Napa Valley Bee Company

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