much they had never seen anything like him before and were horrified. He kept hopping around them and I got a really good laugh at their expense. By morning all was well.

After only 2 days they were mingling with the flock and roaming the property during the day. But when they’d see me they’d all come running over. Resident birds couldn’t care less about me. Now I don’t think they actually recognized me personally, but they were so used to hanging with us on the roof that they identify more with humans than other birds. Turns out they like my neighbors golden retriever too, as they realized he is tight with the humans.

Somehow I think they won’t be too thrilled to come back to the roof in the spring, but then, all vacations must come to an end.

Slumlord better add a floor!

One of our hives has gone off the hook, in a good way.

Bit of background: I setup 4 brand new hives, from packages, this spring. I started each on a single deep of mostly drawn comb, so they had a bit of a jump start. But the spring was abnormally wet and cool, which does not help with colony growth at all, so that was a big negative. In addition, the Grange is a somewhat extreme environment for bees: super windy and cooler than the rest of the city most of the time, but also subject to blazing sun without much shade. Of course there is also the cell tower and other antennas/repeaters up there with us, that some people claim negatively effects bees (I totally don’t buy it and will explain in a moment).

With all that you’d figure that the bees have some serious stressors to deal with, especially new starts. At least that’s what I thought.

Less than 2 weeks after I started them I had to add another deep of just foundation, they were totally trying to draw comb anywhere they could: bottom and top of frames, sides of deep, etc. Something I learned was that even if you have lots of frames of drawn comb, start packages with a few empty frames interspersed so they have somewhere to relieve that need to draw.

2 weeks after that they had drawn more than half of the second deeps so I added medium supers with just foundation. Yes, all 4 hives were basically building at the same rate.

On 6/22 I came back after only a few days to discover one of the hives had a massive beard. Like all the way up both deeps and the super, and totally covering and hanging below the entrance. The other 3 hives had what I would consider to be normal beards. I cracked open Epic Beard Man and found the super was fully drawn, mostly filled with honey, and just needed to be capped. Also, even with all the bees on the outside, the interior was totally full as well.

Next day I did a full hive check. No obvious swarm indicators, so I decided to get another super on there pronto. Meg Paska saved my useless butt by hooking me up with a medium super and 10 frames that afternoon which I put up right then. Probably a good idea to have some on hand from here on. Some extra bottoms and lids for splits are on the list too, I’d love to split this hive in particular.

All this, as well as the nice performance from the other 3 hives, definitely shows that the Grange is far less hostile than first thought. It also calls into question any claims that cell phone towers/signals or EM radiation interfere with bees or are deleterious to their health in any way. It’s certainly not a scientific study by any means, but it’s some pretty strong anecdotal evidence to the contrary. I guess I always questioned that claim since urban beehives tend to do really well all around the world, and most urban centers are saturated with cell signals and all sorts of EM radiation. Ours just happen to be setup directly below a tower as well. But if our honey ends up glowing in the dark, I’ll gladly admit I was wrong and then sell the stuff in glow sticks

Bobo, an amazing restaurant in the center of Greenwich Village, is now the proud host of a Brooklyn Grange beehive. What this really means is that I got to package up a fully mature beehive, put it in my minivan, and drive it 180 miles from Massachusetts to the city. Kind of an interesting trip, doing 80 on I91 with tens of thousands of bees behind the front seat. Would’ve sucked to get in a fender bender! This is the first time I’ve transported a hive so I made sure to pick the brains of my two bee mentors: Jim Fisher of NYC Beekeeping and Dan Conlon of Warm Colors Apiary Really wasn’t too difficult. Basic idea is to wait until nightfall when they all go inside the hive, then seal up the entrances with wire mesh. Ratchet strap the entire hive together, then simply lift and move. Only real issue is that a hive can get kind of heavy depending on time of year and how much honey they’ve already stocked. Mine weighed maybe 100 pounds, so a 2 person move, but not that bad.

Schlepping the hive up the stairs at Bobo, then lowering it down onto the roof was the biggest pain. I set the hive onto cinder blocks to keep it above the actual roof surface (which can get really hot) and allow ventilation through the screened bottom board. Then a ratchet strap around hive and cinder blocks to keep it stable in high winds. Pulled the screens from the entrances and free they were! Interestingly, before I pulled the screens, a couple locals flew by to check out the interlopers. Clearly there are other hives in the neighborhood.

Bobo gots bees!

Last Friday it was 65 and sunny in New York and it felt like spring had arrived. Since then it’s been 30, we’ve gotten a couple of inches of snow, and the roof has taken a battering from some seriously strong winds. But that springy Friday was enough to get us excited for the 2011 season and to bring a group of interns up to get some projects going. March is little more than a week away and soon we’ll be putting up a temporary greenhouse so we can start our seeds. It might be freezing and blustery today but spring is right around the corner!

If you’re interested in getting involved in the farm this spring or summer, please sign up for our mailing list and we’ll get in contact with you as soon as the season gets rolling.

In its first year our farm has flourished in part because of the hard work that our team put into it, but mainly because of the enormous outpouring of support that we’ve received.

Thanks to all of you who volunteered on the farm and bought our vegetables. Thank you to the chefs and restaurants that ordered from us and turned our produce into culinary masterpieces. Thanks to the individuals and small businesses that had faith in us last winter and supported our fundraising efforts. Thanks to our landlords who let us install a farm on their roof and thanks to the engineers, architects, and green roof and soil companies that gave us the tools to do so.  Thanks to the farmers and neighbors in Queens and beyond for the encouraging words, the useful advice and the enthusiasm that you’ve shown for what we’re doing.

As we sit down to dinner with our families tomorrow we’ll be thinking about all of you and thanking you for this incredible year. Happy winter, and we’ll see you next spring!

Here’s a picture of Farmer Ben Flanner loading up the truck last weekend on our way to the Sunday Farm Stand at Roberta’s. These days there’s barely enough room in the old pickup for all the veggies!