Growing Goji Berries

I did a bit more reading about goji berries and bees, and I started thinking that the goji berry plants could be a bee-friendly addition to our yard. Plus, the health benefits of goji honey would be good for honeybees as well as people.

I found an organic nursery in California (Peaceful Valley Farm & Garden Supply) that sells a variety of goji berry tree started from a plant in Utah. The folks at the nursery have produced a helpful video about planting and maintaining goji berries which I've embedded below. Trish and I are thinking about planting a couple in containers.

Goji Berries for People and for Bees

Trish is a great fan of goji berries. She buys the dried ones and adds them to the "green drinks" she makes in her Vitamix. Other ingredients for the green drinks include spinach, pear, and a variety of vegetables and fruits. They say these little berries have high concentrations of antioxidants, vitamin A, and all sorts of helpful compounds which we probably don't understand yet. Anyway, I got to thinking about bees and goji berries, and sure enough, the plants are a favorite of honeybees in China. Check out this page with beautiful close-up photos of bees and goji berry plants taken by Zachary Huang of Michigan State University. The author also has other articles with tips on "beetography" (or photographing bees).

A Great Bee Blog from Applegate, Oregon

"Applegate" just sounds like a good place to live, doesn't it? The name of the town makes me want to retire to an orchard right now. Actually, the house where we live in northwest Seattle used to be on an orchard, but that was a long time ago.

Back to Applegate, Oregon. This morning I happened upon a website from a family (identified as the Shockey family on their site's about page) who lives in Applegate and, among other things, has a strong dedication to natural beekeeping. In fact, their website is named after the Roman goddess of pollination, Mellonia. They have a nice little page which gives an overview of their beekeeping practices, which include beekeeping with the Warre style of hive, which they like because "because its theory and construction is such that you don't keep disturbing the bees to see what they are doing."

I also like that the Shockeys talk about how they "are not in the honey business" and thus wait until spring to harvest any honey that the bees don't need after getting through the winter: they "[believe] that honey, not sugar or high fructose corn syrup, is meant to feed bees."

See also this nice post by the mom of the Shockey family, Nadine Levie, about her excitement regarding the construction of her first Warre hive.

I'll definitely check back on the beekeeping adventures of the Shockey family in the future.

What Is a Warre Hive?

A Colorado beekeeper named Nick has a great website about his experiences using Warre hives. He even has the instructions posted if you want to build hives yourself. This page in particular gives a good overview of what a Warre hive is.

There are a couple of differences between the hives on Nick's page and the hive in our backyard. Trish built a higher stand for her hive whereas Nick's hives are closer to the ground. Also, Trish just put a piece of burlap between the top box and the quilt box, rather than pasting a cloth down. But basically, this is the kind of set up Trish builds when she builds a beehive; the nice thing is that the Warre is fairly adaptable--for example, you can put a feeder inside the quilt box, and the bees can eat without leaving the hive.

There's lots of useful information on Nick's site, and I could refer to specific parts of his site for days and days, but I'll just share one more tidbit I found there, a link to Heifer International, where you can donate a hive of bees to a community in need. I've given Heifer gifts in honor of family members before; maybe for the holidays this year, I'll give bees!