PROJECT PHOTOS

Beehives

April 19, 2008

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Well the bees have arrived, and there are 41 hives so far. The rest will be coming from another location in an orange grove in Palm City. We have been waiting excitedly for this to happen. It has a big impact on our property in several ways. It reduces our taxable value on two acres of our property from about $180,000 to $2000 and cuts our property taxes in half. 

view from secondary well area (for irrigation)

future watermelon plants

only 41 hives here so far

closeup of hives from a safe distance

view down side of old house toward other driveway

view of hives across lumber pile

front view Spring 2008

It doesn't affect the acre that the dome sits on (homestead) but temporarily changes the zoning (the other two acres) to agricultural as long as we have bees.

We are trying to go off grid for our utilities on solar pumps and such. It takes a lot of work to change things from the way we're used to doing them. We'd like to cut our electric bill in half. We'll be working on this all summer.

We're also trying to get things ready for storm season by eliminating dead trees, and putting more stuff into the containers for safekeeping. We'll be going thru the materials stored in the containers, sorting the construction stuff and getting it ready for us to start the garage addition. We're waiting on a couple of big film jobs to get them out of the way before we can start on the foundation ring. We're also doing some sorting inside the dome to get rid of stuff that accumulates from everyday life. Stuff for EBay, stuff for Goodwill and stuff to keep. We're also reducing our film/video equipment stockpile of extra stuff. We have another container that's full of stuff we haven't needed recently - probably more EBay.

 battery hookup for pump, solar panel ready for wiring

Billy using solar irrigation well pump

stacked on pallets to keep from any flood danger

beehives from old shop area

pile of lumber for bonfire

view from driveway