Napa Valley Bee Company

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

 

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.