Written by Karen Peteros, San Francisco Bee-Cause | 07 September 2011

September is National Honey Month. And we are just in time. This month, the “hyper-local” honey produced by the Hayes Valley Farm (HVF) honey bee colonies will be available to the farm community. San Francisco Bee-Cause (SFBC) has been busy extracting and bottling honey produced by their HVF colonies. With the invaluable help of intern, Joseph Cafuir, we have designed a label (above) that symbolizes the work at the farm – building soil to grow green crops that reach up toward the blue sky.

Honey never goes “bad.” It makes a great gift for any occasion including the upcoming Rosh Hashanah holiday. Our 2011 sweet harvest is a welcome contrast to 2010. In July 2010, a night-time intruder entered the farm and sprayed insecticide into our first two hives, killing all the bees including the queens. A senseless act, likely fueled by ignorant fear. (Read story here). Both colonies were well on their way to producing a nice honey harvest, but the contents of the hives had to be discarded due to the insecticide contamination.

Over the next nine months, Hayes Valley Farm leaders worked with the local community to increase security and surveillance of the site, particularly at night. SFBC returned honey bees to the farm in April. Since then, the colorful SFBC hives on the former I-80 Oak Street on-ramp have been a familiar site to passing motorists and pedestrians.

The hives at HVF have had multiple purposes: (1) passive education for those passing by, as a reminder that we need pollinators in the city if we want to grow our own food resilience; (2) to pollinate the crops at the farm; (3) to serve as a an on-site educational resource; and (4) to produce honey and wax to be sold to support the educational and charitable purposes of SF Bee-Cause.

2011 may be the only time we will ever have “Hayes Valley Farm Honey.” With sale of Parcel P, where the hives are currently located, SFBC will need to move its apiary before the developer takes possession of the parcel in February 2012. We are currently seeking an alternative site in the city. In the meantime, however, our honey bee colonies are hard at work, and our next – and perhaps last – “hands-on” hive inspection class will be on Saturday, September 10. To learn more and to register, click here.

Come on by the farm during the following Sunday volunteer work days to check out the honey offerings:

• Sunday, September 11, 12 – 5 p.m.: SFBC will provide honey tastings, and there will be a limited number of jars of honey (36) available -- for a $10 donation each -- as a fundraiser for Hayes Valley Farm.
  
  
• Sunday, September 25, 12 – 5 p.m.: SFBC will have more jars of honey available -- for a $10 donation each -- as a fundraiser for SF Bee-Cause.