Bee check

I've a beekeeper for many years and yet I've always been a hands-off beekeeper. I guess you could say I've been a bee-haver. But lately I've taking a more active role: taking classes, learning from old-timers, going to beekeeping meetings. The other day I realized that I could spend my whole life studying this insect and would still never know everything about them. Somehow, I find that comforting. I still want to learn as much as I can.

With that in mind, my friend John came over and we opened up the hive. We took some honey supers off, and really got into the brood chamber area, a place that makes me sweat. The bees were not disturbed at all, these girls are the most gentle bees I've ever worked with. We didn't see the queen, but evidence of her was everywhere: that brown capped stuff is brood comb. In the hollow spaces are little white larvae that the workers feed for 6 days. They then cap the larvae which transforms into a bee in 8-10 days. We saw a few young, soft looking bees--the young ones who remain in the hive all day long cleaning and feeding everyone. After a few weeks, they become field bees, out collecting nectar and pollen. We didn't see any swarm cells--peanut-shaped protrusions that indicate the colony is planning on splitting into two. It was a successful spring inspection.

Lately many hives have been hit by varroa mites. I was curious about my mite counts, so I did the powder sugar test (sorry there are no photos, Bill wandered off). After our inspection, we closed up the hive and dumped two cups of powdered sugar over the top. The idea is the mites can't hold onto the bees when they're covered in powdered sugar. After waiting for the sugar to disperse through the hive for a few minutes, I pulled out a hastily devised "board" (aka a cookie sheet). In a class a beekeeper showed slides of the squirmy red mites floating around in the powdered sugar. I pawed through the sugar and couldn't even find one from my colony. Hooray!!
Then we harvested honey. Yum.

Bounty of bees

This Sunday I took a class with the Alameda Beekeeping Society featuring Randy Oliver. Randy is this amazing beekeeper and breeder who lives in Grass Valley and reads tons of scientific studies about bees, digests it, and then feeds it back to the general beekeeping public. He is thoughtful and funny and his presentations are wonderful. I didn't want him to stop talking. It was fun too, because I got to see my friends Alan and Mary and meet new beekeepers. Here's just a sample of some things I learned:
-Bees have a little appendage on their front legs which snaps open and allows them to groom their antennae
-Beekeepers were paid over $150 per colony to pollinate the almond crop this year
-When you see a bee sitting still somewhere on a cold day, it is probably shivering invisibly until its body temp goes up enough to fly again
-Bees generate 400 watts of electromagnetic energy by flying, so when they land on a flower, the pollen zaps onto their bodies
-In a German experiment, two queens each had one of their mandibles removed, and they lived together in peace in a colony together (this is good because you'll have more workers laid and thus more honey).
As the day ended, Alan got a phone call from a guy with a swarm in his yard. Alan said, "wanna go get a swarm?" Oh yeah. The house was just down the street, in an oak tree. Sorry I didn't have my camera. But basically it was a small swarm of about 2 pounds of bees. We chopped off the limb, stuck it in the box, and relocated the beauties to my lot in Oakland.

My equipment is pretty weather-beaten, but I found a few frames that weren't totally f-ed, and viola, a new home for the bees. They seem to be adjusting well, I gave them some sugar water because a cold front has moved in. I'll probably give these ladies to my friend Marg who doesn't have bees yet but wants them.

If anyone wants to come to the farm tour here, I'm having one tomorrow, Wednesday, at 10am. Just stop by and meet the baby goats!

Bees or Fruit?

This upcoming Saturday has me tortured. There's the Rare Fruit Growers event about all the weird-ass fruit you can grow around here AND a Bee Symposium in Santa Rosa with the creme de la creme of the sustainable bee-keeping world: Randy Oliver, Eric Mussen, Serge Labesque, bee movies, "bee art", and more.
Here's their blurb: "In this time of global ecological challenges, the honeybee is an indicator species reflecting the enormous changes taking place in our world. Bee populations are dying and pollination ecology is deeply effected. As beekeepers, we must become stewards of the earth and change paradigms. This one-day symposium offers information and speakers with new perspectives on honeybees and native pollinators, beekeeping practices, innovative approches and ecological strategies for beekeepers."
The fruiters are meeting at 1-4; but the bee symposium goes from 9-6! Like a smart couple, Bill said he would go to the fruit, and I'll go to the bee thing. Divide and conquer, baby.
I'll let you know everything I learn at both events, assuming Bill takes good notes and my car makes in to Santa Rosa.
If anyone wants to go to either, here's the info:
Bee Symposium 2008
Summerfield Waldorf School and Farm
655 Willowside Road, Santa Rosa, CA
March 8; 9-6
$30 at door
by phone 707/824-2905
lunch for purchase on-site

OR

CRFG: Unusual Edibles in the Bay Area
El Sobrante Branch Library, 4191 Appian Way, El Sobrante, CA
March 8; 1-4pm
"Not only is the climate different in different Bay Area counties, but even within a given town there are microclimates. Our members will talk about what's growing for them and what's not. What usually works but hasn't in this wacky climate change year..."

**photo of my beehive courtesy Julie Johnson and the JSchool**

Honey and Kate

My dear friend Kate is here visiting! Yesterday we went to the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Fest in Golden Gate Park. We sat in the eucalyptus grove and caught up while Gillian Welch sang and the sun went down. Today we ate bacon, of course. Then we went to the Oakland Farmers market. I found an apple farmer who grows the David apples--if you haven't tried one, do it soon. They are almost smokey sweet. Back at the farm we extracted this year's honey. I couldn't believe that from 5 frames we got almost 5 quarts of honey. Our bees are so wonderful. I feel even better about this hive because they're from that secondary swarm I caught at JR's house. The honey is very dark and mysterious. Almost nutty. I can't quite place the flavor. And yes, that's my bum.

Hark the bee gate

My sister's so cool. She talked her way into the beekeepers collective store near her home in the south of France, and got me some bee goodies. One is this bee gate. Last time I went to France, a local beekeeper gave us a tour of his bee set-up. He was so enthusiastic, he said beekeeping is the best job ever. The bee gates, he explained, are for when you move the hives. Usually, around here at least, most beekeepers staple wire mesh over the entrance of the hive. But then, as I discovered, the task of prying the staples off while bees are inside, pissed at you for being sequestered for so long, becomes daunting. With this gate, you mount screws on either side of the box, then flip them around once you've moved the box. Brilliant! She also sent some cool old "miel" stickers. Thanks Riana!

Honey Bomb

We arrived home triumphant: 3 quarts of honey and four bee stings.
We left 3 quarts at the farm.
The bees were pissed.
I got stung on the head (did I bring my bee gear? no.)
Mr. Bill got stung on his arms, through his heavy sweatshirt.
The Pescadero bees are not gentle like the Oakland hive. But their honey is amazing. It has a high note of spice, kind of like burnt sugar or a carnival candy. Later I realized it might be the pumpkin blossoms that I'm tasting.
Anyway, it was a great quickie weekend escape into the rural zone.

I Heart Pescadero

We're headed to Pescadero, CA to visit to our friend Ned and his Blue House Farm: www.bluehousefarm.org. They grow strawberries, tomatoes, greens, melons, pumpkins, and lettuces. This time last year we went down and came back with three buckets full of 'seconds' tomatoes. They just had a little black spot at the tip of the fruit (usually a sign of a calcium deficiency). I cut that off and jarred 25 quarts of the best tasting stewed tomatoes ever. I pledged to never buy tomatoes in a can again. But we ran out pretty fast. So the idea this year was to get as many buckets as possible. When we called Ned to say we're coming down, he told us the tomatoes aren't ripe yet! It's been a cold, fog-soaked summer in Pescadero. Oh well, we're still making the trip down--we need to extract some honey from a beehive we keep there.
If you live around the Bay Area, you should go out to Pescadero. It's only an hour's drive, and then you're in the middle of farm country with the sea right next door. It's heaven. Dee Harley, a wonderful goat cheese maker is there (www.harleyfarms.com), as is a dried bean farm (can't remember the name) that sells something like 100 types of dry beans. I'll post photos when we get back.

Bee's Eye View

My last bee -related post was muy triste--another lost colony! But I have good news. A few days ago I caught a swarm. I went over to my friend Jennifer's house with the extractor to harvest some honey. She's got a wonderful, gentle colony of bees in her backyard in Emeryville. Once I arrived we noticed the bees were making swarm noises and were really clustering outside the hive. "Oh no, they're going to swarm again," said Jennifer. Within half an hour, the sky around the hive filled with bees flying around in a circular pattern. Then all at once they clustered together and flew off in the direction of the neighbor's lemon tree.
I put an empty hive box under the lemon tree, hoping to attract the swarm. Meanwhile, we decided to proceed with the extraction. We carefully uncapped the comb and spun out the honey from Jennifer's hive. (Later she discovered had 10 other queen cells made by the bees--they really want to take over the world.) Once our work was done, I shook the swarm into the box, put a lid over it, stuffed the entryway with a t-shirt, took the bees on a short drive, and viola! We're back in the bee business on the squat garden.
Later Bill noticed that a bee had fallen into one of the honey jars. We fished her out and after about 5 hours of cleaning and licking, she had herself de-honeyed and was preparing to fly off.
Off in the distance you can see the garden and the hive (to the left). Happy days again.

Second lost hive

In a very troubling repeat, I've lost a second bee colony. This one was in the backyard of some hippies (see lady on the other side of me). When I arrived to do a hive inspection (now that it's spring and warmish out) I noticed this drippy stuff coming out of the bottom of the hive. It was now-fermented uncapped honey. Not a good sign. Inside was tons of honey but no bees. Again, there were no dead bee piles outside the box. They had just vanished. Inside the brood area, a few formed bees were inside cells as if they were born but no one could feed them. Very strange. Oh well, guess I'll extract the honey this weekend. I heard the Pescadero hive is still alive!

The Bees Have Gone Away

There's a tradition of telling a hive when someone in the family dies, so I guess I'm telling you: a hive has died.
I got too busy with work and the garden, I didn't take the time out to open the hive regularly and check on the girls. My desk used to face the hive, which is on the deck of our apartment near downtown Oakland. I used to monitor their comings and goings, then go back to typing, monitor, type, monitor...These days I've been bogged down with school and didn't watch them as well as I should. Finally I went out and inspected the hive--there was just a little ball of bees and no honey or brood. My guess is the queen died, and hence, the hive was doomed. That little cluster would eventually die. Lucky for me it's swarm season, and I hope to catch another. I think I'm going to relocate the hive, too, to a warmer, less windy spot.
Another piece of good news: we have two other hives--one at a farm in Pescadero, another in the backyard of some friends in Berkeley.
The photo is the hive in better days, an akebia quintata growing nearby.