September 17, 2014 KRZA Bee Interview

Click here to hear my September 17th, 2014 Interview on KRZA radio station.

Seven Sisters

I woke early on Monday morning, 3:45 am, to pick up the swarm I had caught the previous afternoon.  I wait until the middle of the night to get them so they have a chance to settle in and calm down.  Robert was waiting for me with a flashlight.  He said that his cat had just been rubbing up against the top bar hive box containing the bees.  Of course.  Kitties know good energy.

We peeked in the side window to find all the bees happily clustered together, and then we gently loaded the box in the back of my truck.  It would be a deliberate careful drive, with flashers on, through the pre-dawn Alamosa downtown to the bees' new home at the Cruzenberger Farm.

After we loaded the box, we noted the sun was just starting to warm the eastern sky. A planet was just visible above Mount Blanca--Venus? Mars? --and Robert pointed out the Seven Sisters constellation just above and to the right of the bright planet. That's how I decided the name of this newest hive--more like seventy-thousand sisters.

I thought for a moment about how constellations only make sense from our present perspective in this swirling galaxy among swirling superstructures, and that a moment can be a long time in terms of cultural memory as societies name constellations and pass the stories on to grandchildren. The moment outlives lifetimes yet is still transitory.

I also reflected on how swarm catching is all about gratitude and wonder. Robert was grateful that I was removing bees which might have stung his allergic-to-stings wife.  He was also grateful to the bees and didn't want mosquito pesticides to harm them. I was grateful that Calvin had given Robert my number when he had mentioned his swarm conundrum. I'm also grateful that Robert called me rather than an exterminator.  And the bees?  Dare I anthropomorphize them?  It seemed as if they *wanted* to be caught and taken away.  They were a few feet from the parking area--almost like I could have pulled up to the swarm, leaned out the window like I was ordering through a drive through, clipped the branch, and dropped them gently into my lap. 

Gratitude: the family farm is happy to receive the little pollinators.  The kids were eager to see the queen--I told them they would have to wait a little while to let everyone settle in.  I need to order a kid-sized bee suit.

It's all one big lovefest.

And Wonder: how amazing is it that the bees do what they do, and that they allow humans to interact with them as we do?  At one moment during the catch, I had lowered the branch into the box and was suddenly surrounded by a galaxy of bees swirling around me, bees who themselves were wondering what was going on.  And yet not a single one tried to sting me.  I could learn a lot from that sort of go-with-the-flow attitude and trust.

Signs of Spring! Healthy Garden Expo 2014

It was warm enough for the bees to be out and about today!

It was a great weekend of Garden Prep and bee watching.  The Healthy Garden Expo at Adams State University was a great opportunity to meet other garden enthusiasts and to share local seeds and information about top bar hives.

Jen and I dig into a top bar hive at the Healthy Garden Expo.

Chris with the Empowering People Through Food Project empowers a new micro gardener to grow lettuce on her windowsill.

Interested in upcoming beekeeping, salve, and Ukrainian Pysansky egg dying workshops?  Follow this link.

Ain't MisBEEhavin'

What bees wouldn't want to live here?

Last week I checked on the bees at Elaine and Kelly's organic farm.  Elaine and Kelly are the type of people who take excellent care of their land, their animals and their people.  I love to have an excuse to visit them, and when I suggested bringing bees to their land, I was delighted with their affirmative response.  A few months earlier, on Easter Sunday, I came out for a visit and we inspected some abandoned hives that had been ravaged by a bear.  As I was describing to Elaine the concept of bee guardianship, she felt moved to create a hospitable place for bees and include them as part of their integrated, holistically managed farm. 

Plus, she'll get honey.

So I moved a hive out there in early June, and things seemed to be going well.  Kelly's brother Tim leaned on the fence next to the hive, a bit too close for them, and earned a sting for it.  Next, Kelly got one on the back of his leg.  A few stings is not unusual for a hive close to the garden and house, and certainly didn't seem overly aggressive.  Two weeks ago Elaine and I were doing a hive inspection an the next day she was up close capturing photos of their activity.  No stings.

But last week was different.  Tim and I opened up the hive to do an inspection.  There was a lot of honey, and the bees were fairly mellow at first.  Before I could get into the second box though, the volume of bees circling us caused me to abort the rest of the inspection.  Elaine got stung several feet away. The dog got harassed.  It took a while to "walk them off"--meaning, Tim and I walked a good half-mile away and still had guard bees buzzing around our heads.  We went in for the night, and I figured all would be back to normal the next day. 

They were still pretty pissed off when I left that morning.  I still figured they would calm down.  I texted Elaine later that day, and she said they were so aggressive that she and Kelly couldn't work in the garden, couldn't pick greens for dinner.  Kelly got stung on the hand while getting in his truck, and the hand swelled so much that he couldn't bend his fingers.

She didn't want to bother me while I was out of town, so she didn't tell me the whole story until I returned.  The bees formed a cloud at both the front and back doors to their home, essentially trapping them in the house.  They dive bombed the heads of anyone within hundreds of feet of the house, including two buildings over in the garage.  They were expecting a work group to come help with weeding, and Kelly climbed out the bedroom window to meet the group a mile down the road to tell them not to come to the house.  They were to be hosting house guests with a toddler that weekend.

Elaine called Everett Davie, veteran beekeeper, who came late that night to move the bees away.  He doesn't wear a bee suit, and was stung several times.  He estimated the hives to weigh 140 lbs; they had already put away a lot of honey and would continue to do so, but they were no longer welcome to do it there.

I texted with Russell, a beekeeping apprentice, to brainstorm what may have happened.  He asked about skunk claw marks.  Was there canola nearby? (GM canola is toxic to honeybees)  Nope.  There was plenty of alfalfa and yellow clover and an apple tree and various other flowers, but no predators or pesticides or GM crops.  He guessed either these bees were feral, or had Africanized genes or were sick. 

I spoke to Everett a few minutes ago, and he agreed that they had aggressive genetics.  They were "survivors" as Brent Edelen, the beekeeper from whom I bought them, describes them--Alamosa mutts who are able to make it through these harsh winters but are meanies.  Everett also surmises that they were reluctant to move up into the honey supers and felt crowded.  It still doesn't add up or really explain their bee-havior.

Everybody feels bad.  Elaine is regretting putting bees so close to the house.  She was frightened by Kelly's reaction to the sting.  I feel embarrassed that the bees turned on them that way and that I wasn't able to fix the problem, that she had to call someone else to take care of them.  Did I disturb them wrong?  Did we accidentally kill the queen?  Those bees stung every body--they stung me when I moved them there.  Why weren't they happy on that lovely organic farm?  It had even been raining a bit.

And I just had another friend request bees on her farm--they have two little kids.  What if the same thing happened to their bees?  Now I am afraid to put bees anywhere.

And you know who feels the worst?  The bees.  Maybe they were upset about the Trayvon Mitchell/George Zimmerman verdict and were protesting in their way.  Perhaps they need to let us know how dire their situation, all situations, seem to be, as if they are saying "These are the end of days, people!  Wake up, motherfuckers!"

And a part of me feels like reacting the way author Ross Gay describes in his essay in this month's "The Sun" magazine--with a match and some gasoline.  But that is not my nature.  My nature is to contemplate, question, worry, wait.  Non-confront. 

Yesterday, as I was setting newly polished shoes in the sun to let the wax melt in, I was within a foot of my backyard hive.  A worker bee flew right up to my face and scanned me, hovering a few seconds, floating up and down and then left to right.  I said softly "hi there" and smiled, and she flew off.  She either recognized me or didn't perceive me as a threat to the hive.

I killed the queen, and I liked it.

Today, I killed a queen bee.  It was the right thing to do.



Queen Killer.

My only hive which survived the brutal -30 degree winter had a weak queen.  She was old.  She had a broken wing.  I planned to re-queen the hive because it was mean to me last summer; they were extremely aggressive bees which stung me through my suit and pissed me off.  With a new gentle Italian queen, I could introduce gentler genetics into my apiary.  I ordered a replacement queen for the hive.  But when I checked the hive earlier this spring, I saw the doddering lady and felt pity.  Why kill her just because she's old?  I'm sort of old, too.  I decided to let nature take its course. 

 

Today I checked the hive again and saw her.  The worker bees were dwindling, and there were no new eggs being laid.  In fact, I watched the queen's behavior for a few minutes.  She was dropping her abdomen into empty cells, but no eggs were coming out.  She was going through the motions, but the magic was gone. 

 

It was at that moment that I realized that letting nature take its course meant that not only would she die, but the rest of the hive was in the process of dying as well. 

 

I had another hive which had a sprightly virgin queen, but only a handful of worker bees.  They too wouldn't survive, except for the opposite reason.  I decided to combine the hives, and the only way to do so would be to kill the elderly queen and replace her with the new one.

 

I gently removed grandma from the frame, thanked her for her service, and smushed her with the blunt end of my hive tool. 

 

With a nubile new queen laying eggs and the combined field force of the two hives, they might just make it.



 

The queen is dead.  Long live the queen.

 

2013 Honey Lab Workshops

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Pollinator Politics

I was interviewed on KRZA on 5/23/2013 on the topic of  "Pollinator Politics."

Full interview here.