BEES AND POLLINATIONS

I’m only a year late spotting this: Suggs is a beekeeper…   Read the full story at http://www.premisesstudios.com/blog/suggs-and-the-premises-launch-urban-beekeeping-campaign/

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I had on a veil and jacket. I also had on gloves because my hands were stung in the swarm hive (queenless and angry with my intrusion).  Jeff just had on a jacket and veil as well. He helped me lift off the second box (also heavy but with brood as well as honey), and again we tore up drone brood between the boxes.   Jeff had company who came to see the new grand baby, and wasn’t expecting to work the bees with me, so I encouraged him to go be with his guests.

Meanwhile I was using hive drapes and smoke but these bees were so unhappy. Suddenly I realized at least three were inside my veil. I walked away from the hive and killed at least one of the bees inside the veil by pinching her, but not before I had been stung three times.

Why didn’t I just stop the inspection?

This was a day when I could work the bees, the temperature was finally right, and the drone brood between the frames pointed to a need for space. These bees are going to swarm unless I really work hard to keep them contained and I knew one way would be to checkerboard the brood box to expand the brood space.

So….I put on my Golden Bee suit – just happened to have it in the car. My friend Julia had been using it until she got one of her own and had conveniently just returned it to me. I think I’ll keep it in the car on bee visits!

I took a new box with a few drawn frames and some strip frames and went back to Colony Square,  waiting for me, draped but angry. The bottom deep had brood in it, but I needed to do this with medium boxes. The next box (#2) had brood as well, so I checkerboarded it with the new box I brought with me.

I completely forgot about the swarm hive and did not pull a frame of brood and eggs for it.

Checkerboarding means that in Box #2, frames 1, 3, 5, 7 were left with brood in them and frames 2, 4, 6, and 8 are now empty comb or undrawn frames. In Box #3, frames 2, 4, 6, and 8 are brood frames moved up from Box #2 and frames 1, 3, 5, and 7 are now empty comb or undrawn frames. This expands the brood nest as per Michael Bush (he calls it unlimited brood nest) and gives the queen more room to lay.

You can only do this if the hive has enough nurse bees to keep the brood warm and this hive is bursting at the seams…so no problem there.  Next Sunday, if the weather is good, Jeff and I are going to make two nucs from this hive.  

This is how the hive looked almost an hour after I was done….and it’s February!  This hive is bound to swarm unless we do something.

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Hi all –

When I first began beekeeping in 2005, there was almost nothing online and I was a lovable eccentric. Now you can find a Youtube category for any beekeeping activity about which you have a question, and this is just one of hundreds of accounts of beginning, ongoing, natural, scientific, urban, suburban, rural — you name it — beekeeping out there. SO I was not sure what to say.

Also, it was really stoopid of my to let me real place, name, face get associated with this blog, because when I get frustrated or do something completely dumb, I’m no longer in a safe corner, able to discuss it without hurting feelings or scaring the neighbors.

Finally, last year was pretty terrible. I lost 40% of my bees, 8 out of 19 colonies, only 2 for reasons I could figure out. I’ve gotten myself committed to all sorts of activities that are kinda-sorta about beekeeping, but not actually in the field or in the library learning more.

But Spring is coming again, and once again hope. We have more volunteers downtown these days, and more people have been peeking under the hive cover and sliding in some fondant, even as I get wrapped around the axle of arranging speakers for meetings and debating club policies.

And I have finally shouted out for a Downtown DC Beekeeper Meetup (Friday, February 24 7:00 PM Church of the Reformation, 212 East Capitol Street, Capitol South or Eastern Market Metro) and was thinking that, depending on who and how many show up, there might be some insight into what I could be saying or doing here.

Please come if you are nearby and have the time, all are welcome. We are just planning on introducing ourselves and comparing notes right now.

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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.

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