Slowpix.org

Month: May 2014

  • Jan-Thore Riseng – beekeeper

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    I went recently to the local farmers’ market in order to buy products directly from the producers where I met Jan-Thore Riseng, a beekeeper who lives a short distance from me. Having presented the purpose of slow pix, he willingly accepted to show me his bee hives and how he’s working with honey bees. Jan-Thore lives in the countryside in Sande south of Drammen, and having arrived at his place, we went to a set of bee hives close to his house. Wearing a jacket with an integrated hood and net to cover the face, he opened his bee hives and inspected them one by one. First, he took off the lid, then he applied a dash of smoke to the honey bees, which he called knocking on the door, but which is used to calm the bees.  Using a tool, he gently lifted the vertical frames in the hive, most of them full of bees. Having a trained gaze, he could immediately recognise the health of the bees, their gender and so on, while I just saw lots of insects crowded together. In fact, beekeeping is a huge subject and all beekeepers need to cooperate with others, learn from experts, and so on. Jan-Thore started beekeeping in 2002 when he was taught by an elderly beekeeper how to do this interesting and useful activity.

    Like all domestic animals, pedigree is extremely important in beekeeping and honey bees are bred in order to obtain the following characteristics:

    • Gentleness
    • Good brood pattern (the honey bees have to take good care of their young)
    • Rapid spring build up (the honey bees should start producing honey when spring arrives)
    • Resistance toward pests and disease
    • Minimal swarming (the bees shall not escape from the hive in order to make a new colony)
    • Good honey production

    The honey bees in the hive are mostly females, who are workers, while the males have only one task: mate with the queen. Jan-Thore showed me some of his queens, being more than twice the size of the workers, and having a bright spot on their heads. The spots were colour-coded such that he could know how old they are at a glance. Since the queens only live 3-4 years, he’s breeding new ones and even has some for sale.

    Looking at the frames, the were almost covered by bees, but the honeycomb base, a plate made of wax in order to give the bees a foundation on which they can build the honeycomb was easily visible. Parts of the honeycomb base were covered with honeycomb, a mass of hexagonal cells built by the honey bees. Some of the cells were covered completely, while other ones were open and it was possible to see tiny larvae inside. Some honey bees had moved head first into the cells, probably to feed the larvae. The colour of the honeycomb varied from yellow to brown and Jan-Thore said it was caused by different types of pollen collected by the honey bees. The pollen is used as food for the larvae, while the nectar is transformed to honey and used as food by the bees.

    Jan-Thore keeps his honey bees near fields in the county of Vestfold where he lives, renting out his hives to local farmers. In autumn, he brings his hives to Nissedal in the county of Telemark in order to let the honey bees pollinate heather and create heather honey, a delicacy in Norway.

    Only a few of us can be beekeepers, but there are many cooperatives who let everyone adopt a bee hive for a small charge. Here is one example where you pay 150 NOK a year. Other possibilities certainly exist.

  • Geitmyra Culinary Center for Children

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    Having walked past Ullevål hospital along the heavily trafficked Kirkeveien, it was a pleasure to turn left at Kierschows gate, passing a graveyard and arriving at Geitmyra, a farm from the 18th century which has miraculously survived urbanisation and been turned into a Culinary Center for Children. Inside one of the buildings, two rooms were full of children and a few grown-ups, one of them Erik, a part-time musician and sound technician who also works part-time as a mentor for the children. The children were from class 6B at a local school, meaning that they were 11-12 years old.

    The children were getting ready for preparing lunch. Erik started by telling them what they should prepare and asked for volunteers who willingly accepted. After a short time, they had been divided into about several groups. Recipes were available for each group, but Erik was always willing to help someone in need.

    One group started preparing, cleaning and cutting vegetables, another one should cut apples into small pieces, boil them, and turn them into apple jam, a third one should mix herbs in a mortar and pound the mixture with a pestle, another one should boil eggs, and one group should heat whey, a by-product of cheese-making, turning it into a type of cheese.

    The eggs came from Geitmyra’s own hens, and shortly before my arrival an egg with a partially developed chicken had been put in the fridge. The children seemed to be quite unhappy about it. Erik said that all fertilised eggs should have been marked with a pen, but this egg somehow got past the control.

    While the children were cooking, Erik helped all those who needed it, both with practical problems and questions like why the water stopped boiling when the cold eggs were put in the pot.

    I couldn’t refrain from asking the children if they would rather go back to school, but only one girl wanted to go back in order to learn maths, while the other ones preferred staying. It also seemed like they didn’t miss the school kitchen.

    Having worked for some time, the children asked for a break, which Erik willingly accepted. Outside, some of the girls tried to tempt a hen or a rooster outside their small pen in order to hold it and after some time, they succeeded.

    Since everyone was getting hungry in the meantime, we entered the building and Erik kindly let me eat with the children even though I hadn’t prepared anything. They and Erik had been baking three focaccia breads the day before, and he took them out of the oven just in time for lunch. Besides, we could eat whatever we wanted from what the children had prepared.

    After lunch, Erik asked all the children to bring nutritious and varied food to Geitmyra the next day. No marks would be given, but he really hoped noone would bring industrially made food.

    For those who want to know more about Geitmyra, please have a look at their website. They arrange a wide range of food-related courses, workshops, publish booklets, growing herbs, etc.

  • Permaculture in Bærum

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    Permaculture “is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system.” – Bill Mollison.

    Being a follower of Bærum permakulturforening, I get updates of their activities frequently. Since summer is approaching, they are planning a course which is called Permaculture Design Certificate Course or PDC for short. Since permaculture is such a large subject, the PDC is scheduled to last 72 hours amounting to 9 consecutive days. Being curious about what this course was about, I contacted Eivind permaculture designer Bjørkavåg to ask if I could join him at his permaculture place. Having made an appointment, I arrived at where the course should take place.  There, he showed me a plastic bag full of bread crumbs, sunflower seeds, grains, crusts and cuttings obtained from a cutting machine at a local supermarket. Bringing a bottle of water as well, he entered a small building where hens where walking around freely. In fact, they were pensioners having spent their short lives laying eggs and would have been finished off if they hadn’t been given for free to the permaculture society.

    For all domestic animals, the poop has to be handled somehow. Being permaculturists, Eivind and his collaborators are using a technique called deep litter in order to turn it into compost. That is, they first covered the floor with straw, compost and humus-rich soil on which the chicken poop will end up. Sprinkling the floor with seeds will make the hens scratch and peck the ground such that the mixture of compost, soil, poop and straw is aerated and turned into compost which can be used as a soil conditioner, fertiliser, etc. Having fed the hens cereals, seeds and water, we could turn to the permaculture site, while they were eating, pecking and kicking straw covering the floor of their house.

    An alternative to deep litter is described here.

    Some advice on keeping hens can be found here.

    An article on chicken feed can be found here.

    Having expected some kind of rock garden, instead I could see small enclosures which were covered with pieces of the local vegetation with the soil upside down such that the vegetation would die, while the roots would keep the soil from being washed away by rain, while other enclosures were covered with rotting wood.

    The most conspicuous feature of this wild-growing property was a row of wood about one metre high shaped like a semicircle with the opening facing south creating a protective zone against cold. This is called hügelkultur and is a way of replicating nature where rotting wood is used as a “nursery” for young plants. There was a big pile of soil next to the hügelkultur, parts of which we put on the wooden row. Then, we used spades to extract vegetation with topsoil and put it evenly on the wooden row, always with the vegetation facing downwards. When everything is finished,various seeds will be planted in the soil. At the same, the underlying wooden row will start rotting, providing nutrients to the growing plants. At first, the seeds will have to be watered, but after same time, they will be self-sufficient.

    The PDC course will take place in July 2014 and it will be inside the hut on the same property. Topics covered will include:

    • Principles of Natural Systems

    • Sustainable Design Methodologies

    • Patterns in Nature, Culture and Society

    • Reading the Land & Understanding Natural Processes

    • Large Scale Land Restoration Techniques

    • Water Harvesting Techniques

    • Design Principles of Sustainable Human Settlements

    • Grey Water Recycling

    • Natural Building Strategies

    • Cultivated & Productive Ecologies

    • Food Forests, Plant Guilds, Gardens for Self-Sufficiency

    • Energy Conservation Technologies

    • Appropriate Technologies and Renewable Energies

    • Urban Environment Permaculture

    • Wildlife Management and Biological Pest Control

    • At the end of the class, students engage in an individual design project.

    Obviously, permaculture is a huge subject and the PDC should be considered as a starting point only. For more information, please have a look at  Bærum permakulturforening.