Friday, January 15, 2010

The Uneasy Quiet of Winter

hive with no bees flyingDuring mid-January here, you'd have to search a long time to find a smug beekeeper. There has been a good long freeze this year, more than a month since the last time temperatures reached flight-worthy levels (also known as bathroom break levels—more important, though less poetic).
Beekeeping teaches this: nature is an amazing 360-degree extravaganza of millions of living things making their bets and living with the consequences. Last year, in late February, the temperature one Friday night was over 60 degrees F (16 degrees C) and as the sun set and the air chilled all the bees around here made group decisions about where to cluster together for the night ahead. This is about to get a little geeky, but you need to know this: bees cluster together to flex their little wing muscles and keep each other warm. They place themselves over stored food—honeycomb to us humans—about as much as they think they will need.
The colder it gets, however, the closer those bees need to mash together. A ball of bees the size of a basketball can look more like a honeydew melon if the temperature changes enough, and bees can face the choice between warmth and starvation as the honey they cluster over has to nourish more and more bees, and the edge of the stores above recedes a few precious inches away.
By Monday at the beginning of March in 2009, the temperature was 7 degrees F (-14 C) in downtown Washington DC. Every bee colony that bet on an average night in an average winter probably died by Monday morning.
Freaky, worrywart bees, or perhaps profligate "why worry" kinds of bees that were willing to place themselves WAY up above the edge of their stored honey supply were the ones who made it last February. And so bets were made, and whole families lived or died.
Some people tell me that generals are always fighting the last war, and perhaps the beekeeper equivalent is to prepare against the last winter. In January, all of us are facing the choices we made for our bees, as well as the choices they are likely to make for themselves. For millions of years, the genes they received from their ancestors stored up good choice-making tendencies that may be worth a lot less in the turbulent climate changes of today. For just a few years, I have been trying to figure out the challenges my patch of the planet presents to these small creatures, and to learn from beekeepers a whole lot more experienced than I ever will be. The bees place their bets, I place mine, and sometimes I know I am betting against the house.
And January comes, and the truth will out.
The not particularly interesting picture above shows the beehive at the Lederer Youth Garden in Washington DC. This week, for about 72 hours, we have flying (and pooping) weather, and I have visited all 9 hives. A whole bunch of them looked like this: too damn quiet for me. No bees flying, no bees obviously dying, nothing at all. Nine times I steeled myself for the worst, nine times I found warm bees inside.
Let me tell you my beekeeping sins: I treat for mites, though I don't count them enough. I am told to move honey close to clustering bees, but I am far too afraid to mess with the inside of a cold hive. Most of my hives go into the winter twice the recommended size. Some of my bees have viruses and I should let them die, some of my bees have queens more than a year old. Some of my bees get regular visits, some of my bees are on the wrong side of rush hour. But today, they are all alive.
When I think about the vagarities of the choices I make, of the way that Nature spreads her bets across the full spectrum of environmental possibilities, of the not-yet understood changes we all face from the weather, how can I possibly take pride in nine live hives? I can only be very humble, and very glad.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Bee Culture Seeks City Beekeepers

Hi all -- this comes from "Catch the Buzz," an emailed publication from Kim Flottum at Bee Culture: This ezine is also available online at http://home.ezezine.com/1636/1636-2009.08.17.09.52.archive.html

If you are a city beekeeper, your time in the limelight may have arrived!



PLEASE NOTE: EMAIL IS CORRECT in the version below:

CATCH THE BUZZ

Help Us Celebrate Urban Bees, and Urban Beekeepers
Bee Culture Magazine and www.thedailygreen.com want to celebrate the incredible explosion of City Beekeepers. We want all urban dwellers with beehives and beesuits, with hive tools and smokers, with supers and covers and frames galore to stand and be counted, to be recognized and noticed. We want everyone that uses five frame, eight frame, ten frame or top bar hives to raise their hands to the sky and shout! We want every and all of America’s backyard, roof top, window box, fire escape, empty lot, and anywhere else in the city honey makers to join the hive and let the world know you’re alive. Let’s get everyone with every hive, in every large or small, crowded or sparse asphalt landscape around the towns and the cities, the suburbs and gardens of America’s everywhere and anywhere to share what they do, show what they grow, and feel pride in their work, their passion and their hobby. It’s no matter if you just started out or are already seasoned in city bees. And if it’s not Kosher to keep bees where you are, we won’t tell, we won’t share because we don’t care…we want the world to know there are thousands who are working to make the bees at home. Thousands who want only the bees, only the peace, only the gentle gift of helping things grow. Thousands who are part of the larger citybee community. Thousands!


If this is you, if this is your time, send us a photo, a gift to share with those who share with you , and especially those who haven't yet but want to. Send a high quality photo, 50 or so well chosen words about your specific, or general location and operation…depending on you and your neighbors and the law of the land where you are. We need contact information so we can get back to you (an email is just fine) if there’s a question so we get it right the first time. Please send all this to Dan Shapley, the Editor and web and guru at thedailygreen.com at Dshapley@hearst.com. He’s a whiz at making all this work. When you send your photos and descriptions, you give The Daily Green and Bee Culture the right to publish the material and share it with its partners. For details, visit www.thedailygreen.com/bee-photos.

It’s time for the bees. Help us show what you do and how you do it. It’s only for those who have, and those who want bees. Join the Community of UrbanBees. Be part of the Revolution. UrbanBees Now!

This message brought to you by Bee Culture, The Magazine Of American Beekeeping

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

DC's Own Girls Are Flying High!

lederer hive before visitI look after ten hives now, one of which does not belong to me: it's the colony located at the Lederer Youth Garden in NE DC. The hive was started from a package this Spring, and I had a devil of a time getting them going: I donated the bees, equipment and all, a few months ago, so they are officially government honeybees.
Here's the hive when I arrived today. The medium sitting on it's side is full of recently extracted frames from the roof bees, something I hope will give the girls a head start on additional winter stores. (I guess that means that DC is now the owner of yet another chunk of hive gear!)
My last visit took place on July 8, just before travel. At that time, I checked that the queen was still laying, gave them that green medium super with a few frames of comb, filled the feeder and hoped for the best. Those hopes were truly fufilled!
lederer bees eating honey drips between boxesI also brought cappings and honey to put in the feeder, but decided to take a bit of a look inside since so much time had passed.
Here's a confession: even though it had been almost a month since I had even looked at this hive, even though it is a particularly important and privileged colony, it took every bit of self-discipline I had to push forward> You see, it was about 95 degrees F (33 degrees C) by the time I arrived, and I had been stupid enough not to bring any water or socks into which to tuck my jeans!
But the reward was great. Sweet, good-tempered bees were present throughout the top box, and by peeking between the frames I could see that every single one was filled with capped honey. And some drone brood. Hmmm.
lederer capped honey frameThis was the second frame in, even the frame at the edge of the box was completely drawn and filled. Somewhat worrisome: the third frame in had a mass of drone brood, and nothing but drone brood. This was a concern because I have dealt with three unreliable young queens this year, and even though the weather is frying-hot at this time of year, we really have to be thinking about the upcoming winter and whether the queen who is in place will be producing that big batch of fat, healthy cold weather bees we need to take us from October through the end of January (at least).
So once again I had the rare privilege of hefting an 80-pound (about 30 kg) box full of bees and honey gently to its resting place on an inverted telescoping hive cover. Sigh. Luckily, even though it is August, the bees were in no mood to get sting-y and I had enough coordination to keep from squishing anyone.
Also luckily, the first deep frame I pulled from the top brood box was full full full of lovely flat-capped worker brood: mom just laid all those drones in some frame that was warped when I transferred it over before vacation!
So I put back the frame, cleaned up those blobs of honey on top of the whole box (the ones that the girls above are eating) and reserved them to give back, replaced the honey medium, added the extracted box, replaced the hive top feeder, filled it with the blobs I had scraped and several pounds of cappings and honey, and closed up for a while. If I play it right, I can let the girls clean up for about a week, come back to get the now-clean wax (I use it for making soap), and begin the heavy feeding regime that helps keep the hive happy and ready for the season ahead.
lederer hive after visitHere's the newly-extended hive! Let's be honest: I've been worried how this season would go–anxious about potyential vandalism, about inadvertent interactions with the public, about being able to make the bees relevant to the whole gardening programme. The first two issues have simply not applied: the bees have a perfect location with the most desired flight path heading right over a field of corn, straight at a tree-lined creek. There are visual barriers and lines of trees and shrubs that keep anyone who is not already looking for the hive from stumbling across it.
I'd like to do better for the people–especially the kids–who use that garden, and my usual ideas (a soap making seminar, a presentation with an observation hive) are not bad, but they are not really tuned in to the garden's specifics. So there is room for growth there, too.

Monday, July 13, 2009

The Sweetest Harvest: Youth Outreach

This post is from the road: I am looking for bees in Britain and France again! But there is another reason why the blog suffers in the summertime: it is my best chance to work with children in and about the apiary.
I'm a bit over halfway through my presentations, which usually involve bringing an observation hive, an empty hive setup, a skep, some tools and veils, and a honey tasting opportunity. I used to prepare the flow of the presentations a bit more precisely, but usually the kids are more than ready to challenge, ask questions, and generally become friends of the bees with very little help from me.
I work with two dramatically different populations, for the most part, though they all end up being curious kids at heart. My downtown kids usually put me through a bit of an "Are you serious?" drill, where they basically need me to prove two things: that I know what I am talking about, and (more importantly) that this is coming from a place of real caring and passion. They are sick of hearing prescriptions about what they should be doing with their lives, I think, and are primarily interested in whether I am really going to share.
The suburban kids are also skeptical in their own way. They usually have some exposure to the subject matter, and also want to know whether I am wasting their time, in this case with stuff they know already. I am more likely to deal with kids who are actually afraid of nature in the 'burbs: it is an oversimplification, but that folks who have worked so hard to move their kids to the edge of the best have often transmitted a sense of general worry about everything that flies, buzzes, or grows.
But the bees make pretty short work of that. Bring a populated observation hive into a group of kids and you will soon have preteens glued around the box -- and they are usually better at spotting drones than we are.
In our region, summer is the only time I can really do this outreach: by the time schools get rolling in the autumn, the bees are beginning their winter shutdown and are both vulnerable and less cooperative. In the spring, the insects-that-pollinate unit in the curriculum may take place before the weather is safely warm enough to move queens and brood.
But this is an appeal to beekeepers new and established: even after a simple short course, you already know enough to fill an hour-long presentation. And every kid you send home as a friend of bees might be more willing to get his parents to allow bees in a neighbor's back yard, or (later) even their own!

Friday, June 19, 2009

Swarm Catching for Dummies

swarm on branchWell into my fifth summer of beekeeping, here's the report: I have become the person about whom I used to scratch my head.
Back in 2005, soon after we finished the beginner's "short course," our club sponsored a field day at an orchard apiary in Burtonsville. Just as a coupla dozen students and maybe 6 experienced beekeepers closed up the last hive, a swarm from somewhere else began to settle in one of the trees under which we were standing.
OK, so this is one heck of a coincidence! It was also quite a show.
Before any beginner hive-minders could say, "Um, what?" middle-aged beekeepers sprang into action! Some ran for ladders, some ran for hive parts, one grabbed (I kid you not) a small saw, a 50 foot rope, and a bedsheet from out of his car (just happens to keep them around: don't you?) Another started dinging two pieces of metal together: an old wives' tale says you can get a swarm to settle if you bang pans.
A father of three soon sprang 20-feet-plus up the side of that tree, from which he sawed off a limb with a large swarm on it. Compatriots caught the branch in the sheet, and then set the hive entrance near the swarm. David, the tree climber, was down in a flash, and picked the queen out of that mess of bees and saw her inside. Swarm hived!
Four years and a bit later, I still cannot pick out the queen from a loose mass of bees, but I nonetheless hardly recognize myself. I've caught three swarms this Spring: one mine (*sigh*), one at the White House, and this one.
hand in swarmI actually object to the title for this post, but it is hard to find a better way to put it. Compared to the story above, the craziest thing about my adventure was a 20-mile trip across metro Washington at rush hour, though the decision was based merely on a non-expert's assessment that a whole lot of bees were hanging out in a convenient bunch right at eye level.
The thing about swarm-catching is that non-beekeepers always say the same few things:
  1. It's definitely bees;
  2. There are an enormous number; and
  3. The safety of the known universe is at stake

The usual case is that it is either yellowjackets, there are only a handful of bees, or they have disappeared by the time you arrive.
In spite of this track record, why did I drive to Reston on June 8 at 5 PM with two sets of bee catching gear (a nuc box for a small swarm, a deep hive body and all the trimmings in case the size was as-billed)? Three more things:
  1. Karen, the woman who called me, did not seem like the freaky sort, and she had gone to the trouble of calling over to Colvin Run Mill, where my Virginia bees live, to find a beekeeper just because she remembered the apiary there;
  2. Karen also asked her husband not to call an exterminator before she tried to find a beekeeper in order to give these critters a chance; and
  3. She swore that the swarm, whatever it's size, was hanging on the lower limb of a really young Maple tree in her front yard, so no ladders, drywall removal, or other shenanigans were required.

The picture of me, above, shows my ungloved hand, near my unveiled head, featuring an uncensored smile, next to a honking huge swarm of bees that somebody out there must sorely miss! I was able to pull my car up within 6 feet of the swarm, which would be considered "shoulder length" if we were all at the hair salon!
grabbing the swarmHere you can see the whole set up: there I am with my bed sheet on the ground, my clippers in hand, my hive body at the ready. Yes, I had most of the stuff in the car before Karen even made the call. I was hoping that, since it was after 6 PM by now, that most of the bees had returned from the field. I sat around for a while making sure that everyone was heading into my hive body, but it turns out that another couple thousand bees returned later, and I came back the next day to get them, too.
Because my two new Monastery hives are not doing well, I thought about bringing these bees all the way into the city, but I decided that they belonged out at Colvin Run Mill, all things considered. When I got them there, I peeked inside to be sure all was well, and the bees were already festooning all over the place, beginning to draw comb and make themselves at home. When I brought their laggard sisters the next day, I also brought another hive body and some feeders to help them along with all that wax production.
All in all, I would have done better to leave my capture hive out there that first night, returning back during early early rush hour the next day to ensure that I got more of the bees all at once. I feel sorry for the scouts that got left behind, and hope they managed to wrangle their way back into their home hive, or some other.
And the back of the car in the picture above still houses a small saw, pruners, a bed sheet, and a transportation strap. Just in case, you know?

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

No Such Thing as a Solitary Bee

Ok, so the truth is that there are lots of solitary bees, but they are not the honeybees that have lived and worked beside people for millennia. Why mention this? Because here in my no-longer-secret hometown, my picture is on the front of an article about beekeeping. I'm glad I'm in a veil, because I would never have had the opportunity to even open a hive without the help and friendship and wisdom of many others, and perhaps a few can be imagined in my place instead.
Some of them are beekeepers who are ready to tell others all about it, others enjoy a more private relationship with their bees, but it is a rare beekeeper indeed who does not rely on his or her connection to the rest of our community.
I like to tell people new to beekeeping that there is no such thing as a solo honeybee: a bee on its own is simply doomed. The dependencies are deep and complex: all the bees depend on the one indispensable Queen who is their mother, but she is the most helpless bee of all. The workers, who make the whole hive run, have nowhere to live and no food for the future without the existence of thousands of sisters back home who build and clean and guard and feed all day. Those lazy, fuzzy, funny drone boys cannot even feed themselves when their sisters close the doors to them.
And so many of us have opened our lives to them, some of us because we want to connect with our food supply, others to save the bees who are so essential to our agriculture, some for the love of honey, and some for the love of the green world around us.
Whether we planned on it or not, one of the windows that the bees seem always to open looks out on a world of natural miracles and wonder. And worries and responsibilities and joy as we try to help them thrive in a world that seems just packed full of challenges and threats and flowery opportunities.
Newspaper articles appearing now will perhaps make many more thousands of people aware of the bees on my roof and in yards and in flowers all over this city. My own personal hives have never been so exposed, and I hope I have not done wrong by them in sharing them with you. We live in a world that is full of fear, and I can certainly understand why something so unknown and seemingly out of place could cause concern. But we are in so much more danger without ties to the world and each other, without a community to turn to and ties that reach all the way into the world of bugs, plants, and critters.
I cannot tell you how good it feels to have a relationship that links me to a world of flowers and sunshine.

Friday, April 17, 2009

A Visit With the First Bees

vent at top of first hiveIf there is one eternal truth in beekeeping, it's that committed beekeepers always get a bit nervous when someone else inspects their hive, especially if that someone else has kept bees even one week longer. I've got a few years on Charlie, bee-wise, but not that many. Even so, it makes my heart get all warm to see such concerns, because only people who really care have them. And the bees do so much better in the hands of those who care. Which is my way of saying that Charlie let me have a look at the White House honeybees today. Thanks, Charlie!

Before I go on, this needs to be said: everything touching on that particular place tends to get wrapped up in spotlights and drama, and there is a real danger of feeling self-important or personally special just because of that place and this time. When I share this with you, please keep in mind what this is really about: the bees, and their way of both supporting our environment and inspiring great wonder in those who look after them. I feel that we all owe Charlie a whole lot, and I want him and the Obamas (remember, it's their back yard right now!) and Sam Kass (whose garden project makes it all possible) to get their credit, too.

But I bet you want a look in, too.

how to work first hiveWith apologies for the rough crop of the photo, this is how you work the White House bees: on a board set on two sawhorses. It helps to coordinate your movements and to balance anything you are up to with the other person up there! It is a surprisingly stable solution, with the plus that the bees that fall during a manipulation don't end up getting stomped, and you don't have to tuck in your socks to keep them from crawling up a pants leg! The groovy piece of woodenware (the one shielded by some plexiglass near the holes) is a vent of Charlie's own design. The plexi helps moderate high winds, whether natural or from helicopters. One unforeseen benefit of the hive scaffold: it is really easy to look up through the screened bottom board to see where/how tight the bees are clustering.

As you might imagine, a couple of key concerns for bees in this location are swarm control, and monitoring temperament. Our visit today was mostly around the former: to keep tabs on how they are building up and reverse the hive bodies if that seemed useful, and to make sure there were enough supers in place for the current and soon-to-be-upcoming nectar flow.

First Queen BeeTo my mind, Charlie's queen is a good one for the job. The bees were extremely peaceful and gentle, and her pattern was OK, though not gangbusters. In a situation like this, I am all for the happy medium in terms of brood production! The drone brood was in the right place, she seemed to lay more from right to left than in a spiral starting in the center of the frame. You can click that picture of her for a slightly larger version.

When we opened some drone brood, there was a minimal presence of varroa. There were no k-wings and I saw no mites on bees. The hive has three medium supers with drawn comb, there is a fair amount of nectar in the first two, so Charlie is out ahead of this one. They had put aside some honey down below, but I am seeing that at home, too. Nice white cappings.

small swarmFinally, as I was saying goodbye, Charlie got a call aboutanother swarm at the north gate! I said I would take it if accessible. So we checked it out. It was clearly a second swarm, probably thrown off of the same nearby hive that produced the famous one last week: about 2 pounds (1 kg) of bees (image is clickable for a better view). Since I am giving away a split this weekend, I thought my friend might want this queen to go with it!

Charlie got me a box, poked some holes in it with a nail, and we borrowed some bolt cutters from the carpentry shop to lop a small limb off the swarm bush. Sorry bush! He sealed the box shut with blue gaffer's tape, and in a supporting page (a bit later) I will tell you about my hapless adventures in hiving it when I got home.

So once again, thank you for including me in this adventure, for doing such a wonderful thing, and for taking care of those girls the way any one of us would hope our own home hives get tended. I hope you get as much help as you could possibly need in helping them thrive so close to the heart of our nation!