Napa Valley Bee Company

pollen callin'

Just goes to show that when varied pollen sources call, the bees listen. Eric Mussen was all up on that theory ages ago.

Read this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8467746.stm

Then read Randy Oliver's Fat Bee articles:

http://www.scientificbeekeeping.com//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37&Itemid=59

Makes sense to me........

Pollen detail

Pollen full frame

Pollen in new wax

Picking it up

Bringing it in

Varied pollen

Microscopic pollen

Queen on pollen?  She has no business out there....

Michael Pollan - My new hero.

Pollen source - In my area Black Berry is one the last pollen sources of the year , and the saving grace for our bees. In years past Black Berry has gotten us out of many a sticky sitch during severe nectar/pollen dearths. It's very easily identified by the gray nondescript color.

Wax moth want that pollen too, everyone needs a little protein.

Pollen, amongst other things, on a monitoring tray.

Winter Hive Checks Shouldn’t Be a Pain In the Neck

Well, at least not for your bees ...
Hopefully while reading this your bees have been all buttoned up and been put to bed for about 2 months now. Personally, I always seem to get a late jump on it, but apparently that’s the way it’s going to shake out with my bees. I was helping everyone else check their colonies and finally got to my own gals round mid-November.  In retrospect, with all the rain I found there was very little hive manipulation needed this winter. Under the right conditions, the bees prepare for over-wintering on their own. As I become more in-tune with the species I realize my part as a beekeeper is becoming less about hive manipulation and more about providing the bees with a clean, well-ventilated home that has space to expand in the spring and then adjusting that extra space in the fall. Last year was an exception with the incredible nectar dearth we experienced in Napa, but for the most part I am keeping a close eye on my bees but doing continually less-invasive procedures that tend to throw the bees off their game.

This time of year is slow in the apiary. My bees are prepared with all the necessary stores of both nectar and pollen to optimistically get them through the next few months of cold weather. A couple of things I am doing a little differently in my winter protocol is going back to monitoring trays and physically weighing each hive every visit. Not sure what the hell I was thinking, but for the last few years I quit using my monitoring trays. Probably because they got misplaced in the bee yard over the summer so I just figured oh well, the bees can live without them. Of course I would always use trays with those smaller colonies I felt may be compromised by the cold temperatures. However, with my big mammas I figured ahhh, we live in California they’ll be fine, and luckily they were.  Protection from the elements is only one of the functions of the monitoring tray. Since this year I am accountable for a lot more bees than just my own, I have been watching the trays very closely; they can tell you volumes about what is happening in the hives throughout the winter. Sure, the tray will also shed a little light on your varroa loads, but really, what can you do about varroa this time of year anyway? Actually, what can you do about any of it this time of year anyway…?  I guess you could pull some sort of major heroics and drop formic or thymol on your bees if you see a heavy mite load. That’d be foolish.
A) Those medications won’t work in colder temps as thymol needs to be at least 59 degrees and formic 55.4 degrees minimum. Highs today were 55 degrees. I’m not even going to spend the time discussing apistan,. If you are using apistan, or ANY medications prophylactically, you ARE part of the problem. 
B) You’re going to let all the heat out of your hive and most likely the bees will not be able to regain temperatures and will freeze at night. Remember, if the cluster temp drops much below 50 degrees you’ll start to see reproductive problems with your queen in the spring. 
C)  You should be seeing an increased mite drop this time of year. Significantly less brood leaves fewer cells for the varroa to reproduce in.  So, either way, you’ll kill the mites but you may kill your bees too. It’s the down time of the year for bees,  so give ‘em a break. Bottom line is DON’T OPEN YOUR HIVE this time of year!

When it comes to weighing my hives I use a proper scale. I guess the one I'm using is some sort of big game hunting scale with an L-bar I slide under the back side of the hive. I don’t presume I’m getting an accurate weight,  only a number I can quantify and watch decrease in the winter as the bees eat through their stores.  I haven’t had the scale long enough to see the weights increase again in the spring, and I’m less concerned with that. In the spring I just open the hive to see what’s going on inside. I don’t think one necessarily needs a hillbilly backwoods deer scale like mine, you can just very gently and slowly lift the back of your hive to get a good sense of the honey stores. However, don’t be getting all Arnold on your hives from over lifting, just every once in awhile. I’m sure it must be a little annoying to the bees to have their house upturned too often.

There are two final things I do before I leave my winter bee apiary.  First I have a good look around the front of the hive for discarded bees. During the winter the mortuary bees have a difficult time breaking the warm cluster to clean any dead bees that may be left inside the hive. If you look closely you’ll see dead, deformed-wing bees, normal die-off, and even in the case of those ultra-hygienic bees there may be a few larvae that are infected by varroa. Watch the entrance for bees bringing in pollen and nectar. Most the bees I see this time of year with pollen are foraging on the early mustard. Something Toucan Serge bought up at our last meeting is you should follow your nose. I haven’t done it yet, but makes perfect sense to take in a big fat huff of that beautiful bee-ness. One can tell a lot about the health of a hive by the smell. That sweet golden amber smell of love --  it by and large means to me the hive is productive and free of the more invasive brood diseases. If while huffing your hives you get a waft of funky old gym shoes a red flag should go up. Foul brood is called “foul” for a reason -- it smells dank. Problem is that if by the time you can smell brood disease it’s pretty far along. Far enough along that you could very quickly become part of the problem, a big problem. We’ll save that for later.

Lastly, you can take all the mental notes you’d like but to learn the most from your observations you have to record them someplace. I do both old school hard copy, pencil to paper and digital. Not to say I’m transcribing all my field notes but I always carry my little Cannon Powershot SD1100is digital Elph. I shoot everything.... and more. The beauty of these new digi cameras is they track the time and date of images. Currently in my iphoto library I have 3,147 bee images I made in 2008 and closer to 4K in 2009. I also keep an old analog negative binder, which is just a glorified 3-ring binder with all the sides enclosed. I use it to record the hive activity in my apiaries and store my pencils. Of course I could be better at record keeping, and I will be in 2010, I feel it is a key priority in keeping track of the health and genetic lines of my bees. I believe it sets the real bee players aside from the rest. If you are going to substantiate bee fact let’s see it in record, at least that’s my opinion.

Here is all you'll need minus your nose and eyes for a complete winter hive check. Some sort of scraper to clean your monitoring tray, if you decide to clean them, some prefer not to regularly. A hillbilly hunting scale, a binder or some other means of recording notes, writing utensils, and I carry an iphone for emergency low res images and a way to get an exact location on the GPS.

      Close-up of my notes and the hillbilly hand scale, as seen on Deliverance.

Looking at an exposed monitoring tray this would be an average cluster size for this time of year.

Looking at an exposed monitoring tray this would be a small cluster for this time of year.

Looking at an exposed monitoring tray this would be a pretty big cluster for this time of year.

A cluster that is really front and center - moldy pollen too, yuck.

Beautiful BD 2:1 sugar water - I generally try my best not to feed my bees, but if I have to, I'll use the Rudy recipe including chamomile, comfrey, and a pinch of salt. Not sure it's any better for my bees but it's got to be better than a bunch of empty calories.

Sometimes if I don't have a top feeder I'll use a boardman style feeder placed on the top bars of the hive inside an empty hive body to discourage robbing. Some guys (Serge) I kinow use the large yogurt containers with 1/16th holes drilled in it in the same manner. Either way try to keep food contained and away from those rouge bees.

Hive roof ruuuusted......

One nation under a grove - One hive stand covered in goo. This year I tried Tangle Foot as a way to get a knock down on those pesty ants.

Take more pictures of bees

Toucan Serge

Lastly, here is my gift to you.... A copy of my hive records. Feel free to duplicate them, however, one might just use my copy as a springboard for a much better version that is more compatible with their work flow. I have sort of gone off this whole page for each colony every visit type of record, why else would I give it away for free. Really though, come up with a record system that works for you, is easy for you, and makes it convenient to keep better records.

Download Bee Hive Records

A lot of beekeepers I know, some I don't know, and a few I don't want to know

My son Davis when he was a wee beekeeper.

My mom after she had been stung up pretty badly the day before, now she always wears her veil.

I don't always wear a veil.....zionks!

Jason Beeman

Billy G

Some kid

Keith

Turtle Berg

Serge Labesque with my old school anolog camera.

Kenny with a hankering hunk of comb.

Andy

Some guy with a lot of bees flying around him, one headed right for his eye.

Courtney from LMR

Peter White

Les gave his bees to Robert

Shannon Kelly

Brother Adam seems like a pretty amazing guy. A little nutty and hard to understand in his video, but did volumes for bee breeders around the world. The Buckfast bee appears to be well adapted to Freemark Abbey, not sure we need them around here but if inclined I think you can get them from Beeweaver in Taxas. But I woudn't..

Louise

Wayne

Scott's son

Ralph Myer

 I liked the idea of being a beekeeper, I'm just not sure I'd like being an albino.

Richard Avadon

Clay Newton

Dorthea Mcfarland- not sure what she's smilling about, I killed two colonies of her bees. Okay, maybe it wasn't me, but I was there checking them both shortly before they died.

Frank

Jackson Graff

Pouty face Lilly Graff

Charles Kennard

Mark Griffin

Laura 

Dude, there's a swarm on you.... get off the phone!

Matthew Barney

Cynthia Perry

Not really a beekeeper - a bee haver. Civil War soldier beehive.

Andrew Miroglio

Pops, brush the bees off and put some cloths on.... PLEASE!

Some city employee helping me capture a swarm.

Check out all his keys, he has more keys than I have bees...

Susan Grosskopf

Susan's beekeeping daughter Kim-may.

Blurry Daniel Townsend from Nickel & Nickel

Craig

Some people can't just say I Do...

Jen Heffner

Eddie and Bethany

Matt and Neil from a class I tought at the Regenerative Design Institute. I don't think they liked me much because I told one of the students they needed to rethink (bee think) the idea of bees being an avenue for honey. The way I see it honey is a byproduct of healthy bees.

Leah Bettenelli

Michael Lauher with a long long neck, but still working the bees despite his susceptibility.

Randy Oliver

Angel from Napa State Hospital

 

Carl from Napa State Hospital

This guy looks like he should be committed to Napa State hospital

  Sean Shawn from Nickel & Nickle

Jimmy who took my class ages ago

Bee my honey - Lyle McCoy from Angwin

Eric in horrific light

Fong in Horrific mid-day sun

Melissa in horrific horrible awful sun light

LL Langstroth - The guy that figured out bee space, my 1/8 inch hero.

Some guy at Silverado Country Club that was helping me with a bee issue they were having.

Phillip Lau from Marin working his top bar hive.

Madeleine Crull from St. Helena  Montessori School.

Lisa Sambora at the College Ave. Apiary.

Luck of the Irish x 2

Now that's a bee beard!

Hector Alverez - The only full time beekeeper I know.

Randy Gularte and Paul Hoff

 

Crazy days biking and bees, sort of....

At first this post may seem slightly off topic and a bit random, but bear with me and I’ll bring it around back to bees. Al-bee-it in a round-about-way but nevertheless we will eventually talk bees.
One of my other passions besides beekeeping is bike riding. Not that sissy stuff you’re thinking with the flashy, tight lycra with all the painful-over-the top logos. Me pimping my package up and down the highways and byways around the valley. No sir, I prefer to spend my time in the great outdoors riding what we call “single track” in the hills around Northern California. That colorful lycra is for those road jockeys, my taste in riding cloths is either a pair of my grandfather’s hand-me down slacks I lopped off just below the knee. Or when I want to ratchet it up a notch I sport my couture beekeeping/bike knickers made by Nan at B Spoke Tailor. Really, these knickers are far too nice for a biking bum like me so I had Nan add a couple extra side pockets for my hive tool and digital camera to use them as beek pants too. Soo nice I’m scared to get them dirty.... I read on Nan’s blog - http://bspoketailor.blogspot.com/ - she’ll even whip your grand pops ol’ get-ups (or those special duds you grabbed at the goodwill) into a pair of amazing bike knickers. When not out working bees and I’m able to get in a quick spin I tend to spend most my saddle time locally at our homie stomping grounds Skyline Park. We are so blessed to have some of the best mountain bike riding in the area right here in our own backyard. Skyline, or as we call it “The S-K-Y”, has hellish climbs, 3 or 4 creek crossings, crazy-fast technical descents, and at least 3 bee trees I know of.
Yeah, it’s true, Skyline is the biking bomb but every Thanksgiving the Skyline Riders pack it in to head west for new trails in Marin. Some call it the Turkey Trot, some call it the Appetite Enhancer, whatever it is we look forward to the ride in Fairfax all year long. I think we clock in at just under 23 miles in about 3 hours. Incredible climbs and epic downhills, and even one DH that shaped the early stages of mountain biking called Repack.

What’s all this got to do with bees you ask yourself?.

*Well, the painfully obvious would be that both Bees and Bikes well,  start with the letter B. 

*Earlier this year I read on Boing Boing A directory of wonderful things about a swarm that landed on a bike seat. 

-http://boingboing.net/2009/08/06/bees-swarm-under-bik.html

2 Wheels, 2000 Bees

Bees swarm under bike seat: the thrilling conclusion
* Burley makes a pretty cool  Honey Bee Bike Trailer for kids
http://www.burley.com/products/child/bee.cfm
*This gal kind of has it going on, I couldn’t navigate her site but it all sounds good to me:
Bees.. check, bikes.. check, beer... check, buzz... got it.
8tracks.com/chrissimelissi/beesbikesbeerbuzz
*Brooks leather bicycle saddles come in a honey color.
This is the one I own:
http://www.brookssaddles.com/en/Shop_ProductPage.aspx?cat=saddles+-+road+%26+mtb&prod=Swift+Chrome
* Mr. HONEY BEE – Z1 is a motorized bicycle which to me just feels wrong.
http://www.grubeeinc.com/USA/4%20Cycle%20Honey%20Bee%20Moped.htm

* These fools deserve to be stung

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbGJPbU7-YY

See, and those are just a few of the many unswerving correlations between bees and bikes. My relationship with bees and bikes is directly linked to my graduate degree in art and overwhelming desire to be on a team. Since none of the local bike shops in town would sponsor me because I break too much of my gear I decided to start my own bicycling team, Team Larves. That’s right, larves... like the undeveloped baby bee. The thing is, I felt there needed to be a strong bond between all the team members. My idea was that we would all consume a handful of drone larvae before each race as our competitive edge. I guess I was the only one who saw the benefits of a fist full of male bee protein before a race because currently I’m the only member. Although I don’t have any jerseys made at this point, I have created a number plate for race day and numerous spoke cards with bee imagery. If you’re interested please feel free to shoot me an e-mail with your biking experience, pre-race strategies, spoke-card ideas, and your post-race decompression protocol.

Catch ya’ on the B side.

Team Larves!

Spoke cards on my single speed - Race day get-up at the Sea Otter 2009

Waggle dance spoke card on my Breezer in Tahoe.

 Queen bee spoke card on my Breezer - Thanksgiving day ride Fairfax 2009

Torpedo spoke card on my Kona - Nice heavy IPA - My friend Tony Auston designed the label. Made from a 6pk side panel - For Real... and remember, you can't spell beer without bees.

Spoke cards on my breezy breezy.

 
Mark Weir passes me while I'm fixing a spoke card flat.

 
Skyline Riders

Spoke cards that never quite made it to the spokes:

BEE CAL

For H20 overdrive with bee wallpaper background.

Full Nelson!

Ride-out to the honey comb hide-out!

What Sebastian Wignall has to say about varroa

I've asked the students in the Beekeeping occupation to write a quick blog entry about their beek experience this session. Here is what Sebastian Wignall has to say about varroa:

Varroa mite

Varroa mites are very bad for our honey bees because they go on the bees and eat their wings so they can’t fly. which means they can’t go out to get pollen. that’s called curly wing. A way to prevent curly wing is to put a plastic tray in your hive on the bottom and spray it with pam, the one you cook with, than you powder sugar your bees and the other bees will clean each other while they are doing that the bees will knock of the varroa mites down on the screen.

These are some varroa on our bees at College Ave.

well not this one...

It's just creepy.

Varroa in the cells of developing drones.

Riding on the back of a worker.

Deformed Wing Virus or Curly Wing Syndrome is an indicator that a colony has a pretty high might load or the bees have a low resistance to the mites. Varroa are the vector for disease.

Reaking of Teak

For the past few weeks I have been working with Ed Clay Studios and we’re making two of the most amazing beehives EVER, out of teak. A client of mine asked me to price out hives in teak, so one day at lunch sitting on the epi benches at Oxbow Market with my hardwood friend Lewis deSoto I got the 4-1-1 on the best wood guy around – Ed Clay. If you need anything made of wood you should call this guy, my experience was fabulous. http://www.edclay.com/ 
The hives are based on the Langstroth design but with much nicer screened bottoms and ventilated tops. Seriously, I have not been this affected by objects made in wood since seeing the show of furniture found in King Tut’s Tomb at the Metropolitan Museum of Art back in the mid-nineties. Albeit, at the time I was a complete Egypto-freak but still...if nothing else these hives have an attention to detail fit for a Pharaoh. As far as wood goes, teak is Greek to me, but I have been told the tight grain and texture will prevent aging and resist moisture. Teak is generally used in manufacturing outdoor furniture so we figured the wood could, and should, be used for beehives. For the price, teak had better resist moisture! I’m telling ya’ -measure twice cut once.
And you’ll only want to cut once because even though it’s easily worked teak can cause severe blunting on edge tools because of the presence of silica in the wood. This can’t be good, which is why I guess manufactured teak fetches the big cheddar I’m sure. Well, jacking up all your tools working with teak is one thing AND jacking-up the planet harvesting it is another. It should be expensive.
Some people shriek at using teak because of its un-sustainability, but according to Ed - the wood guy, the teak for this project was reclaimed from an old factory in Indonesia. Attention to detail is paramount the new teak hives will be located amongst some of the finest outdoor sculpture in the world. Think Andy Goldsworthy, David Nash, Magdalena Abakanowicz, and Barry Flanagan.... super tight! I’m sure you’ve heard of the White House hives? Yeah so.... they’ve got nothing on these beauties.
Popular in the 1950s and 1960s in a style often referred to as Danish modern, teak has had a boom in popularity, Not so much in the way of beehives but you know that’s how we roll in the wine country. Always trying to set the next trend. Stay tuned for more imagery of the hives as they age over time.

 My therapist says when I cross my arms I'm not being open to new ideas. I don't think that's Ed's case cause I'm pretty sure he'd never made teak beehives before I called.  

From this.....

To this....

Heading out with the sleek teak

Rolling home with the funk

Measure twice...

Handrail detail

Installed

Howard Carter and Lord Carnovan Entering King Tut's Tomb, 1922

Saying good-bye to Reuben

Today was an incredibly sad one, we said good-bye to Reuben Godinez. Reuben was a colleague of mine at Nimbus Arts who became a very good friend through his wondrous spirit and way with children. All the kids absolutely adored his charm and witty play. Adults admired his great sense of humor and forever positive attitude. For me as a beekeeper, Reuben was a huge supporter of my mobile bee obseratory, collecting all things relating to honey and bees. It was always a treat to go into the antique store where he would have stashed away honeybee treasures collected for me along his travels. Bee patches, antique smokers, veils, postcards of beekeepers, and best of all a vintage honey dispenser I gave to my mom. The dispenser and an endless supply of local amber sticky love made the perfect mothers day gift. For me, and I'm sure everyone else at Nimbus, the camps won't ever be the same. We lost a big part of our artistic family today, Reuben we'll miss you.

Shadows of David Garden and I walking down Spring Street after the ceramony.

Reuben with the kids at Nimbus

 

Remembering Reuben Godinez

Funeral Mass

Wednesday, November 18 at 11am

St. Helena Catholic Church

1340 Tainter Street, St. Helena

appreciation for the precipitation

How exciting, it's been raining big in Napa all day. The funny thing is when you see the people that just don't get it. You know the ones, all grumpy 'cause they're getting wet running to their cars at Starbucks. All my homesteading homeboys like Michael at Connolly Ranch are busting. We are beside ourselves with hopes of a wet winter and what that will inevitably bring to us and our bees in the long run. I'm sure the rain put out our covercrop cowboy, Mark Griffen, up there at the Reserve, they're hustling to wrap up harvest I'm sure. Give it a week when the soil is prime and he's planting that Reserve cover blend JR mixed up for him at Napa Ag Supply. We'll have to have him drop in here at the ol' bee blog and lay out the stats on that for us, but until then you all better get your cover on and sow some seed for the bees. Because I saw what Mark has done in the past with cover crop -- he dropped the buckwheat bomb --I'm going to follow his lead and use his blend this year. I'll assess how it goes, and perhaps make some mods to his mix next year. We are a little more fortunate in that in our apiaries we don't have all the restrictions Mark has in terms of how the cover might affect the vines. It's crazy all the "you can't do this - you can't do that" hurdles one has to jump through when it comes to the vineyard. Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with the vine, it's just all the red tape that comes with the grape if you know what I mean....

Bottom line is we're going to have a busting cover crop year if this rain keeps up. Besides Mark's blend I'm going big Phacelia tanacetifolia. Michael and I are going to unleash a fury of Phacelia that will make the bees flip. I'm telling you....                                                                                                            Apparently the seed is hard to come by.

I'm looking at:                                                              

Peaceful Valley Farm Supply

P.O. Box 2209
Grass Valley, Ca 95945
530-272-4769                                                                                                                 www.groworganic.com

Download Phacelia_farmer_version

If you haven't heard about Phacelia you need to read the attached PDF. It's an amazing plant and the bees love it. It's on both Michael and Melissa Garden's top five. M&M....

This is how it went for a wet beekeepr in Napa earlier today:

It was dumping at around noon today (driving up valley on Hwy 29). 

At the College Ave apiary I put cinders on top of ply to help keep some of the rain off the landing and out of the hive. Tilt your hives forward and weigh-down your lids. Check out the landscape, the rain will hopefully bump the forage for these bees. Well, it's probabley late for this year, but next sping will be roaring.

Brown - Dry - Zero - Zip

These are nice covers but I still put a piece of ply over the front to help with excessive water build-up on the landing. The bees looked cold, so even though they're calling it a tropical storm I also put in the monitoring trays to help them conserve some heat.

I hope the ply dosen't blow off.

Extra entrance reducer and... I know - I know.... you're meant to feed the bees inside the hive. 

Sopping wet!

 

More rocks at Roger's

Nine Bonick apples for Laura

Drones keep goin'

Bee picture taken earlier today on the fly with my iphone - not the best quality, MYiphone needs a macro setting. I buffed this flat/soft picture out a little bit with some text and an arrow graphic to make it easier.

Today I was over at Kevin Crossland's place getting his bees dialed in when I was pleasantly surprised to run into a drone or two. It has been an amazing year in many ways for the bees; one reason bee*ing the amount of drones we created by using the J-frame technique earlier in the year. The other great thing is how long the drones have been sticking around. Last year at this time all my drones got the boot around the end of May so to be still seeing them in late September is a real thanksgiving. The late season drone is a very good indication that it has been a honey bumper-crop year for the colony, or the girls would have run the drones out as soon as the nectar started to dry up. That, or these last few remaining drones are the gay male bees in the hive. Think about it, if you were a girl that had to live in a house with 60,000 other females wouldn't you like having a couple token males around, gay males at that? Honestly, I don't think a straight male couldn't stand all the ya-ya sisterhood if you ask me.  Hell, I'd cull myself if I was one of the last drones of the season. Seriously, I'd tuck my little bee wings behind my back and jump straight off the front landing board head first. On the ladies behalf I could see why they might want a few strapping young drones around. One or two late season guys that could help with grooming varroa, stacking pollen, or even just having them around to build moral like I do around my house.... 

Rob, you speak in bee-bonics, I don't even know what language this is. Bee street lingo?? 

Bee people meet my wife Meg - she has been doing my proof reading because apparently I'm writing in bee-speak.

Last two beek weeks in pictures

Wheew!

This bee-blog thing is time consuming. Looking back I haven't gotten much done 'round here since the 8th, feels like just yesterday. What I'm going to try <--- key word try --- to do is up load some of the images I take out there while I'm rustling bees and make comments on them rather than doing longer posts less frequently. Certain times of the year it gets really difficult to manage the blog and bees because I'm either working with bees or talking about them all day -- the last thing I want to do at night is come home and type about them too! This time of year I am in 5-10 colonies a day checking them for brood and stores before sending them into winter. I'm talking going deep here, not just a pop of the lid for a quick looky loo. On my mother colonies I'm not overly concerned, they have shown me over time that they are decent producers of both honey and brood. It's the new colonies I have introduced into my apiaries I want to check-up on. Enough excuses....

Hop in, let's see how this rolls:

For the past month or two I have wanted to get a business card. It's always a little funny when people ask for a card and I don't have anything with my contact info. You guys know where to get me, right here at the blog, but not everyone is so bee savvy. For now I didn't want too get crazy - only the basics - my splitty and the bees... They should be ready in 7-10 working days. Lemme know and I'll hook you up with one fresh of the press.

Checkin' on the bees at College Ave.

It's a desert out there in the rural landscape, look at how hungry they are... That 1:1 hadn't hit the deck for a second before they were all up on it. Be careful, not only are some of my less foraging bees in a tight place right now but desperate x's call for desperate measures, robbing is rampant! Make sure you have all the gear needed on hand before you start working your bees but also keep the cover on them while you're not in the hive. Move quickly but efficiently and for the love of god don't leave any honey laying around.

I ended up feeding some of my bees - not my ideal scenario but what's one to do when there's follower to follower brood and no nectar or honey? I guess I could have thrown them a couple frames of the sticky icky from another colony but that's not the safest option either. You tell me. At least I'm brewing them up the Rudy Steiner, nothing is finer recipe... 1:1 sugar - water, whole chamomile (I was using just bags, but have since stepped it up thanks to Clay) and a pinch of salt. Not sure if it was Steiner or Gunther Hauk that said to also add Comfrey. Dunno about that but I have added some lavender blossoms in the feeder when I have them. Remember to ALWAYS reduce the entrance when feeding. I leave a very small opening at the far opposite side to discourage robbing. Actually, this image shows an external feeder but really if you have to feed your bees I'd use a method from inside the hive like a top or frame feeder. This particular feeder is a custom design made by a student of mine that has a long straw that goes down into the brood chamber. It's an experiment... Feed your bees inside the hive!

Working the bees at Billy G's. Take note of my VW head badge... I met a cat named Don in Napa that  wrenches v-dubs. He did me a fat solid by not only putting my badge on but installing seat belts, and adjusted my valves. We talked about doing a lot more to my car so stay tuned...  If you need aircooled assistance you should call Don's VW Repair 707.363.4779, he's the Volkswagon shiz-nit!

Working Roger's bees and making an Andy Goldsworthy-inspired entrance reducer. Don had just done the work on my truck the night before so I emptied it and forgot to bring proper reducers. The bees were a bit pissy so I decided to wear my gown. Sadly I just threw it in the bed when I drove off and It must have blown out in transit. So if you happen to come across a Dadant veil with the Napa Valley Bee Company logo on the back - it's mine..

Bee class at Arnie Bunter's.

Anytime is a great time when you're hangin' round Arnie but the ultimate bee bliss is working the girls at his place. Michael and I took our beekeeping - bee garden class that is normally held at the Connolly Ranch out to the Bunter's for a little bee fun and yum-yums.

This kid Scott took most the pictures. He did a wonderful job if I do say so myself.

Smokey....

Stirrin' 'em up!

Check-out Arnie's Exxon beekeeper get-up.

Laura having a bad veil day...

I got stung twice.

I went through my freezer this weekend and found a bunch of pollen I had forgotten about that I stashed away over the summer. The problem is that when you freeze wax it makes it really brittle and because of my lack of freezer finesse a lot of the frames that didn't have that plastic foundation broke apart. Not the end of the world, you can rubberband it back into a frame but why not have a little fun while your at it?

This one was too obvious.. I know, I know, how cliche but what am I meant to do? The shape presented itself and I couldn't deny. I hope the bees don't think it's as corny as I do. I wouldn't eat pollen out of heart shaped comb based on principle.

Once I was doing a hive removal where the bees built around all these twigs in a building. It was truly one of the coolest things I had seen bee do in a long time. I decided to try and recreate that while also securing some loose comb by harpooning the pieces together with sticks from around my yard.

I even put an acorn in it, corny.....! Can't wait to see what the bees do with these wax constructions. I don't suspect much will get done on them until next spring as I'm not seeing a lot of wax production this late in the year. I was thinking I may incorporate them into my over-wintering protocol in the upper box, so as the cluster moves up through winter they will run into some extra pollen treats along the way. Yum!

Sadly I ripped out all my Borage yesterday. My all time favorite bee plant had run it's course. Luckily for me and the bees it will reseed and hopefully I'll get another round before winter.