Behind the Scenes at Brittany’s Bees: A Small Farm Grants Story

Farming is an train in endurance. On common, it takes three years for a brand new fruit tree to bear fruit. Even fast-growing greens, like spinach and radishes, sometimes want a minimum of 25-30 days to mature earlier than harvest. As I learn the mid-year updates we simply obtained from The FruitGuys Neighborhood Fund’s grantee farmers, their endurance actually stood out to me.
TFGCF’s Small Farm Grants
The FruitGuys Neighborhood Fund (TFGCF) awards grants to small farms for sustainability tasks each spring. This yr, we gave grants to twenty farmers. Their tasks can have completely different timelines, however we ask that all of them share progress reviews with us in August. Now, these midyear updates are in!
Clockwise: Replace images from 2024 grantees Metropolis Inexperienced Inc., Tuba Farm Basis Inc., Expensive Native Grapes, Pie Ranch, Dolii Farms, Fox Haven Natural Farm & Studying Middle, and YouthWorks Ranch
As I learn via the updates I used to be struck by what number of farms (a minimum of 4 of the twenty) are coping with drought and/or excessive climate this season. Different farms, like Expensive Native Grapes in Walton, New York, needed to modify their tasks resulting from obstacles alongside the way in which. There, the farmers utterly modified how they have been putting in their deer fence because of the rockiness of their soil.
Farmers are continuously adapting to altering circumstances of their ecosystems, and generally responding to these modifications takes endurance. That actually stood out to me within the replace from Brittany’s Bees in Mitchell, Oregon.
Behind the Scenes at Brittany’s Bees
I used to be first drawn to Brittany’s Bees through the grant software evaluation course of due to this image.
Brittany Dye of Brittany’s Bees in Mitchell, Oregon
I imply, speak about being courageous and understanding your craft! Letting bees encompass you want that isn’t for the faint of coronary heart. Within the spring, TFGCF gave Brittany a $4,800 grant to work on making her bees extra proof against Varroa mites. She used a few of that cash to purchase 155 Varroa mite-resistant queen bees.
When the grantee updates got here in, I used to be excited to see if the queens had an affect on the well being of Brittany’s bees. However alas, we have now to attend! Brittany received’t know what number of mites are bothering her bees till she “does a sugar shake” in a couple of weeks. And he or she received’t understand how a lot the brand new queens scale back her bee loss till subsequent spring. You’ll be able to learn the total replace we obtained from Brittany right here.
Interested by what a “sugar shake” is? So was I. Apparently, it entails capturing bees in a jar and sprinkling them with powdered sugar. The sugar makes it not possible for the mites to stay to the bees—in order that they fall off. Then, the beekeeper can rely the variety of mites they’re coping with and resolve if any therapies are wanted.
I’ve by no means seen a sugar shake, however years in the past, The FruitGuys had our personal beehives at our workplace/warehouse in South San Francisco. We weren’t professionals like Brittany. So, we requested beekeepers to assist us have a tendency the hives. We didn’t get a lot honey, however the liquid gold we gleaned had a slight licorice aftertaste. Ultimately, we realized its distinctive taste got here from the wild fennel rising in our instant space. It’s fascinating how the bees’ diets can affect the style of the honey—ah, Mom Nature!
See the Grantees’ Challenge Progress
We’re extraordinarily grateful to our grantees for updating us on how their tasks are progressing. It’s thrilling to see the progress they’ve made with the funds from their small farm grants and enlightening to listen to how they’ve tailored. You’ll be able to learn extra updates from Brittany’s Bees and the remainder of our 2024 grantees on this TFGCF weblog.



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