Fwd: Bee Sanctuary Collaboration

[Derek Downey]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Derek Downey <beelovepe...@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 1:57 PM
Subject: Re: Bee Sanctuary Collaboration
To: Paul Marshall <pa...@farmvetco.org>
Cc: Christian Coulon <chris...@gmail.com>, EC Garden at UC Davis <ecga...@gmail.com>, Adam McCoy <amc...@gmail.com>, Kyle Shankle <kwsh...@ucdavis.edu>, Halley Patteson <hfpat...@ucdavis.edu>, Ben Pearl <benjam...@gmail.com>, tamer...@gmail.com <tamer...@gmail.com>, domies <dom...@ucdavis.edu>, Ian Campbell <itcam...@ucdavis.edu>, Kiana Borjian <ksbo...@ucdavis.edu>, Asher Belden <schadomesc...@gmail.com>

Hi friends,

I am hosting a workparty at the Davis Bee Sanctuary tomorrow, SUNDAY from around 9am-noon to do weeding, pruning, watering, and clearing of junk to make way for future bee gardens. All are welcome and I'm happy to give a quick tour of garden for anyone interested. Feel free to forward this to anyone interested, especially Domies and EC Gardeners wanting to help revamp the Bee Sanctuary. Bring a wheelbarrow if you have one, please! I will bring fresh plums and peaches to share!  

Bee Love,

Derek Downey

530-400-7032

On Fri, Jul 12, 2019 at 2:16 PM Paul Marshall <pa...@farmvetco.org> wrote:

Hello,

 

I think Derek is pretty much on point there. For buying supplies for the garden, I get discounts thru work at places like FarmTech, BCS, High Mowing Seeds, etc. so we save a bit of money there as well. Also, a list of potential places to apply for grants. And a bunch of “pollinator” seed packets available.

 

I am very interested in hands-on learning beekeeping. I’ve taken a couple classes at E.L. Nino & currently an online classes Heroes to Hives, but I lack the hands-on experience I want.

 

Weekends are always best for me to help out in any way, but… I do travel somewhat often for work so there can be 1-2 weekends a month I may not be available… including the weekend on the schedule.

 

Wood chips are always good, even if they sit for a season, they can be used for all the mulch needed under the fruit trees, pathways, etc.

 

 

Paul Marshall

Director  | Training & Education

Manager | Homegrown By Heroes Label  

Farmer Veteran Coalition

pa...@farmvetco.org

Office: (530) 419-4143

www.farmvetco.org

    

 

 

From: Christian Coulon <chris...@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, July 12, 2019 10:28 AM
To: Derek Downey <beelovepe...@gmail.com>
Cc: EC Garden at UC Davis <ecga...@gmail.com>; Adam McCoy <amc...@gmail.com>; Paul Marshall <pa...@farmvetco.org>; Kyle Shankle <kwsh...@ucdavis.edu>; Halley Patteson <hfpat...@ucdavis.edu>; Ben Pearl <benjam...@gmail.com>; tamer...@gmail.com; domies <dom...@ucdavis.edu>; Ian Campbell <itcam...@ucdavis.edu>; Kiana Borjian <ksbo...@ucdavis.edu>; Asher Belden <schadomesc...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Bee Sanctuary Collaboration

 

Hi,

I agree with what Derek said.

 

Regarding the non-profit, we would like to help the sanctuary in the interest of developing a center for folk art and living classroom education around honeybees and other pollinators.

 

I will place ant-proof Charm Boots around the garden and add well will also keep hives there empty for general use. I will also use the space to trial experimental beehives and other equipment that are intended to help the organic city beekeeper 

 

We are recruiting Bee Charmers now for help installing the city-wide swarm capture network, so a very good use for us would be to spread the word about what our organization is doing in Davis among the domes and ECG folk.

 

We would also like to hang all 77 of our new swarm capture hives in a tree in the area as an artwork, if we can find folks who are interested in helping us do it.

 

We have some funding on hand to help make the sanctuary beautiful.

 

Many Cheers,

Christian

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 11:54 PM Derek Downey <beelovepe...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks Helen,

 

I appreciate your organizing this! I just added some availability to your link. I had recently talked with Kyle about the exciting potential to secure funding for the garden (irrigation, plants, signage, hives, etc.) which would help in the bee sanctuary expansion and revamping. I emailed the Domes manager about it. Only a few folks have been pruning, weeding, and planting in the space in recent years, most notably Adam (thank u sir!) and there are only a couple active hives underway with experiments with different hive styles and ant-barriers. We used to have quite a community involved with up to 13 hives at once point and over a dozen people meeting weekly to maintain the garden and share beekeeping ideas, especially in the 2011-2015 era. The Davis Bee Collective was most active in the years 2005-2009 but members of that spilled over into the Bee Sanctuary too. The ants are insane in that space, hence the ant barrier experiments underway that Adam and Christian have going on.  I have been pruning trees and large shrubs most recently and would like help with weeding and re-establishing garden borders. I also want to install new drip systems but would love that to be funded by the grant if possible. I'm a landscape contractor and can secure some discounts to maximize the grant potential.  I'm happy to give a tour and history of the space and I prefer to dedicate my limited free time to action items rather than discussion items unless they are onsite. I started the bee sanctuary in 2011 (twice in fact due to EC garden plots shifting and having to leave the original location)....a lot of active volunteers helped to build the garden, including the many hugelkultur beds which are an 8 year old experiment, the largest known in Davis. I like to think of it as a fun permaculture food forest for bees and community driven educational space.  The hugelkultur experiment seemed to work as irrigation has been very inconsistent over the past 8 years! There is a lot of fun potential with adding new plants to the space.

 

Will anybody be around this weekend and want to do a workparty (Saturday morning or Sunday morning before it's crazy hot)? My week days are busy with work and kid stuff. Also, shall I ask some arborists to dump wood chips to the site?  I had done this in previous years and it started to get crazy with the quantity but lately it seems like not much mulch remains. 

 

Cheers,

Derek Downey

 

ps. if you want to see a corny video my friend made of me in the bee sanctuary when I was a bee obsessed long haired bearded hippie (i'm still bee-obsessed lol), check out this link if you dare: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4_HucqqWQU

 

ps # 2: here's a link to the wiki page I made for the bee sanctuary that I've not been able to update in a while, it explains the original intention behind the space, which can evolve: 

https://localwiki.org/davis/Davis_Bee_Sanctuary  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Thu, Jul 11, 2019 at 2:53 PM EC Garden at UC Davis <ecga...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello!

 

For those of you who don't know me, my name is Helen and I am the Director of the EC Garden (just south of the Domes). I'm sending this email to find a time for us all to sit down to discuss future plans for the bee sanctuary, located in the back 40 of the Domes. There are several gardeners interested in working on this area, and I am excited to discuss collaboration between the Domes, the garden community members, and the city beekeeping non-profit. I made this scheduler for the week of July 22nd, but if there is another upcoming week/time that is more ideal, let me know and we can adjust. Please pass the link on to anyone you know of that may be interested in participating in this conversation. I will make a draft agenda to send out with the meeting announcement time; please feel free to add topics to the agenda once its made. 

 

Let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions moving forward.

Looking forward to meeting with you all soon. 

 

Best, 

Helen VanBeck

EC Gardens Unit Director

[Christian Coulon]

That's big bee hive-five back atcha, with an extra pollinator salute Bee-Luvva! 😄

To the folk artists and sub/urban bee-keepers of the Circle of Bees project: I recommend this list. To get on it simply reply to this email.

I will also forward on interesting stuff that happens in it as relevant to you.

A bit more:

Being a part of this project is an excellent opportunity for bee-keeping education and pollinator art as well as a critical center for our greater effort to make the city more like a garden orchard farm forest meadow, and assorted miscellaneous wild natural place.

We are collaborating with the Domes and EC garden to realize a very beautiful vision of Derek's, which he is now building forcefully again after years of hiatus.

The Bee Sanctuary at the Domes and EC Garden is a core of deep ecology in this city, and a genuine "permaculture" experience. 

Derek has implemented hugelculture beds, a food forest, and planted all kinds of interesting and useful rooted things. He has sown the seed of a cathedral-like pollinator paradisio in the heart of darkness of the suburban sprawl.

As an urban druid Derek is rich in lore about the place and this town, and lots more cool stuff beyond (ie he maintains a mushroom bed in his garden for his honeybees to chew on, and it produces loads of delicious edible wine caps too).

As well there are many beekeepers and gardeners of all ages connected to this project, and therefore a lot of energy, ideas, and knowledge to gain from with.

Even more:

With this group we are working on a grant from the University to develop the project further. Especially with all the progress we have made developing contacts at schools and in coordination with the city-wide swarm capture network, we have an opportunity to connect students and community around sub/urban ecology, art, eduction, technology, which is more or less the target of the grant, so worth a shot!

The Bee Sanctuary at the Domes and EC Gardens is a project center for us regardless of funding, so once more: I recommend being in the loop and giving a bit of effort here as well well worth it to make this place beautiful.

Cheers,

Christian

On Mon, Aug 5, 2019, 11:53 PM Derek Downey <beelovepe...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks Mariah and everyone who came last Saturday to help out! It was great to meet everyone, look into Adam's hive, and get the garden under control. And thanks Samuel for inviting Wilson to the list (hi Wilson--hope to meet you soon!)  

I just created a google group related to the Davis Bee Sanctuary. I have invited everyone on this particular email string and will be adding others to it as I figure out who wants to join the community. If you want to help me invite people, please join and let me know so I can give you manager settings. 

Here are a couple action shots I took on Saturday...hope you can open them! 

Next Work Party at the Bee Sanctuary will be 8am-1pm on SUNDAY 8/18. Please bring a wheelbarrow if you have one to help spread mulch. I will have my bobcat and bin dumper and can bring piles closer to the Bee Sanctuary for spreading once grading is complete. The grading work is designed to raise the paths to keep them dry and smooth while shedding water to nearby swales. I'm happy to share permaculture wisdom at work parties if anyone wants to learn more on the topic.  

Till' next time give a bee a hive five!

-Derek

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Derek Downey

On Mon, Aug 5, 2019 at 9:56 PM Samuel Madrigal <samuel.m...@gmail.com> wrote:

Connecting Wilson ( a domie )

On Sat, Aug 3, 2019 at 5:03 PM mariah cook <maria...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for inviting us today! It was great meeting everyone. We are a go for any future meet-ups too.

Mariah

On Fri, Aug 2, 2019 at 10:04 PM Derek Downey <beelovepe...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for asking Mariah,

Here's the exact location:

Dropped pin

Near California 95616

https://maps.app.goo.gl/zUg4Rb6TTTPKJjmP9

I will be bringing my bobcat and dump trailer tomorrow morning around 8am. Ear mufflers will be nice to have. I can bring some extra ear plugs if needed.

See you all at our 10 am meeting or any point 8-1.

Cheers,

Derek

On Fri, Aug 2, 2019, 9:16 PM mariah cook <maria...@gmail.com> wrote:

Newbie here- can you send me location for where to meet? See you around 8am

On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 7:59 PM Derek Downey <beelovepe...@gmail.com> wrote:

Good point Paul,

Let's plan for 10am Saturday 8/3 for a meeting at Davis Bee Sanctuary. It's NOT THIS WEEKEND, but the FOLLOWING WEEKEND! I will be there around 8am to 1pm for anyone that wants to come before, during, or after the meeting too.

Thanks!

 Derek Downey

On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 8:48 AM Paul Marshall <pa...@farmvetco.org> wrote:

Sounds good to me. Though, from personal experience after working for many hrs, being tired, hot & sweaty… I’m not sure how many are going to want to stick around for a planning meeting.

 

 

Paul Marshall

Director  | Training & Education

Manager | Homegrown By Heroes Label

USMC Veteran  

Farmer Veteran Coalition

pa...@farmvetco.org

Office: (530) 419-4143

www.farmvetco.org

 

 

   

 

 

 

From: Derek Downey <beelovepe...@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2019 8:57 PM
To: Kyle Shankle <kwsh...@ucdavis.edu>
Cc: Paul Marshall <pa...@farmvetco.org>; Christian Coulon <chris...@gmail.com>; EC Garden at UC Davis <ecga...@gmail.com>; Adam McCoy <amc...@gmail.com>; Halley Patteson <hfpat...@ucdavis.edu>; Ben Pearl <benjam...@gmail.com>; tamer...@gmail.com; domies <dom...@ucdavis.edu>; Ian Campbell <itcam...@ucdavis.edu>; Kiana Borjian <ksbo...@ucdavis.edu>; Asher Belden <schadomesc...@gmail.com>; mariah cook <maria...@gmail.com>; Margit Vogel <margi...@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Bee Sanctuary Collaboration

 

Thanks Kyle,

 

I'm planning to have a Davis Bee Sanctuary work party on Saturday 8/3 8am-1pm. We could have a mini potluck lunch meeting at noon and folks can bring some cool drinks or snacks and seats if there are a bunch of people. We can put together a brief agenda in the meantime.  I looked at the scheduler thing Helen put together and looked like this week was not good.  I'm planning to create a scaled base map of the existing garden and measuring the new expansion area so we have something to work off for designs and grant submissions.  

 

Please chime in to introduce yourself and let us all know if you can make it to the work party and/or meeting. I'd really love to meet and talk with anyone interested to participate. There is so much potential with a bee loving community.  I added Mariah and Margit to this email string in case they want to partake in future discussions. 

 

Bee Love,

Derek Downey

530-400-7032

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 12:22 PM Kyle Shankle <kwsh...@ucdavis.edu> wrote:

Hey Everyone

 

I think we really need to set up a meeting with all of us here to discuss the bee sanctuary and start planning for a TGIF submission for this area. The fall grant deadline last year was in early November. However, I think its best to get things moving with a grant submission ahead of time and we can also start planning out more work parties there too. I have had several gardeners that are very interested in learning and helping out in this area. There is excitement in the community garden to help out.

 

For meetings Im free on weekends. Perhaps we should aim for a Saturday or Sunday morning when its cooler?

 

Regards,

 

Kyle

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Mariah

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Mariah