Flower Farm

The hum of the 2 freeway can just be heard in the distance making this green oasis named Frogtownflora a surprising discovery in the Los Angeles metropolis. On Saturday April 5th my leisurely day was cut short when a friend insisted we visit a flower farm at their open day event in Eagle Rock. The farm is called  Frogtown as this is where Kathleen Ferguson first started growing floral plants and experimenting with environmentally appropriate CA native plants. The newly expanded location is where Kathleen grows flowers for her customers, free of herbicides and pesticides and with a focus on water conservation and regenerative farming practices.

Fittingly Frogtownflora has a new member, Anouck Bertin ,who is building a small beehive soon to be populated by a queen and her consorts.  While bees can fly 6 miles, hopefully, they will sample the rewards offered by the locally abundant flowers that Kathleen is growing.

 As Anouck is developing a new hive from scratch she explained that the new queen bee is one that has been previously mated with as many 20 male drones thus ensuring that the sperm she will be using over her life cycle is genetically diverse. To protect the queen during the introduction to the hive she will be kept in a chamber that is plugged with marshmallow preventing her release into the hive. As the drones eat their way through the marshmallow, they gradually become familiar with the Queen and are less prone to be aggressive to her as she joins the hive population. The drones that mated with the queen are not part of the new colony and indeed die after mating.

 The new hive that Anouck is making is comprised of  several wooden frames and each one will support the heavy honeycomb that the bees will create from their secreted wax. The frames were separated by top rails that allow a 3/8” bee space between each frame, necessary space if the bees are to work and move freely.

 Martin Pierce and I have a fondness for bees which explains the bees inclusion in our cabinet knobs and in our Netsuke collection of rounded animal inspired door knobs.

A Swarm of Bees Inspires a Collage of Bee Knobs

This has been the most remarkable spring but the arrival of a swarm of bees was as unexpected as it was spectacular. On Sunday we heard loud buzzing from our front garden and spent the next hour watching the process of hundreds of bees settling in our Brazilian Pepper Tree. What began as a few bees over the next hour became a mass all huddling together to protect the queen. By evening the swarm had settled in and become calm as the temperature cooled and their rest time commenced.

While we knew that the Queen was at the center of this colony, we did not fully understand why this event had occurred so turned to the internet. The queen increases the size of the colony by laying eggs that become worker bees and so the colony grows until it eventually it out-grows the hive at which point the queen lays a few queen eggs. The queen then leaves the hive before the new queen bee hatches and takes with her about half of the worker bees to journey onwards to begin a new hive. We were lucky spectators at the point where the queen and her followers had set out in search of a suitable location for their new home and had decided to rest over-night in our tree. At no point did the swarm pose any threat to us as we passively looked on from a safe distance remaining still save for the photos we took.

The following morning the queen and her entourage waited to be warmed by the sun before continuing on their quest.

I was inspired by the sight of these live bees to create a playful collage using our polished bee door knob with a back-drop of dark honeycomb roses which is the most well-known handle set from our Netsuke collection of animal door handles.