Oops!

Just heard from my dear friend Seeds in the City that the White House has posted a photo of a frame from one of their beehives (link and photo above), but they state that Charlie Brandts is ‘…(collecting) the first batch of honey from the beehives.’

Mmm, that frame is old. It’s great that they’re keeping people aware of the hives and the garden at the White House, but I hope in future they’ll take just as much care with the information they’re sharing with the world as they do with their intentions.  Luckily comments have been posted below the picture to point this out.

Am at work, so must close for now. 🙂

 

Oh, Honeybees. The more I get to know you, the more I love you.

Today was a very exciting day for the Terpsichore hive.  My dear friend who writes Seeds in the City was up for a visit, and we all suited up to visit the hive and see how things were going. 

Wow!!  The smell of honey was overpowering.  The buzzing, however, turned from a lovely hum to a startled-gradually-rising-in-pitch-buzz, and things got a little dramatic after that.  But first impressions first…

 

This hive is incredible.  It is almost two months old, and already we have added another brood box and a honey box (this morning).  Mark is going up to Mann Lake next week to get another box or two plus frames. 

The words that come to mind this evening after reviewing the hive inspection (that sounds so cold and clinical, but in essence that’s what we were doing) are: Industrious, fiercely protective, dedicated, expressive.

Thinking back:  Terpsichore was a very fitting name.  I took at tip from another favorite blog, Birdchick, and spoke to the bees while painting their hive.  I wished for them to be productive and to feel secure and safe.

Well, there was drama – my dear friend and hive sister Seeds in the City was stung.  :(  It’s bound to happen to all of us, but it was still unfortunate and I feel sorry.  It appeared to happen as she was lifting one of the boxes – a bee was buzzing around her jeans, and it looked as though it was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  She was able to get the stinger out, but not after getting her bee jacket and pants off to do so!  Ouch.  Hope it cools down soon. 😦

It was intense – when she was backing away after being stung, a literal formation of bees was gearing up to go after her!  It reminded me of all of the cartoons I’ve seen of bees forming arrows or fingers before chasing after their victims. 

 

There is some mold that has formed on one side of one of the brood boxes, and there was some in the bottom board.  The original brood box has bubbled a bit in the paint, too.  The mold was cleaned off of the bottom board and left out so that the hive could better aerate, but the main concern was seeing the box that had the mold (it’s black and flat) – the bees had built comb on frames that were far away from the mold.  Three frames were completely untouched!  We’re guessing that the exceedingly damp weather has caused it, but are at a loss as to how to combat it. We share our land with 13 redwoods, and an organic vegetable and herb garden, so things are lively – but we’re also in a very compact eco-system (designated rain forest, no kidding).  It could be the excessive morning dew, but we’re still not sure.   I’m still looking for answers, and will write  as things unfold.  For now, we’ll just keep watching and hoping that the girls will work with us, as they appear to be doing with incredible finesse.

They have a new addition to the hive for now, and hopefully the airing out will help get rid of anything undesirable.  There is so much honey at the moment it’s incredible!  If things continue going this well, we will add a second hive.

 

Sleep well, bees.  You are loved.

 

new hive body for Terpsichore

getting ready to add the varroa mite screens and new hive box…

everything in place! and now, for a little peek inside…

beautiful, busy bees!

closeup of the comb…there’s honey in there, too!

Love you, Terpsichore hive…

 

work adventures!

Last Tuesday, I came back from lunch to my boss anxiously awaiting my return.  “Hello, Beekeeper!” he said.  “We have a problem, one of the profs has a swarm of honeybees on her car.”  Long story short, I was able to call James from the Santa Cruz Beekeeping Guild to help, as I’m a brand new beekeeper and didn’t know where to start.

Ever seen ‘Wallace and Grommit’, the full-length motion picture? They are garden pest (well, rabbits mainly) ‘exterminators,’ when in fact they don’t exterminate any of them but in fact suck them up via a ‘Bun Vac’ and bring them home. 🙂 That’s exactly what happened here. James used a shop vac hooked up to a bee cage, called the ‘Bee Vac’. He vacuumed as many as he could into the cage, and later took them home to his hives.

Later he smoked the places where the bees had congregated (the belief was that this swarm had been flying for a few days now, and the Queen decided to have a look in the back of this car as a potential new hive. Eek!

Anyway, all is well now, with the swarm and with the nerves of the poor owner of the car.  And yesterday, she gave us a box of great pastries from the Buttery to thank us!

 

White House bees report…

More later about Terpsichore, but wanted to pass this along – the White House hive is doing well:

 

The Great Sunflower Project

It’s not a great picture, but I’m at work and wanted to post this before starting more serious things.  Received a packet of seeds and a letter from SFSU’s Great Sunflower Project.  I’m excited to be a part of this worthy project, and hope that our bees will be happy with lots of sunflowers.

Feeling renewed today.  (Venus going direct – thinking about it)

I’ve made mistakes and assumptions with our land, and have acted foolishly.  I’ve done great things with it as well, but continuity is what I’m striving for.

But I need to change my outlook on how I want to bring this land to life with a bit of me in it.  So shall it be.  This packet of sunflower seeds will be going in this weekend.  I was so happy walking in the garden last night, watering and saying hello to the bees.  This grounding earth, this blessed feeling of creation – I will strive to remember it when tides of emotion really want to carry me somewhere else.  Ashe.

 

just a quick note tonight.

It’s been crazy at work, and I hope to upload more pictures and write longer posts this weekend.  Went up to water the garden, see how the new seedlings are doing, and to say hello to the bees.  All looks great, especially since Mark put some ant-repellant on the rods holding up the hive.  Just a few ants straying along the top of the hive, as though they were caught up there when he applied the oil (ant-repellant used here was motor oil, go figure!).  The sugar water was just about gone when I lifted up the telescope lid, but there were lots of busy (did they look bigger to me?  It’s probably my imagination, but they did!) bees clustered around it having some dinner.  It’s been very blustery lately, and while the bees have been buzzing around, they’re in by the time I get home from work, about 6PM.  When I walked up there, I saw one stray bee flying around, eventually going right into the hive (with pollen hopefully?).  I love them.  Going up there after work gives me such peace.  It calms me down to water the garden and then go up to say hello to the bees.

Hope you’re having a good evening, too.

 

a productive weekend.

Basil (several kinds), favas, sunflowers, sweet peas, lots and lots of weeds cleared -land reclaimed for planting.

At the top left of this picture are raspberry vines, uncovered from the weeds.  Sunflowers are above them.

A particularly successful loaf of bread, baked Sunday afternoon.

I swept pathways, painted seed row markers for the garden and got housework done.  By the end of the weekend, I felt good and grounded.

 

One of my favorite pictures from Thursday

That’s Maiwenn in the foreground, me fiddling in the back with the camera, and bees.

Maiwenn had ‘no fear’ around the bees.  Next time we open the hive, she’s invited to be an assistant!

Wow…

It’s been a very productive day and while I have lots of pictures to post and blogging to do, I’m a bit windblown and sundrenched.  The pictures need the laptop for uploading, anyhow.  🙂

 

blissed.

This morning was wonderful, waking up to sunshine, having tea in bed while looking through the stack of library books begging to be read.   Lots and lots of gardening and being outside has really tired me out, but it’s only 5:25 PM and it’s Saturday.  I’ll take a shower and have something to eat and think about tomorrow’s projects while decorating my garden markers. 🙂  I’ll miss my family in Nevada City tomorrow (for Easter), but my parents are stopping by next Saturday for a visit (it’s been a LONG time), so there’s a little consolation there. 😉

However, I learned a few things today, too.  On my way to the library and into town, I walked up the hill to the hive to see how things were.  It was very, very quiet.  There were 25-30 dead bees on the ground around the hive.  I told myself it was early and still chilly, but also that we were told to expect some to die.  It didn’t help that much, though.  When I walked into New Leaf to grind my peanut butter, I looked at all of the honey displayed next to the dispensers and – teared up.  I feel so stupid sometimes, this deep feeling of love for all things I have pledged to care for.  It overwhelms me sometimes.  On my way to the Farm and Feed, I talked to my Mom (we were discussing basil crops), and told her what I saw (the bees).  She has no experience with keeping bees so did not know what to tell me, but I laughed when she said something  *very similar* to something Seeds in the City said, ‘well, it seems like they give you 3 pounds of bees for a reason, that maybe a pound might not make it.’  🙂

Sure enough, when I got home and turned on the bubbling fountain, there was a vision of bees in the air.  The sounds of the buzzing, the beautiful way they flew around everything, and all of the color in the bright sunshine was true bliss.

Okay, shower, dinner and art projects are calling.