The third raised bed of a new kind

Today I showed in my video the third raised bed of a new kind I am building. I also as every day pray for Peace, here and worldwide. 

Tomorrow morning I will post this text on my linkedin profile. You can read it beforehand here:

The bees of Ermacchia.

Despite the difficult and tragic situation, I am proud to announce the launching of a new webpage where I will try to monitor on a daily basis the progression of our wild beehive. 

During the last four years, I've tried to plant a wide array of flowering trees, plants and shrubs that bees appreciate, hoping to attract honeybees without having to buy a beehive.

It was more like a fantasy dream, than a concrete plan. And yet one month ago, to my great surprise, I discovered we had a beehive in the garden, in one of our oldest ficus elastica tree, at around 3.5 - 4 meters height. 

I am not yet an experienced beekeeper, and yet I am under the impression that our beehive is quite dynamic. Yesterday on a partly cloudy day of fall, I recorded 50 bees going out the beehive in a minute.

I will therefore try to do similar measurements on a daily basis, out of scientific interest, and for fun. Most of modern beekeepers keep their bees in wooden houses / boxes. Rare are those who have honey bees at the wild state, also because of the deterioration of ecosystems.

In the gardens I take care of, in addition of following the principles of agroforestry and permaculture, associating hundreds of species of trees, shrubs, plants, both wild and cultivated, I also never make use of any chemical / biological product. That can explain why honeybees found the right ecosystem where to develop the sufficient strength to settle on their own, in the trunk of a giant tree that is at least 60 years old.

You can visit the website I've started building for Arbaro de Espero on this link: https://arbarodeespero.wordpress.com/

And this is the page specific to the bees of Ermacchia: https://arbarodeespero.wordpress.com/the-bees-of-ermacchia/

Naturally, keeping bees, just as planting a field, a garden or a balcony, fall within the realm of peacebuilding by learning to speak the language of plants, the idea Arbaro de Espero promotes. Often farmers know little about bees, and beekeepers know little about gardens, and ordinary citizens know little about both. My aim is to make people more aware and sensitive about the great advantages of associating cultures, whether for personal use or at larger scale.

It is beautiful to observe bees, especially when they go out from a giant tree trunk they chose for their abode. Every day I go in that area of the garden to observe them, and I am each time fascinated and marveled by their grace. They seem to be dancing a ballet along a music only they hear.

And the observer is left to try to guess the notes composing that music, that is in perfect harmony with the wind and the foliage around.

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