Urban beekeepers know it’s more than just honey and money
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It’s an unusual hobby, but backyard beekeepers are working to revive the lost art of apiculture. In a story in L.A. Times, Lori Kozlowski explores the world of urban beekeeping, an especially vital service as colony collapse disorder, a phenomenon in which worker bees abruptly disappear from a hive or colony, continues to strike in Europe and North America.
Kirk Anderson bought his first honeybees from a Montgomery Ward catalog in 1970.
The 3-pound cage came in the mail, and as he opened it and fed the bees sugar water, his lifelong passion with
Apis mellifera began.
Nearly 40 years later, Anderson, 61, calls himself an urban beekeeper, and he cares passionately enough about bees that he does house-call rescues throughout Los Angeles County.
Anderson gets 20 calls a week. He fishes the insects out of Jacuzzis, removes them from chimneys and shakes them from trees.
Click here to read the rest of the story on urban beekeeping.
-- Elina Shatkin