First Pollen!

It was the second week of March when we noticed the first pollen coming in to the hives. Hazel alder bushes in the swamp had opened the tiny blooms in their catkins. It's a wonderful early pollen source for the bees, who need pollen to begin the yearly "spring buildup," the population explosion that moves the hive from a small, dormant winter cluster to a bustling, tireless city of bees. When the queen begins to lay, pollen is needed to feed the coming brood. It's exciting and reassuring for the beekeeper to see the pollen coming in. The hive has survived the winter, and there is a strong promise of a healthy colony growing through the Spring.

Within days the henbit (right above) and purple false nettle (left above) were blooming, and the bees were bringing in my favorite pollen.

Favorite pollen? Yes! The photo left doesn't quite do it justice, but it is a lovely vermillion, and quite unique among the more common pollen colors which run the gamut of yellow to green.

In the picture to the right one of our ladies buries her head deep in a purple false nettle blossom. She'll emerge with a red smudge on her forehead, and groom the pollen from her body back in to her "corbiculae," or "pollen baskets."

Sometimes the loads the bees are able to ferry back to the hive are so large that we wonder how they can fly with them. But fly they do, tirelessly harvesting the new Spring bounty. Happy Spring!

2010 Bluegrass Beekeeping School

On March 13, 2010, over 400 beekeepers met in Frankfort, KY for the 2010 Bluegrass Beekeeping School. Ruth, Isaac and I were of their number. Dr. Dave Tarpy, Associate Professor of Entomolgy from NC State was the keynote speaker, and started the day with a fascinating presentation of the dance language of the honeybee. He shared a wonderful on-line tutorial on the bees' communication through dance which you can access at http://entomology.ncsu.edu/apiculture/Dance_tutorial

After several more classes and lunch, it was our turn to teach "Beekeeping with Children." We had a great class, many more than I expected, and I was sorry to run out of handouts. If you were in the class and didn't get a handout, please just contact me through this blog and I will get one to you. The photo above shows as many of the wonderful group of people that made up our class as I could fit in the viewer of the camera.

The class provided Ruthie with her first public teaching opportunity. She gave a presentation

on why she felt that Warré hives with windows are the best hives for beekeeping with children and did a great job. Everyone from class members to school organizers were very encouraging. Ruthie is excited about preparing and teaching again next year.

Of course our Warré hive was unique at the bee school. Except for one other speaker, Tiffany Gillespie, who gave an introduction to Kenyan top-bar hives, everything was geared toward beekeeping with Langstroth hives. In spite of that, we learned a great deal that will enhance our beekeeping and make us better beekeepers. I'd highly recommend going to a bee school near you no matter what your level of experience or what beekeeping methods you use.

(Un?)Natural Beekeeping

It was a crisp fall evening here in Kentucky when my 12 year-old daughter Ruth and I took a large pot of sugar syrup out to the hives to feed the bees. Ideally in natural beekeeping, the bees would never be fed anything but honey or honey-water from their own apiary, but a weak fall nectar flow had created a crisis: feed the bees or lose them to starvation over the winter.

Neither Ruth nor I wore a veil or gloves, since the Warré fall feeder we'd built allowed us to feed without disturbing the bees or losing any warmth or scent from the hive. (Post soon to come on how to build one.) We filled the feeder, and spent a few minutes enjoying watching the bees through the feeder window. Then Abie, our 16 year-old, called from the barn that she needed some help. I put the pot, still sticky with syrup, on the hood of our old, battered, green farm truck, and trotted off.

Some time later as we were headed back up to the house, Ruthie remembered the pot and ran to get it. As she picked it up and looked inside she exclaimed, "Oh, no! There are tons of bees in here." Well, "tons" turned out to be around 15 or so bees hopelessly caught in about an eighth of an inch of sticky syrup at the bottom.

"We should never have left it out here! Oh, the poor things," Ruth said. I agreed that we'd been negligent, but I explained how hard it would be to free them without tearing their wings or even leaving behind a leg or two.

"But can't I try?"

"Of course you can try. We always try."

Ruth managed to free a couple of the least mired bees and transfer them to the landing board of one of the hives, but she saw that it wasn't going to work with the others, and it was already getting dark. That's how we ended up with bees in the kitchen.

Ruthie decided that the only way to get the bees out without hurting them was to offer them something to hold onto while they pulled themselves free. A stick or a finger worked nicely. When I came to check on the progress of her rescue project, there were several bees on the windowsill cleaning themselves and one another, and a few still awaiting Ruthie's aid in the pot. With delighted eyes she told me, "One was licking syrup off my finger! I could actually see its tongue, and feel it! Oh, so cool!"

Half an hour later, Ruth informed me that she'd put the bees "to bed" in a couple of aluminum bread pans, "except for three rowdy ones who don't want to go to bed." The "rowdy ones" were busily inspecting the blossoms of the geranium in the kitchen window and buzzing about. So most of the bees spent the night in a newspaper-lined bread pan on the counter, with the others free to roam.

The next morning our "rowdies" were flying against the window glass, obviously anxious to be about foraging as usual. It was a little cool, but the sun was shining and warm spots were available, so we opened the window and off they flew. The bees in the pan got to wait (and chew newspaper) until it was a bit warmer. Then Ruthie took them outside and released them. They were happy to be back to life as usual, and Ruth was happy to have righted our wrong and saved a few bees.

Considering that some of the tenets of natural beekeeping are to "let the bees be bees," always tending to what is natural to them, to give them housing resembling their natural homes, and to intervene as little as possible, this was a very un-natural episode in our beekeeping journey. But then again, what is more natural than being fascinated by, respecting, and loving these amazing little creatures?