Backyard Bee Hive Blog

If you are buying bees for 2012, buy them NOW!

2012-01-17T11:57:00.000-07:00

Much of the bee supply comes from the colonies built-up from almond pollination, which is about to start. Packages and nucs can be in short supply if the build-up isn't as strong as hoped, and they will sell out fast with the every-growing number of new beekeepers, and beekeepers replacing Winter losses. For best pricing on package bees, contact your local beekeeping club as they are surely placing a bulk order. (See the Resources page for links to local clubs.)

This almond orchard reminds me of the graveyards in Queens.

For nucs, try to find a local producer. My goals as a beekeeper are confined to sustainability and survivability (not honey-production, not gentleness on the comb, not non-stingy/swarmy...) so a local queen is important to me. I lucked out with Grampa's Honey, which is selling nucs with Survivor queens, as well as Buckfast, Carniolan and Italian queens. I'm almost positive they are chem-free beekeepers, and they're not coming out of the almonds, which is a big plus IMO. ZiaQueenBees is definitely chem-free. They'll start taking orders soon and they WILL sell out. If you're in Durango, while not treatment-free, ApisHive is a new option for top-bar nucs (pick-up only). Scientificbeekeeping is not local to me but Randy Oliver's northern CA nucs are notable. Like ZQB, he's producing some with proven, fat queens. ZQB says overwintered queens are Cream of the Crop!

If you plan on starting with a swarm, contact your local beekeeping club and get your name on their swarm list. If they haven't started their list yet, ask them when they are and call again then. Swarming season won't start until April, but it's first-come first-served so you want your name at the top of the list. Your bees will have a lot of work to do.

If you are starting with mason bees, order them NOW, too. There are not a lot of suppliers, so what's available sells out. We bought our Blue Orchard Bees last February from seemingly the last available anywhere, at USABirdSupply, and are very happy with what we received, house and all. But had we planned earlier we would've bought from MasonBeesForSale since they have BOBs that are a "hearty mountain bee" in the correct ratio of male to female cocoons.

And for my last bit of advice, be sure to check retailmenot for discount codes whenever you shop online.

P.S. Thanks, TB, for inspiring this post.

Nucleus Colony with a Grampa

2012-01-02T00:00:00.000-07:00

Your Receipt

Product

Nucleus Colony with a Grampa

LOL too funny! Grampas Honey is now selling nucleus hives with a selection of bee races to pick from, including stock with a Grampa’s Gourmet “Old School Survivor” Queen. The underlined part is the part that got cut off on my receipt. This is a fantastic opportunity, and one that won't last long. If you're in CO and in need of bees, go buy your bees and then come back to the Backyard. I need your opinion.

DeLaney Farm Apiary, New Year's Day

Book Review: Honey and Dust

2011-12-22T14:55:00.001-07:00

Honey and Dust: Travels in Search of Sweetness by Piers Moore Ede

"Chinese poetry speaks of something called 'the dust world'. The term occurs often, especially in the work of the Taoist poets of the T'ang dynasty, who were also concerned about the plight of nature. 'The dust world' was what they called that mundane area of human affairs – unimportant, to their mind, beside the vastness and profundity of the wild. For some reason this term stayed very much in my mind during the period of the accident and the adventures which came after. It seemed so fitting as a motif of what I was running from. Honey on the other hand, with all its myriad connotations, seemed exactly what I should be running towards."- excerpt from Chapter Two

Having been seriously injured, the author falls into a depression and has to discover how to live again. He begins with a quest to find beekeepers and real honey, starting in Italy.

I, like another reviewer, struggled with the personal narrative. But after reading and digesting the memoir, the beginning explained the end. Ede's near-fatal accident was his personal "dust" to put aside, which he finally realizes in the part of the book that seemed most out-of-place, as it has nothing to do with beekeeping or honey. But in the end, his meditation retreat has everything to so with Sweetness. The book is as much about his physical travels as it is about his metaphorical journey to understand the Sweetness of Being.

"So I started breathing again. Returned my attention to the breath. The heart slowed. A calm came over me. The image faded, the mind still once again as I sat, waging my own internal war against the world, which is nothing but my own imagination."

And so it is with beekeeping. When you stop thinking about will the neighbors see me, or about getting stung, whatever your personal dust might be — and just observe – your breathing, their voice, the mesmerizing coming and going — that's the Sweetness of Being.

To celebrate the Turn of Days and start of a new year, we wish you a dust-free holiday and Sweet year ahead. -- BB and HB

Book Review: Plan Bee

2011-12-20T13:32:00.000-07:00

by Susan Brackney
It all started with chickens. A familiar beginning to a familiar story. Here we have another accidental beekeeper, telling her story of becoming a beekeeper, weaving in some facts, history and lore, and hoping you, too, find yourself smitten by the honeybee.

Likes: very light reading and the author's fessing up to a multitude of beginner errors. Though I have not tested any, there are some recipes, too.
Dislikes: I'd NEVER make it far on Fear Factor, so it bothers me that people out there think it's perfectly fine to process honey by crushing honeycombs with brood and all. Beginner or not, that's just gross.

BTW, I found Plan Bee for $5 at The Tattered Cover on the bargain bookshelf. Check it out. You just might find a little treasure yourself.

A Closer Look: Bee Culture vs ABJ

2011-12-05T14:55:00.001-07:00

Goldenrod Pollen

Bee Culture and American Bee Journal are the two primary magazines for beekeepers in the US. They are not sold on newsstands, so I bought subscriptions. Once a month, they arrive in my mailbox within a day or two of each other and I eagerly read them both.

My brain is hypersensitive to all manner of sensory inputs, and initially they both urked me with their plethora of spelling and grammatical errors, and just poor editing. The content of the magazines is good, though. Both try to serve commercial beekeepers as well as the surge of new hobbyists, and it makes for a good mix. The topics covered are similar, so much so that there is one story that appears in both titles this month. Having decided that they are too similar to subscribe to both, I am unable to pick which one. I need your help. I'm going to tell you what I like/don't like about each, and if you subscribe I want to know what you like/don't like.

Bee Culture
"The Inner Cover," Kim Flottum's editorial column each month is usually pretty interesting, and he's even mentioned his Top Bar Hive once or twice. But Catch the Buzz and blog.beeculture.com are just as interesting (and free). The closing article each month, "The Bottom Board," is by Ed Colby. He keeps bees on Aspen Mountain and while that may be a few hours from here, it's still Colorado. When you don't have a mentor readily available, reading what a "local" has to say every month is nice. In between, over the course of the past year, I bookmarked just 3 articles for future reference.

American Bee Journal
Like the driver in front of me turning his head around backwards to see the accident on the other side of the highway, for some reason I read the "Classroom" Q&A section. Jerry Hayes has a way with words that seems abrasive to me, but if you ignore the delivery and pay attention to the information, the section usually has some tidbit of useful information. Occasionally, Dr. Wyatt Mangum will write an article on Top Bar Hives. Over the course of the past year, I bookmarked 4 articles for future reference, including this month's article on top entrances and management of Top Bar Hives. (The second TBH we just built is just begging for modification.)

Am I missing anything? Subscribers, what should I take a closer look at? Both magazines run about $25 for a year, which isn't a lot but could mean the difference between buying that honey refractometer or not. If you call to subscribe, you can get a 20% (?) discount by telling them you belong to a bee club. ~~I don't know if it works for renewals but I will find out for sure. Leave a comment if you want to know the answer. poke poke.~~

Shea Butter Soap

2011-11-10T15:30:00.000-07:00

Shea Butter Guest Soaps

As I've mentioned before, once you master a technique, recipes become very simple and it's easy to make them your own. But there are tips and tricks and little details that are easy to forget, that lead to success or failure when you customize. That's what this post is about.

Inspired by The Everything Soapmaking Book "Basic Cold Process Soap Recipe," I made this batch of soap with just one customization. I superfatted it with moisturizing shea butter, added at light trace.

Light trace is also when fragrance oils should be added, as some of them will cause your soap base to seize. To be safe, it's a good habit to blend the fragrance oil into castor oil first. Once you've added the fragrance blend, only use a spoon or whisk to stir, as a stick blender can cause the soap to seize.

A second batch, in the mold right now, is somewhat lumpy. I'm not sure what happened. Was it the beeswax cappings I added? Or the Wisteria fragrance oil? Forgetting to stir it into castor oil first? Or the pomace grade, which sets up harder than virgin, olive oil? Ugh... so many details to consider. I'll tweet a review in a couple of days, once it's out of the mold. For now, here's the recipe used to make the soaps that are curing in the picture.

Shea Butter Soap
10 oz. light olive oil
6 oz. coconut oil
1 T. shea butter
6 fl. oz. water
2.25 oz. lye (NaOH)
1 T. fragrance oil (optional: I highly recommend Brambleberry's Fresh Zucchini Flower)

Technique: cold process
Target temps: 110–150°F (higher temp for small molds)
Mold requirements: 3 cup capacity
Time in molds: 48+ hrs
Time to maturity: 4 weeks

Final Results: 16 guest-size moisturizing bars
Color: creamy white
Aroma: softly floral
Lather: low

UPDATE 11-14-2011
The wisteria-scented batch came out of the mold, leaking fragrance oil a bit. Once the batter started to trace heavily, I was gun-shy about stirring it more and making it seize, so did not blend the oil in thoroughly. There are even one or two burnt-orange spots, where the oil is not blended in at all. Research says it's just a cosmetic blemish, as long as you're not sensitive to fragrance oils. I set 4 bars aside to be French milled. The remaining bars are curing quite nicely and giving off the lightest floral scent imagineable.

I don't think it was the FO that caused the heavy trace, as I've used it before without problems, so perhaps the culprit was the pomace-grade oil. I'm a fan of it's price but not of the alabaster color it produces. From now on, for hard longer-lasting soaps, I'll stick with just adding beeswax to light-colored oils. Besides, it only makes sense, to make the soap a true Backyard Bee Hive product.

I have tried adding honey, but again I don't like non-white bars of soap. Do you? Beeswax, which is thoroughly melted into the oils at 150°F, really seems to be the ticket, as it also increases the soap's emollient properties.

A colleague of mine has asked me to make these soaps and assorted bath products to sell at a craft show next month. Currently the menu includes soaps, sugar scrubs, effervescent bath salts and lip balm. What else should I make? What would you like to see?

UPDATE on the UPDATE 12-15-2011: The sample sets included bath bombs, too, and we're sold out of everything! It's time to make more, but this time we're stepping it up a notch. Anyone care to guess what luxury ingredients we'll be using?

Harvesting the Mason Bees

2011-10-27T16:14:00.004-06:00

We first wrote about these bees in May.

These are a couple of mason bees that never emerged. We got them at the very end of the mail order season, and they'd probably been in storage too long. Unlike honeybees, mason bees don't have honey stores on which to overwinter. All they have is fat reserves in their body. If stored too long, they use up their reserves and can become too weak to chew their way out of their cocoon. The rest appear to have emerged successfully but dispersed, meaning they flew away instead of nesting in the Mason Bee Chalet. LESSON LEARNED: don't buy bees on close-out.

I have no idea what went wrong here. These are leafcutter bees that emerged prematurely. According to the literature, the proper time for them to emerge is May. They are about 1/3 to 1/2 the size of a normal adult bee. (No, they're not alive.)

See the mother bee here.

If she doesn't like it, the mother mason bee has to spend a lot of energy chewing out the paper liner. Most of the tubes remained lined or partially lined. LESSON LEARNED: leave some tubes unlined.

My guess was that there would be 6 or seven cocoons per tube, so was very surprised to find 11 in one. That mother was very prolific!

I suppose the more debris the better. It must mean the bees had a lot of food to eat before spinning their cocoons. The black specks are poop.

You can see the eggs that failed to hatch, still attached to their provisions.

These 3 larvae barely spun their cocoon.

Timing probably affects the mother bee's success rate. If your place your cocoons out so that your bees emerge too soon before or, worse, after the main Spring trees bloom, she may not have readily available pollen with which to provision her young.

Not counting the close-out bees, our harvest yielded more than double the 24 cocoons we started off with: 55 cocoons total, 39 females and 16 males. I put them all in one QuickLock tray for hibernation. In the normal order of things, one would not harvest cocoons. But just as a window in a hive is helpful for a new honeybee beekeeper, I think harvesting mason bee cocoons is an important thing to do. It helps you understand what is "normal" so in subsequent years you don't have to go digging around where you're not needed. In case you missed my tweet, here's what Crown Bees has to say about harvesting.

To keep some semblance of what would occur naturally, I kept the cocoons in the order in which they were laid with the mud chamber separator the mother bee provided each bee. And now, into the refrigerator they go, until March of 2013.

Winterizing your bee hive for winter. Colorado temps drop Wednesday night!

2011-10-24T17:39:00.000-06:00

Still don't know what the tiny green things are. Will let you know if they've changed when we harvest the BOB and leafcutter bee cocoons. Seems like a good "snow day" thing to do, so stay tuned...

This is an email I just received from backyardhive.com, the company from which we bought our original hive. If you would like to receive emails like this, send a request to the email at the bottom of the post.

The Colorado weather forecast calls for a sudden drop in temperature this Wednesday night. The temperatures will go from 70°F today, 50°F tomorrow and then into the teens by Wednesday night. You can do some winterizing steps to help out your bees.

The bees normally cluster in a tight ball between the combs to keep warm in freezing temperatures. Since the bees have not been in a cluster due to this warm weather, the sudden drop in temperature may catch them by surprise and they may not all get into a full cluster as nicely as they should.

So you can help them out by:

1: Insulating:
Put some insulation, a warm blanket or the like on your hive Tuesday night. You can always get a better setup once the weather warms back up again. Also placing a roof on the hive adds extra warmth. Blue insulation board can be used underneath the roof for added insulation. Stacking straw bales around the hive can be used for when we are deep into winter temperatures and the days and nights are staying cold.

2: Moving the Falseback:
You can move your falseback, placing it behind the last full comb in the hive, at the back of the hive. If you have some partially drawn out combs or empty combs at the back of the hive you can place the falseback in front of these combs. Moving the falseback forward creates a smaller area that the bees have to keep warm.

3: Feeding Your Bees:
If your hive is only about half full of combs, you can feed your bees. Refer to the article, Winter Feeding in a Top Bar Hive, on our website for more details on how to do this. If the bees have filled up ¾ of the hive with combs, it is not necessary to feed them.

4: Reducing the Entrance:
This is an important topic! Since we are seeing different weather patterns and anomalies in the weather, we no longer sell the entrance reducers. Placing an entrance reducer in now can over heat the hive once the temperatures warm up again. There needs to be circulation in the hive when the temperatures reach the 60s or 70s.

You may not need to reduce down the entrance of the hive if the bees have done it on their own with propolis. Some colonies won't have propolised their entrance and you can help them out by placing some straw, twigs or grass, over part of the entrance. The bees will be able to push out straw, twigs or grass if they need to, regulating the entrance opening. You may need to replace the straw, twigs or grass if they push it out when the weather warms up and they still have not propolised their entrance. Just keep a watch on this.

If you do feed your bees, remember that once the weather warms up again, the honey in the dish, inside the hive, attracts all kinds of robbers. Bees from other hives, yellow jackets, etc. Your bees should be able to fend off these robbers. But if you have a weak hive, a low number of bees or they have not propolised their entrance you can help them out by using the straw, twigs or grass method.

Lastly we will have wooden covered blue insulation panels available next week if you are wanting an alternative to the “cozy cover” we currently offer on our website. Look for the email when those will be available for purchase.

Please check out the articles on our website: http://www.backyardhive.com
They offer more detail and have pictures: Winter Feeding in a Top Bar Hive and Insulating your Hive

Happy fall to everyone and their bees!
Karen, Corwin and the BackYardHive Team
karen@backyardhive.com

East Coast Representin'

2011-10-21T19:39:00.000-06:00

Notice anything about this house?

Rabbitbrush

2011-10-11T14:05:00.000-06:00

Chamisa in bloom at Bluff Lake Nature Center

I took this photo last year, and the scene looked pretty much identical this weekend. What I noticed this year, though, is the intense aroma of the rabbitbrush. The air was saturated with the smell of socks at the bottom of the hamper. Which brings me to a small correction.

While picking up my flattened-to-the-ground goldenrod, I selected a few stalks to bring inside. It's actually quite a nice cut flower, lasting several days inside easily. But yesterday afternoon, I smelled that smell. In the house. It was just like the rabbitbrush. Experienced beekeepers often say that goldenrod honey smells like gym socks, and so I stuck my nose into the vase full of flowers. Then spent the next 5 minutes sneezing uncontrollably. So, goldenrod pollen does indeed cause autumn allergies... if you stick your face in it.

Goldenrod

2011-10-09T13:47:00.000-06:00

This is what I ordered.

This is what is growing.

Solidago 'Wichita Mountains' is supposed to grow to 30". Ours is 48" and loosely floriferous. It doesn't particularly like being planted on a slope, and high winds the other day laid it flat to the ground which, being downhill, resulted in both clumps being uprooted. When the rain/snow stops, I'll go fix that.

I can't figure out how HCG managed to take a picture without a single bee in it, because they clearly love goldenrod. It is an important late season source of both nectar and pollen. The bees are feverishly making as much honey as they can, to take them through Winter. And packing away pollen, too, so that it will be available in February when the Queen is actively laying again yet no fresh pollen (baby food) will be available.

Speaking of goldenrod pollen... if you're thinking, "Goldenrod? Just looking at it makes me sneeze," think again. It's actually ragweed that causes Autumn allergies, as it's pollen takes to the air easily. Goldenrod pollen is heavy and sticky making it not readily airborne. It's almost as if it were designed for the bees to collect and disseminate.

If you're into flower gardening and honeybees, I highly recommend Solidago 'Wichita Mountains'. It doesn't need much water, takes full sun, and is freely flowering at a time when little else is. Its spiked, usually upright form looks great with densely mounded purple New England Aster, another honeybee favorite. Just remember, it's a back-of-the garden type of plant that will need to be cut down each year to keep it tidy.

I Should be Committed. Care to Join Me?

2011-10-02T00:00:00.000-06:00

"They're coming to take me away haha."--Napoleon XIV

Had I any idea what is involved in organizing a charity walk from scratch, I'd never have opened my mouth. I've had no time for bees at all, because I found myself elected to the Walkathon Committee. Between work, major projects in the Backyard (a second hive AND new bees are on the way, so stay tuned...) and inventing the wheel, I am ready to be committed ho ho, hee hee, ha ha.

But lookit! All the dain bramage I've gotten from building this blog paid off, and I've set up both a web page for people to sign-up for the walk and a page strictly for fundraising. The walk will benefit the MdDS Foundation, which is working to find a cure for me. In case you don't know, my brain is literally damaged. It happened on a plane flight and now my brain can't tell if I'm moving or the world around me is moving. You'd never know it by looking at me - it's an invisible illness- but I feel like a bobble head doll. It's like having sea legs for weeks and weeks, only for me I have plane brain and it's been 4 years. But that's enough about me.

Through the magic of Google, I found the MdDS Foundation and MdDSers around the world: Great Britain, Sweden, Australia, Canada and more countries than I can list. I even found a couple of MdDSers in the Denver area. So that is how three brain-damaged women came to put together an international charity walk and virtual walk. We hope to work some magic of our own, since there is no cure for MdDS. Yet.

The foundation's slogan is "We Rock!... but We Don't Want To." A groaner, I know. But it gave us the nickname for our walk, the Rock'n Stroll. It's set for October 16 and there is a two-for-one matching donation program in place. For every dollar we raise, an anonymous donor will match it with two more! So we invite you to join us on that day whether you live in Italy, Germany, Turkey or Greece... If you live in the US or Europe, we've even got a cool graphic tee for you. Gratis!

AND... I'm negotiating schwag for Team Challengers. Team Spokane is leading the US, ahead of Team New England. Team UK is bringing up the rear. How about your neck of the woods? Come on... take the challenge.

The big orange button will take you to the sign-up page with all the details.

THANK YOU

P.S.: the bold countries are where most of my regular blog readers live. The map below shows where we have cyberwalkers. Pretty neat, don't you think?

View International Walk for MdDS in a larger map

Top-Bar Beekeepers Meeting: Beeswax Candles

2011-09-15T14:41:00.001-06:00

In my experience, the crush-and-strain method yields about about one pound of wax for every 20lbs of honey harvested. When you're just starting off and haven't harvested much, you won't have a lot of beeswax to deal with. If you're looking to craft something homemade, soap or hand cream, which call for very small amounts of beeswax, are good options.

Once you've harvested a few times and have more soap than you know what to do with, the easiest thing to do with it is make candles. At the last meeting of the Top-Bar Beekeepers Association, Marty Hardison showed us how he makes candles using wax harvested from his hives.

Marty has something like 30 hives, so that's a lot of wax! While we didn't end up with samples from last month's honey harvest (Marty now sells his surplus honey), each member of the Top-Bar Beekeepers Association took home two candles, one of each size.

The key features of beeswax candles are that they are dripless and smokeless. Everything the honeybee makes is super-efficient. I wish I could post their aroma... the scent of honey and propolis and the life of a hive are indescribable. If only someone could develop a scratch-n-sniff widget. How awesome would that be?

OK, back to reality. If you plan on making candles, here's some math to help you determine how much wax you'll need. The 6" taper and the 10" taper weigh 1.5 and 2.75 oz., respectively. The molds cost about $40 each. Brushymountainbeefarm.com has some that are similar to the ones in the slideshow. There's a variety of wick sizes to use depending on candle shapes, and we used a #2 braided wick, which is easy for first-time candle-makers to work with. I've never shopped Blossomland, but they carry 2/0 wicking for beeswax tapers. I have shopped and like GloryBeeFoods and Dadant. They sell lots of other beekeeping stuff and service is good, too.

In bloom at DeLaney Farm

2011-09-11T15:37:00.001-06:00

Bolted Broccoli

We never did get to sample any of the farm honey, but we came home from the last meeting of the Top-Bar Beekeepers with beeswax candles. Pictures are on the way... they'll be up in the next few days.

Meanwhile, what's blooming in your backyard?

Top-Bar Beekeepers Meeting: Honey Harvest

2011-08-13T23:54:00.005-06:00

A slideshow and some bullet points from the August meeting of the Top-Bar Beekeepers at DeLaney Farm. Leave a comment w/any questions.

IN THE SLIDESHOW
* Update on the hive that was combined last month.
* "Best" style of top bars to use.
* What is the best kind of bee brush to use?
* Using a pollen trap.
* How to crush and strain honey.

SOME TAKE-AWAYS FROM THE MTG
Conditions for Harvesting
* July and August were record-breaking dry and hot, so not much honey was made this Summer.
* The only significant plants yet to bloom are rabbitbrush and goldenrod, not ideal for another harvest; today's harvest will be the last of the year.

What to Take and What to Leave
* Any comb that is at least 50% capped is harvestable since it's so dry in CO.
* The minimum number of combs needed for overwintering is 15.
* In the past Marty has said 12, but conditions have changed and 15 is a better bet. The past decade has seen weather records broken routinely: most number of days in the 90s, coldest Winter ever, driest Summer ever, etc.

When to Restrict the Hive
* the falseback is normally put in the hive in October, but we may do it early at next month's meeting.

REMINDER
The September Top-Bar Beekeepers meeting at the farm, the last one of the year, is on the 10th at 9AM.

TRIVIA QUESTION
According to Marty, using a smoker is "____________________________." Fill in the blank. A The correct answer wins the last giveaway prize that wasn't claimed in time. (Be sure to read the rules.)

Top-Bar Beekeepers Meeting: Combining and Splitting

2011-07-20T10:27:00.002-06:00

Listen to the recording and find out:

How to smuggle a queen bee across state lines.
What to do with a hive that's gonna explode.
Why the bees are hanging out in front all the time.

This Hive's about to Blow by BBHB

Then in this slideshow, see how Marty Hardison combines two weak colonies and then splits a booming one. Click anywhere in the black area surrounding the pictures to go off-site to the Picasa Web Album, where you can see full-size images and read the captions at your leisure. You can also control video playback there.

Last but not least, also posted on SoundCloud, there is another audio recording that contains Pearls of Wisdom for Colorado Beekeepers. Have a listen – you'll get a sneak preview of next month's Top-Bar Hive Beekeepers meeting at the DeLaney Community Farm.

Silly Ol' Bear

2011-07-15T14:18:00.001-06:00

One can never be too old for silly ol' Pooh.

Top-Bar Beekeepers Meeting: Building a Top Bar Hive

2011-07-06T17:05:00.001-06:00

Last month, Marty Hardison addressed the first association meeting at the DeLaney Community Farm, built a complete Top Bar Hive and then inspected 4 hives in the apiary. All before lunch!

Recording of the meeting (30min) by BBHB

The next meeting will be held at the DeLaney Community Farm, Saturday, July 9th at 9:00am. Expect more fun and exciting stuff! For directions and to RSVP, click here.

One of These is Not Like the Others

2011-06-30T10:06:00.004-06:00

Who can tell me what's going on here? Leave a comment if you think you know. There just might be a prize for the winning answer.

7/11/11: WINNER ANNOUNCEMENT
See how easy that was? The winning comment was the only comment. Whizbo, please DM @Hello_Kitty_ or email me (backyardbee @ comcast(dot)net) to claim your prize.

Mock Orange

2011-06-24T17:04:00.003-06:00

Loving the Mockorange

For years, the city has struggled with what to plant at City Center Park. Although not irrigated, the west side is sloped and washes out whenever we get rain. (Generally, when it rains it POURS here.) The various mulches they've tried have invariably ended up all over the walking path surrounding the pond. The mulch is critical to any plants success, though, as we only get 14 inches of rain a year, if that. Like me, the city is on a quest to use only xeriscape plants, and I think they've hit the jackpot with mockoranges. The 5 or 6 shrubs not only are thriving, the bees are loving them!

What's Blooming in the 'hood
LINDENS, yellow sweet clover and alfalfa - oh the honey that must be being made!!
These are some of my favorite perennial pairings going gangbusters right now:
'Hidcote' lavender and foxtail lilies
rocky mountain penstemon and 'Arizona Sun' gaillardia
catmint and jupiter's beard
purple sage and 'Stella d'Oro' daylilies

RANT: Natural My @SS

2011-06-17T11:38:00.004-06:00

I am so sick of people questioning others' desire to super their TBH, saying it's "not natural." Why do some presume that all TBH beekeepers are "natural" beekeepers? Face it, people, keeping bees in a box is not natural, no matter how you shape it. Especially here in The States. Doesn't matter what you put in/don't put in, on or under a hive, European honeybees are, well, European.

Can't we just keep bees because we want to keep bees, and keep it at that? A beekeeper's motivation is personal and it should not be questioned. It's not any of our business, any more than another person's religious orientation.

Of course everyone is entitled to an opinion. I just don't see how opinions, in and of themselves, are very helpful. Too often, a question is posed in the forums and all the inquirer gets is opinion. I would like to see presumptions/assumptions put aside so when a new beekeeper asks, "Can I super my TBH?" they simply get an answer (which would be "Yes") and no BS. e.g.: a) "Top Bar Hives are supposed to be natural." There's that word! along with a presumption! Or b) "I don't get the whole going with TBH, then supering thing." That's not an answer people!

Native bee on Gaillardia 'Arizona Sun'

Which leads me to another thing. I implore all forum participants, before you hit "Submit," ask yourself, "Have I answered the question?" If you can't say, "Yes" did you at least provide a lead? If not, don't hit that button. Please. And Thank You.

That Picture I Promised & a Favor in Return?

2011-06-15T19:10:00.003-06:00

White-lined Sphinx Moth (Hyles lineata) on Evening Primrose (Oenothera spp.)

The long tongue of the Sphinx Moth is designed for the Evening Primrose. The deep tubular nectary holds high-calorie food, and the white flowers are easy to see in the evening, when they come out to eat.

Work's been a bit distracting lately, but I'm working on the update on the DeLaney Farm Apiary. Saturday morning at the farm was quite interesting, especially as we got to look into 4 top bar hives. Stay tuned...

Meanwhile, can you do me a favor? Do you see a +1 just below? If you do, can you click on it for me? I'm wondering what it does. THX!

A Study in Pink

2011-06-14T14:28:00.002-06:00

This poor evening primrose is desperate for a pollinator, so the very edges of the petals have turned pink. I've never seen this before. Normally the flower opens up at dusk, a moth visits, and the flower shrivels as it begins the task of setting seed. Each day a bud or two further along the stalk opens up to entice more moths.

Evening Primrose

The flower on the left is the "king flower" of our stand of evening primrose, and it's 3 days old! The moths don't seem to be aware of this rich nectar source yet. Subsequent blooms won't go unrequited though, as the sphinx moth in the picture below will be sure to tell friends about The Backyard.

Nessus Sphinx Moth on Soapwort

Bee flies are parasitoids, following leafcutter bees back to their nest and laying eggs there. Not only does the bee fly larva eat the provisions gathered by the leafcutter mother, it also eats the leafcutter bee egg or larva.

Honey bee on 'Rose Queen' sage which, unlike 'Mainacht', adorns the bees' heads with pollen.

Bumble Bee on 'Biokovo' Hardy Geranium

Orange Belted Bumble Bee on Buckeye Tree carrying orange-belted pollen!

Ultragreen Sweat Bee on Jupiter's Beard (Catmint in the bkgd)

Morrison's Bumble Bee Sleeping on Late Lilac

Focusing on honeybees for a moment, they will forage on most of these flowers but not all. The exceptions are those with nectaries too deep for the honeybee proboscis: the evening primrose and the lilac. There's a good shot showing the long tongue of a White Lined Sphinx Moth in the What's Blooming web album (in the Gallery) but I've got a great one archived. I'll post it later when I'm not at work ;)

Reminder: Top Bar Hive Meeting, DeLaney Community Farm

2011-06-09T08:13:00.003-06:00

The first Top-Bar Beekeeping Association Meeting will be this Saturday, the 11th at 9 am. The farm is requesting an RSVP via their website http://dug.org/delaney-workshops/

Here is what the apiary looks like right now.

I'm really looking forward to finding out what the story is here.

See you at the farm...

What's Blooming

2011-06-02T14:23:00.002-06:00

This small bumble bee was joined by a huge Bombus Morrisoni a minute later.

Just a reminder: the Gallery shows What's Blooming in the Backyard. You can click on the album title to go to the Picasa web album, which features full-size images with captions. The album is organized by season, starting with Spring, so you might see a picture of the 'Mainacht' salvia in bloom today next to one of the same salvia blooming in June of 2008. Typically, I won't show a plant more than once unless there's something of special interest on it, such as a rare or unusual pollinator. There are a few. And there are some fun non-insect visitors, too. I invite you to check it out, and enjoy a full year of What's Blooming in the Backyard.