Linda's Bees

Bill Owens Speaks to the Metro Bee Club

2012-02-16T22:54:00.000-05:00

Last Wednesday, Bill Owens, Georgia's only Master Craftsman Beekeeper (the highest rank you can attain) spoke to our club about his bee removal business. Bill is a great communicator and an entertaining speaker. I enjoyed his talk a lot, although I will not, being constructionally challenged to the max, be doing bee removals from structures.

Bill talked about the importance of customer relations - a job at which I am sure he is spectacular - and the importance of educating the public about the difference between bees and hornets. One thing he said that surprised me is that it is an easier removal if the cutting into the structure takes place inside the house rather than outside. He said bees in the house are much more easily moved into a container than those outside who seem much more upset by the process.

He shared a list of the tools and equipment he carries to a hive removal. He doesn't list it but he also has in his kit a cookie sheet with a long handle attached. He uses that to slide under a mass of bees in narrow spaces!

Bill stayed afterward to answer questions about what's going on in the bee yard. Interestingly he spoke about feeding the bees. Bill doesn't use any chemicals in his 60 or so hives, and he rarely feeds the bees. He said spring feeding is stimulative feeding and who are we to determine when the hive needs to be at its peak. So he sees no point in taking the risk of stimulating the hive to grow rapidly and then finding out that it was wrong timing.

If he feeds a hive going into winter, then something is wrong or the hive would have enough stores. So he works for healthy hives and not for hives that need his assistance through sugar syrup.

Pick myself up, Dust myself off, and Start all over again…..

2012-02-16T22:41:00.000-05:00

For days I had been seeing lots of bees flying in and out of my one remaining hive at home. I assumed they were alive and well and given the Atlanta extra warm winter, I should be ready to checkerboard to help expand the brood nest as Michael Bush talks about in his book and on his website.

So last Monday, I went out, bee bag in hand, planning to expand the broodnest.

I took a box of empty frames with foundation strips, ready to do the job.

I opened it up, went through every box, and found that in fact, the hive was dead - no bees, no brood, just stored nectar and a few bodies on the screened bottom board (AGAIN). The bees flying in and out of the hive in great numbers were not residents, but rather either robbers or scouts……I had to go back to the office and was so upset that when I returned to my business clothes and got to my office, I looked down and I had on two different shoes!

Well, who can blame me? This was quite upsetting. I now have no hives alive at home.

The only possible good news is that bees continue to go in and out of that hive in large numbers. They don't appear to be robbing so I am hoping a swarm will move in in a week! Fingers crossed.

I do have five packages ordered from Don K and 2 nuts ordered from Jerry, so I should be OK in the start all over again department.

Note: This is my 950th post - that means I'll pass 1000 in 2012!

Richard Taylor, a Lyrical Beekeeper

2012-02-06T23:07:00.003-05:00

As spring approaches, I am always drawn back to The Joys of Beekeeping by Richard Taylor. I've quoted him in other places on this blog. He loves the bees and the experience of being with them. His book which is quite short (166 pages) is so nurturing to read and replenishes my spirit about the bees every time I read it.

This is what he writes about his bee yard (I'm going to quote several paragraphs and hope I'm not violating copyright):

"But the bee yard, when not the scene of herculean labors, as at harvest time, is largely a place of quiet where one feels not alone but rather an integral part of the scheme of things. Solitude is not really the word for it. Communion is. One is not separated from company but only from distraction. One's thoughts and feelings are not imposed from without but elicited from within, rising in absorption with the vast surrounding nature.

The hum of bees overhead, which in spring and during a honey flow approaches a roar, is to me what the sound of the surf is to the beachcomber. It is not a menace or warning, but a reassurance, almost a voice speaking. It would instantly carry the thoughts of others, the uninitiated, to the association with stings. The sight of the bee master, placidly standing in the midst of this roar, would give an outsider no reassurance at all. The rare intruder who comes upon me in one of my yards, therefore retreats, and the yard and its master are again as secure as if surrounded by a high wall.

Smaller visitors, feathered and furred, come and go at will, of course, as oblivious to the bees as the bees are to them. The chatter of the birds is unabated, and my appearance produces a squeak from an occasional chipmunk. Off in the meadow a pheasant gives warning to her chicks. But in general all these living things share the peace with me, and I shall always keep it with them. The bees themselves have very few enemies, and I am glad to move about my yard with the understanding that, from the standpoint of nature, this domain is primarily theirs."

Isn't that perfectly lovely? And isn't that your own experience of your own bee yard? It is my experience of mine, though I am not so eloquent. Thank you, Richard Taylor, for expressing it so beautifully.

And on this lovely bee day, my daughter brought me this treasure she and Jeff found in an antique store in Thomaston, GA:

In celebration of the bee, this now sits in my bookcase on the shelf with all the old bee books like AI Root's the ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture.

The skep is on hinges at the back and lifts up, but I have no idea what one would put under it.

The Amazing Queen Bee

2012-02-04T10:05:00.000-05:00

In this morning's email from Naturebee, there is an interesting piece of trivia about the queen bee (assuming a life span of three years). Times have certainly changed - note the length of the chicken egg used for comparison in this 1895 article is 1 1/2 inches - just dawned on me from the photo below (not with the article) that they may have measured the breadth of the egg - I assumed end to end since they referred to the length of the bee egg. There are no eggs in my refrigerator this morning shorter in length than 2 1/4 inches. The queen would still win out by a very long distance:

* A queen will lay a half mile of eggs
in her life time (three years), while a
hen in the same time, allowing 200 eggs
a year and one and one-half inch to the
egg, will only lay seventy-five feet of
eggs. A queen bee's egg is one-fourteenth
of an inch in length.

Source:
Homestead
Friday, March 22, 1895 Des Moines, Iowa

Groundhog's Day and Bees

2012-02-03T14:24:00.001-05:00

Bee-ing a beekeeper makes one ultra-conscious about the weather. So like many people in the country, I had my eye out for the news about the groundhog yesterday. Apparently Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow and predicted six more weeks of winter.

However, my bees are in Georgia, so I was more interested in what General Beauregard Lee, our local groundhog prognosticator, had to share on this subject.

I had a video here but removed it because it started automatically and was loud and irritating.
So here's a link that says the General is generally right (not a video).

Our local ground hog apparently did not see his shadow on our cloudy February 2nd morning, so he predicted an early spring. I found another link saying that he is right 94% of the time...pretty good record for a varmit like he is.

I could have told him that. We've had the warmest winter I can remember, maybe in all the time I've lived in Atlanta. I only put on my long winter coat one day in the last three months. It is not unusual for us to have a snow storm in March, but I don't expect it this year.

The dandelions are blooming as is the red maple, our first pollen contributor of the spring. Everyone's bulbs are about to burst open and I've seen quite a few blooming crocus plants already.

My bees are flying in and out of the hives that made it through the winter. It's warm in Atlanta.

A Local showing of "The Vanishing of the Bees"

2012-02-01T22:13:00.003-05:00

Atlanta's Paideia School is showing the "Vanishing of the Bees" on Feb 23rd at 7pm. Ticket price of $10 includes a honey-infused cocktail (or non-alcoholic version) and a honey-caramel praline popcorn ball made by Chef Shaun Doty. You can only buy advance tickets from the school:
https://www.paideiaschool.org/bees

Why Do I Keep Bees?

2012-01-28T08:48:00.000-05:00

I get asked that a lot. Last Saturday the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers taught a short course and I'm sure I was asked that question at least three times. On Thursday night I gave a talk on Keeping Bees the Simple Way at the Forsyth County beekeepers meeting, and I started the talk by telling my usual answer to that question:

I keep bees because I wanted to keep chickens. I read up on what one must do in Atlanta to keep chickens - how they had to be housed a certain distance from your neighbor's house, what you needed to do to leave them for a while to go out of town, what to do with the waste they create. But my children who live here said they would not be chicken-sitters when I went out of town; I couldn't quite meet the regs when it came to distance from my neighbors, and I didn't want to deal with chicken ****.

I was driving one Saturday morning, listening to the Walter Reeves show on the radio and he had a beekeeper for a guest. She was talking about the joys of beekeeping and announced that there were three upcoming short courses in the Atlanta area. My ears perked up and I listened to her every word! The first course was on a weekend I couldn't go and in a place way south of Atlanta. The second course was on another weekend when I already had commitments and was also in a location pretty far away. The third course was offered by the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers at the Chattahoochee Nature Center on the only Saturday I was available.

I pulled over to the side of the road, called the number she had given for registration, and signed up. Bees are legal all over the state of Georgia; they don't need bee-sitters when you go out of town; and bees take care of their own tiny, tiny bodily waste products.

I went to the course; fell in love; came home and ordered bees and equipment. And that's the story.

That's why I started keeping bees but not why I keep bees.

I think I need to change the answer to that frequently asked question.

I keep bees because bees are fascinating in so many ways. Among them:

Bees live in a society that runs democratically and well. With the help of a thoughtful, careful beekeeper, they can thrive in a man made hive box.
Working the bees requires moving slowly, something I rarely do in the rest of my life, and feels zen-like in the slow motion of inspecting the hive - the bees bring me serenity and peace
Working the bees requires respect for the bees and the hive to work the bees well
I love the miracle of the reproduction of the hive -

they can make a new queen if they need to;
they create males if they need them (and get rid of them in the fall when they don't need them!);
the hive itself reproduces the community as a whole in the process of swarming

Honey is the only food consumed by humans that is created by insects and it is such a delectable miracle!
The taste of honey varies with the flowers from which the bees gather the nectar, creating a wine-tasting like experience when tasting various honeys
Bees are soft furry creatures and when they walk on my hands, I am intrigued by their tiny bodies
Bees use their bodies in so many ways -

they create wax for the honey comb from their thorax;
they pass nectar from bee to bee with their proboscis,
they use their wings (among other things) for

hive ventilation,
drying the nectar to create honey,
flying to flowers and back to the hive,

they communicate with each other in the pitch dark of the hive through dancing and sharing

Richard Taylor has written about how the bee yard is a place of quiet reflection and I resonnate with his thoughts about that every time I open a bee hive and spend time with the bees.

Report on January State of the Rabun Bee Hives

2012-01-26T14:15:00.000-05:00

There's good news and there's bad news. Both of these hives were small and not too great going into the winter. The dark green hive had been covered by kudzu at the end of the summer - the gardeners who maintain the area around the garden didn't realize I had two hives and let the kudzu win. I would take garden shears with me every time I went and cut back the area around the entrance but the kudzu definitely won.

I anticipated that these hives would not make it through the winter. I've already ordered packages of bees to replace them, assuming they would die.

Today on my visit to the garden, I found out that the dark green hive at the Community garden in Rabun County is bee-less. I'm sad, but not surprised that they are gone. At first without investigating, I put some food on the hive, assuming there might be bees, but when a hive is dead there is an eerie silent feel and I realized that there was no life there.

But then I went to the second hive and lo and behold there were bees flying in and out. They were really there and I was astounded. The hive felt alive when I opened it, even though I didn't see bees anywhere except at the front entrance. What a relief!

I saw as many as six bees at the same time, but couldn't snap a picture fast enough - are digital cameras irritating that way?

Anyway, I took the feeder off of the green hive and poured the contents into the feeder for the living, breathing hive - HOORAY! Hope for the future at the Community Garden.

Interestingly there were spiders nesting in the corners of the top cover of both hives. I like them better than roaches!

Live Bees at Blue Heron and at Jeff's

2012-01-15T21:27:00.000-05:00

The bees in the nuc at Blue Heron are ALIVE! I really can't believe it. These are the vandalized bees that are now housed in a nuc and locked with a bicycle lock against further intrusion. I did not believe they would still be OK and we are not out of the winter death possibilities until March. At least for now they are flying.

I couldn't believe it so I took four pictures to prove to myself that they actually are coming and going. You can watch a hive and tell if the bees entering and leaving it live there or are robbers from another hive. The residents enter confidently and in one fell swoop into the entry. Robber bees are unsure and tend to hover around the entrance before going into the hive.

These bees own this hive.

At my old house where Jeff and Valerie now live we have two hives we are concerned about - now three. Colony Square is doing great with bees all at the entrance. Lenox Pointe has bees but also evidence of nosema, possibly, in that there are streaks of bee poop on the hive box at the entry way.

The hive we call "Five" is still alive. It was tiny going into winter and we had talked about putting it into a nuc, but never did. It is housed in two medium boxes. Jeff hasn't seen any bees flying in or out, so we opened the top to take a peek. The rapid feeder was still on the hive and there were bees walking up and down the sides of the cone. We both whooped out loud to see actual bees alive in the hive.

Our fourth hive over there is the swarm we caught in June. Although small, it too is alive and had bees in the feeder cone of the rapid feeder.

Don't be disturbed by the mold in the rapid feeder or the "weeds." The weeds are actually sprigs of thyme and we'll clean out the mold on our next opportunity to open the hive.

Today it was still quite cold and we didn't want to remove the rapid feeder to clean it because it covers the hole in the inner cover and the bees are likely to have propolized any air space to maintain warmth. I'll take warmth over cleanliness if they can make it through the winter.

Jeff and I are following Jennifer Berry and Keith Delaplane's system for powdered sugar treatment for varroa mites. We are dusting the bees with the Dustructor - which means dusting without opening the hive - four times this month (three days apart) and then will repeat this in March.

Today was my third treatment and I dusted the bees at my house and at the Stonehurst Place Inn. Jeff will do the bees at my old house tomorrow. It's out of schedule but I dusted the bees at Blue Heron when I stopped there - they are actually part of Jeff's schedule, due to be dusted tomorrow.

Conclusions about the Dead Hive in my Beeyard

2012-01-15T21:09:00.000-05:00

Today I removed all the frames in each box of the dead hive in my yard. As I thought the hive died out from being queenless and through beekeeper error (I didn't realize they were queenless and didn't combine them with another hive, for example).

There were scattered dead bees throughout the hive. What looked like perhaps the last part of the living bees had died together (about eight of them) in box two on the tops of the frames. I looked through the bodies on the slatted rack and the screened bottom board. I saw no deformed wings, no varroa mites, no dead queen - just worker bees. All told there were about 30 or so dead bees in the hive.

In the picture below you can see numerous small hive beetles dead with the bees.

Because I had fed them bee tea, there was a lot of stored nectar. Here's one frame with every cell filled with nectar. There was only one frame of capped honey. Bees that are queenless can die out with honey in the hive because they simply come to the end of their life span and with no queen, there are not younger bees to replace them.

On the frame below, you can see some evidence of their attempts to make a queen. There was absolutely no capped brood or any brood of any kind.

This is clearly a hive that died out from lack of a queen. I should have paid better attention to it going into winter. It's also possible that their queen died fairly early in the winter and they didn't have resources to replace her.

I'm sad that they are gone, but satisfied that I know the cause and that gives me some peace.

Bee-wary of Late Winter

2012-01-14T11:28:00.002-05:00

In Atlanta we had a sudden drop in temperature from the highs 60s to the 20s where the temperature has remained for several days. When it's cold like this, we only have highs in the 30s at best. When this goes on for several days, the bees are in real danger.

The warmish weather fools the bees into acting like it is spring and they go out, forge for pollen, raise brood, etc. Then suddenly we have this kind of cold snap.

The whole hive can die, if the cluster isn't located where there is stored honey.

So I am crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.

I have one dead hive in my back yard. I looked through it the other day when I did my first powdered sugar shake. There is honey in the hive and dead bees scattered through the frames. I didn't take the bottom box off (too big a hurry to get back to the office), but I'll let you know what I find when I do.

My current theory is that the hive went queenless before winter and I didn't recognize that this had happened so I could combine it with another hive. I may find something else when I look further and then we'll know more, but for now, I'd speculate that the hive died naturally because there was no queen.

In the photo above you can see the few dead bee bodies on top of the frames. I'll look at these for signs of varroa or deformed wing when I get back into the hive.

For now, I put it back together until I have time in the next few days really to study it.

There was a rapid feeder on top of the hive still half filled with bee tea with a number of dead ants floating in the tea. I strained it into a jar and may put that on another hive if I don't find evidence of foul brood when I study the cells in the dead hive.

Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Short Course on January 21 - REGISTER NOW!

2012-01-11T07:17:00.003-05:00

Our local bee club, the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Club, offers its short course on Saturday January 21 from 8 - 4:30. We have an agenda that is filled with experienced, well-qualified speakers and the course is second to none in Georgia. Some of our speakers include Jennifer Berry, Keith Fielder, Curtis Gentry (and even me!) To see earlier posts about previous short courses, click here, here, here, here, here.

To learn more, click here. To sign up, click here.

There's a continental breakfast beginning at 8 and the speakers begin at 9. We provide a delicious lunch for participants as well with the opportunity to sit at a table with an experienced beekeeper and talk about getting started.

Participants go home at the end of the day with enough knowledge to get started, with a list of places to order bees and best of all, with an incredible "Goody Bag" filled with beekeeping catalogs, honey, a candle, lip balm, and best of all, their own copy of Keith Delaplane's great basic book of beekeeping: First Lessons in Beekeeping.

We have had participants come from as far away as Mississippi - it's an informative, enthusiasm-generating, all-around-great course. If you can come, you won't regret it.

No Use Crying Over Spilt…..Powdered Sugar!

2012-01-09T21:32:00.000-05:00

I'm good at spilling things. I like wine glasses without stems for that reason. If something can be spilled, I'm your woman…..I can do it in a heartbeat.

Today I went over to Stonehurst Place to check on the bees. According to the research at UGA, if you want to treat the bees for varroa mites with powdered sugar shakes, then you start in January, treat four times, three days apart and then repeat the process every other month.

So it's January and time to get started.

Today I treated my hives at home and then got in the car to take the Dustructor to the Stonehurst Place Inn to treat the hives there. When I opened the back door of the car to get the Dustructor, the cap came off of the canister and powdered sugar went everywhere.

There was powdered sugar in every crevice near the door of the car. What a mess!

I gathered up what I could and returned it to the canister.

The good news is that on this day with 69 degree temps around noon, the bees were flying with enthusiasm out of both hives. I am relieved that they are alive and have high hopes for their making it through to March.

On each hive, as I had done at home, I slid the end of the Dustructor into the entry to about the middle of the hive. Then I gave five large puffs of powdered sugar into the hive with as much vigor as I could muster.

Down with the Varroa Destructor! Long live my bees!

Bee Holiday Goodies

2012-01-08T17:29:00.002-05:00

As people know I am a beekeeper, the more and more bees figure into gifts that are given to me and that I choose to give others. This year was no exception.

I bought a set up honeybee pjs for my 2 year old granddaughter:

Someone brought these bee slippers from Amazon.com to our Metro Atlanta holiday party and I just had to have a pair for myself, so I went home and ordered them:

Of course there are bee mugs and honey dippers:

And I was given a luggage tag (I had one already but my dog ate it - REALLY.....) so I was thrilled to get another! And a lovely mug for tea, and a canister...I bought the bee bottle brush on a whim - I'm sure I'll never use it but it's such fun.

And my daughter and son-in-law gave me a funny t-shirt with a bear on it wearing fake bee wings. The bear on the shirt is looking at the bee and says: "Honey?" I tried to take a picture of me in the shirt in the mirror and it came out reversed, of course, and today my sweet niece, Amanda, a fantastic photographer took my lowly effort and reversed it for me:

On a Warmish December Day....

2011-12-19T23:57:00.000-05:00

the bees are all over this plant in my neighbor's yard. It's a shrub with palmate leaves about 1 foot in diameter each and with nine "fingers" on each leaf.

The bees are busy collecting something from this plant when it's warm enough to fly as it was this afternoon. From looking around the Internet, it may be a Japanese shrub named Fatsia japonica.....or maybe not.

Anyone have an idea of what this is? Put your answer in a comment below.

Making Hand Cream

2011-12-16T15:23:00.000-05:00

Another beekeeper's winter thing-to-do: make hand cream. I still don't have the process down but here's currently what I am doing.

The recipe I used (always in revision):

1 3/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup sweet almond oil
1/4 cup + 1 T cocoa butter
7 oz coconut oil
4 oz beeswax
2 T lanolin oil
2 T honey
1/2 cup or so of water

Melt the first seven ingredients together. Pour into a blender container. Blend until it starts to thicken. Gradually blend in 1/2 cup water. Blend for 20 minute increments and stop blender and cool mixture for about 5 minutes. Continue until the lotion is thick enough to put into containers. (This takes 4 to 4 1/2 hours).

If you simply pour the mix into the containers, it will be hard as a rock. The blending is necessary, but I haven't figured out how to simplify this process. Let me know what you try and what works for you.

The finished product can't be slathered onto your hands or they will remain rather greasy. As in Brylcream, a "little dab'll do ya." I use a fingertip's worth to lotion my two hands.

Meanwhile, here's the slide show (click to see it full sized and read the captions):

Making Lotion Bars - A Winter Beekeeper's Joy

2011-12-14T08:33:00.000-05:00

Lotion bars are quick to make and a holiday gift that the recipients love to get. The ingredients are only three:

1/3 oil (avocado or sweet almond oil are best)
1/3 butter (shea butter, cocoa butter - I like a half and half combination)
1/3 melted beeswax.

Equipment needed:

A boiling water bath
A large measuring cup
Chopsticks to use for stirring
Molds for the bars (commercial ones can be purchased or you can use ice cube trays)

One caution: These smell great because of the cocoa butter. Once I gave one to someone and she took a bite out of it! Important that your recipient knows they are lotion (although nothing in the bar would be bad for eating!)

These take a short time and are fun to do. Here's a slideshow of the process:

Newest Grandba-bee

2011-12-04T23:03:00.001-05:00

Born Dec 2, 2011 and weighed in at 7 lbs even. My third grandchild and second grandson.

Think he's ready for a beesuit yet?

A Beekeeper's Guide to Cyber Monday

2011-11-28T14:14:00.001-05:00

Brushy Mountain is the only bee company I can find offering any benefit for Cyber Monday.

Brushy Mountain offers free shipping as per the paragraph from their Dec E-Flyer below:

"Cyber Monday: Cyber Monday is the internet's response to Black Friday at the brick and mortar stores and is always the Monday after Thanksgiving (November 28). No long lines, no rushing, just the comfort of your keyboard and mouse. This year we are offering free shipping anywhere in the lower 48 states as well as at least 10% Off on all items in the "Holiday Gift Ideas" section of our site. Here is the fine print: orders must to over $100 to qualify; excluded from the free shipping are buckets of corn syrup, honey, glass jars, and truck shipments; to get the free shipping and special prices,you must enter PCCM into the promotion code field of the cart. Once the code is entered the special pricing will be visible."

General Bee Report as Winter Approaches

2011-11-27T22:33:00.001-05:00

First, I'm sorry I've been rather lax in my postings. I hope some of you have taken the opportunity to review some of the old posts while you wondered where in the world I was.

Last week was my birthday, my middle daughter was visiting from Maryland, my youngest daughter here in Atlanta is pregnant, due any day, and I hosted Thanksgiving for my family at my house.

Needless to say, the bees have taken a back seat.

However, over this weekend I checked on most of my Atlanta hives. Most appear to be going into winter with good supplies. I fed the bees bee tea going into the fall and most of the hives were slow to take any food, which is a good sign. Generally they would prefer nectar and around my house we had a pretty good fall aster bloom (and therefore a decent fall flow). So they haven't taken the bee tea because they didn't really need it.

For example, I put these two feeder jars on the Blue Heron nuc on 11/14. Here it is almost two weeks later and they've barely touched it. So I can feel pretty sure that they don't need it.

One of the advantages of the rapid feeder is that it can stay on the hive during the winter. A second advantage is that thick sugar syrup rarely freezes so if it is warm enough for the bees to move around, the syrup is there for their taking. So my 8 frame hives will keep the rapid feeder through the winter.

Plans for winter:
1. Make creamed honey from the early honey this season that has crystallized
2. Build my unbuilt nuc boxes
3. Paint equipment and assess my equipment needs
4. Try to look for a possible local place to put the beehives from south Georgia
5. Make plans about our bee business Linda Ts Bees with Jeff to determine where we need to focus come spring
6. Work on my short course talk with Cindy Hodges on the year in the bee yard in a beginning beekeeper's year.
7. Work out a sugar shake schedule to begin in January for all the hives.
8. Decide about splits - surely I can split Colony Square and probably Lenox Pointe as well.

Bees in Winter at the Botanical Garden

2011-11-27T22:29:00.000-05:00

For the first time this year, the Atlanta Botanical Garden has a new event, a festival of lights that is really beautiful. We toured the whole thing the Friday right after Thanksgiving....along with about 2999 other people.

It was really spectacular - especially the display in the main plaza.

When we got to the back side of the garden, they have an herb wall garden. Each brick of the wall has herbs growing on/from it. In front of these herbs is a display of bees created from light. We, of course, just had to take pictures! My daughter took all of these below.

One of the bees up close and personal.

Here I am in front of one of the bees.

And again.

How One Beekeeper Approaches the Winter

2011-11-27T22:21:00.000-05:00

While walking my dogs past my friend and fellow beekeeper's house, I saw Jerry sitting in his driveway. He usually keeps a solar wax melter about at this place in his driveway and keeps it working all during the warm months.

But now we are about to have cold weather. Snow is expected on Tuesday (it won't stick, if it shows up, because the ground is much too warm) - snow in Atlanta in November.

Jerry has taken on a non-beekeeping task. He is hulling walnuts in a special frame he built for this purpose. He hauled five huge bags of unhulled walnuts from Missouri in the back of his truck.

Now he sits in his canvas chair and pokes at the walnuts with a shovel until the shell falls off.

Here is the second phase of the walnut after Jerry's shovel has had its way with them.

Beekeepers come up with many ways to while away the winter!

Queen of the Sun - a Great Bee Movie

2011-11-14T08:48:00.001-05:00

Last night Julia and I went to a screening of "Queen of the Sun" at a local food club meeting. We took food - it was a potluck dinner - to a local bar that opened just for this meeting. We had a great time talking to people there and watching this wonderful movie about the bees.

My favorite character who was filmed was this beekeeper, who keeps his bees without a shirt and wearing a necklace. His funniest moment was when he used his mustache to brush the bees.

The movie was well-done, in support of natural beekeeping and there are many interesting versions of hives in the film, such as the one below. There were also frames that were different sizes.

As you can tell from the comb attachment in the frame above, most of the beekeepers in this movie practiced foundation-less beekeeping.

The movie was filmed all over the world, which adds a lot of interest. My only regret is that most of the beekeepers interviewed except for one, who was shown without her bees, were men.

Beehive at the White House

2011-11-07T07:33:00.003-05:00

This past weekend, I met my daughter, Becky, in Washington, DC. One of my wishes for the weekend was to take a photo of the White House beehive. Of course, you can't get anywhere close to it, but we could from two fences away, see it and take its picture. The location under a beautiful tree facing south is just lovely.

I'm glad they situated it where the public could get a glimpse of it. I think everyone knows that there is a beehive at the White House because it has been in the news and because beekeeping magazines have featured it. But when I've said to friends that I am going to take a picture of the beehive, they to a person, said, "There's a beehive at the White House?"

Below you can see it in relationship to the White House from the Ellipse.

Just to record that we came, Becky and I got someone to take our picture together. The woman, who didn't know we were interested in the beehive was thrilled to tell us that she got us both with the White House just over our heads. I, of course, was more excited that the beehive is over my right shoulder (very tiny!)

Here you can see the beehive on the right side and the vegetable garden it is supposed to be pollinating on the left side of the picture.

We also saw, I'm sure, White House bees, when we toured the US Botanic Garden. There were bees on every blooming aster.

Here's a video about the beehive, posted in a comment by a reader below, but I thought you'd all like to see it as part of this post.

Blue Heron Bee Report

2011-11-06T22:45:00.000-05:00

Over last weekend, Julia called me from the Blue Heron with the sad news that she opened her hive and found it dead. The terrible vandal left it open to inclement weather, the bees had probably lost or balled their queen after that, and the hive had dwindled down to nothing. Very, very few bees were left in her hive and there was brood that needed to be capped and had died since the larvae was never capped. Very sad situation.

Julia had taken honey to feed her hive. My hive did not need food, so she left the honey on a cinder block with slits in the baggie for any takers. When I arrived to check my hive, there were bees enjoying the honey.

Here are Julia's hive boxes, now empty. We will scorch the insides for safety but the cause of death for this hive was mistreatment and exposure.

You can see bees on the landing of my nuc hive. The bees were flying in and out. I did see a few with pollen in their pollen baskets which was hopeful for the hive as a whole.

When I opened the hive, they had not emptied the jars of bee tea - when you have honey available why would you want bee tea? In addition the asters are still blooming profusely in the fields around the apiary.

I left them with the half empty jars and will check on them again this coming week.