Philadelphia Honey Festival

Here's me talking to Lorenzo Langstroth's great great granddaughter at the American Philosophical Society building in Philadelphia. No, I couldn't convince her to take up beekeeping. We missed the plaque dedication, but did manage to drive past Langstroth's house on front street after circling downtown Philadelphia and a brief sojourn into NJ. You can drive into NJ for free, but you pay to exit. Next thing you know, they'll put up an iron curtain to keep them in.

9-1-1

Our local 9-1-1 just called me and asked if I can be their emergency contact for bee swarms. I hope I don't regret this.

Books available online

My how-to books can now be ordered at www.makingbeehives.com.

Sad end of a promising Queen

I volunteered to supply bees for the observation hive at the Steuben County Fair, the oldest continuous fair in the United States (they are very proud of that). I had a little colony in a four frame nuc. No brood at all, but when I looked, the frames were packed with eggs. Apparently a new queen just starting to lay. I put them into the observation hive. There weren't enough bees for the hive so they couldn't maintain proper temperature. They ate the eggs, the glass fogged up, and they wouldn't or couldn't take any sugar syrup for the two weeks they were confined.
   As soon as I brought them home, I opened the entrance. A few tumbled out and the rest of the colony looked damp. I noticed fecal material on the frames and soon around the floor below the observation hive.

I thought the bees were in the process of dying, Then, Suddenly! They were gone! Here's what their domicile for the last 3 weeks looked like after they absconded. You would move out, too. Look at all the brown spots—bee poop.

I found the bees in a nearby plum tree, looking much cleaner and happier:

Anybody want a tiny swarm at the end of August with a brand new and, I think vigorous queen? I'm not going to do anything with them because there's not enough time and it's too much trouble.

Lunch with Ross Conrad

http://www.farmtraveleronline.com/pollinators-and-pesticides-symposium.html
If you missed the Symposium, too bad. It had all the advantages of Eastern Apicultural Society Conventions (meet other beekeepers, listen to lectures, see exciting bar graphs, and win door prizes) and none of the disadvantages (it was free, short (no need for hotel rooms and good for attention deficit people like me), and not as complicated (everyone sat in one auditorium-no simultaneous lectures). That ends the most complex sentence that I have ever written since sixth grade.

Lunch with the famous author/beekeeper Ross Conrad The Natural Beekeeper
Some people naturally know how to follow the crowd and at lunch time almost everyone disappeared. I still don't know where they went, but it left a few of us wandering around, like scout bees returning to the swarm only to discover that the swarm has just left. This left Vince, Mary Ann, Ross and me. We found a picnic table, sat down and started talking. Never mind what we discussed. It was esoteric bee stuff: things like genomes, adjuvents, and things.I did learn that Ross manages around 50 hives.
Suddenly, we were surrounded by hundreds of screaming school kids. We had inadvertently taken one of the lunch tables belonging to an Alfred summer camp program. Someone remarked that there were no adults among the children. I, who had a college course called Human Growth and Development explained to the others that camps usually hire counselors who aren't much older than the children, and indeed, if you looked closely there were slightly older children, one at each table and others standing nervously around trying to ignore us.
Suddenly, my view of Ross was obscured by a large beekeeper who sat down between us. It was Lash LaRue, a fellow bee club member of mine and nephew of the movie star and comic book character:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6ynI5plve8&feature=related
At that point the conversation turned to railroads and bullwhips.
Here's how Ross and I differ in our approached to chemical free beekeeping: Ross actually takes care of his bees. Mine are essentially wild bees kept in manageable boxes.
I didn't ask how many colonies he lost last year so I can't compare our strategies.
New website for some of my publications: www.makingbeehives.com  We're still waiting for the web goddess to set up the online pay program.
To my one reader (everyone else, stop reading here):  See you next week, Sweetie Pot.With good timing, you can help me remove some bees from a house in Pulteney. XOXOX

Swarm Season Begins

On Thursday I found my first swarm at my bee yard, a lovely prime swarm. I had to run back home to fetch loppers to trim away the brush. On returning, I see a new born fawn trying to hide in the foot long grass. His hind legs are so long they stuck up like a grasshopper behind. I walked within 3 feet of him. With one great "bleat!"(translated "Mom!" in English), he ran for the hedge. Mother jumped out of the hedge, considered whether to run or stomp me to death, then ran into the woods with junior. That's when I remembered I had a camera in my cell phone.

Back to the swarm. Dr. Tom Seeley says that to conserve energy, a swarm keeps its temperature too low for flight until the swarm is ready to take off. The scout bees grab hold of the low temperature bees and shake them to get them warmed up. I thought of this as I noticed the top of the swarm seemed to be "bubbling"—a lot of activity. As I trimmed around the swarm the activity increased, then the bees began sloughing off the sides and within a minute they were airborne.

Tanging: the beating on a pot or clanging a bell to induce a swarm to alight. The superstition persists, probably because it appears to work most of the time (especially when the swarm, emerging from a hive, is going to alight anyways). I had a pan handy, and no one around to see me make a fool of myself. So I tanged them out of sight. Good bye bees.

Swarm Call and a Moral Dilemma

The Avoca School had a swarm on the gymnasium wall at ground level. In their panic, they called 2 beekeepers. When I arrived, beekeeper #1 was already there, trying to brush bees into a hive body. Because the swarm had split into two areas, I offered to scoop up the bees in the second area. My area contained the queen and the bees were soon filing into my swarm box and exiting Matt's hive body.

Who owns these bees, the beekeeper who arrives first, or the one who catches the bees?

Matt should get the bees, but what you can't see in the picture is that these boxes fit into my bee vac and I didn't want to just give them away and I sure didn't want to drive to Wallace to retrieve them.

"You want these bees?" I asked Matt, knowing they should be his. Matt, it turned out was mostly getting the bees as a service to the school. He let me take them. And they moved right into one of my dead hives.

I also received sting #5( hand) and #6(right between the eyes-enough impressing the audience, time to put on the veil and gloves).