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  • Scene @ NM Summer Beekeeping Seminar 

    mistress beek 8:36 pm on July 11, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: association, NMBKA

    A great crowd and plenty of learning at today’s summer seminar “Nectar for Your Noggin” organized by the New Mexico Beekeepers Association. Personally, I’m still assimilating the intellectual goodies and promise to post a recap soon.

    Until then, here’s a few photos from the event.

    IMG_3104 IMG_3122
    IMG_3109 IMG_3160
    IMG_3136 IMG_3166

    Et aussi, the slides from my newbeek presentation: “Oh Sweet Confusion: What I Learned My First Year Keeping Bees“
    View the presentation online
    Creative Commons License
    Oh Sweet Confusion by Chantal Foster is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
    Based on a work at mistressbeek.com.

     

  • Yours truly @ New Mexico Beekeepers Meeting tomorrow 

    mistress beek 9:51 am on July 10, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: New Mexico Association

    All the drama of a first year beekeeper can be yours at tomorrow’s gathering of the New Mexico Beekeepers Association.

    I’m on deck @ 9am to share “Tales of a Beginning Beekeeper” which is really code for Chaos and Utter Confusion. But I promise to share plenty of photos and video from the past year’s dramatic journey into the land of urban beekeeping.

    More information

    New Mexico State Beekeepers Association — Summer Seminar

    • July 11, 2009
    • 9a.m. – 4:30pm (registration starts at 8am)
    • Visiting guest Serge Labesque- “Chemical Free Bees” from northern California, is keynote speaker. The morning session will include round-robins with local NM beekeepers.

    Rio West Community Church
    6751 Pasilla Rd, NE
    Rio Rancho, NM 87144

    View a map

     

  • The Day of the Swarm 

    mistress beek 7:40 am on June 30, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: ,

    This beekeeping thing is endlessly cryptic.

    Take yesterday, for example, when bees from the Ann Hive swarmed TWICE and yet due to a clipped queen, remain stuck in our backyard.

    Alex tells the dramatic tale of exodus and return…

     

  • The Summer Nectar Series 

    mistress beek 9:36 am on June 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: bee-friendly plants, borage

    Just before the heat of summer in Albuquerque, lavender and blue borage flow like a speakeasy still.

    Get a bee-friendly planting guide for your area

    The summer gorge


    The summer gorge

     

    • Gord 10:20 am on June 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      For as long as I can remember, my Dad’s planted borage in and around his vegetable garden to attract the bees. I love the top shot. :-)

      • mistress beek 10:23 am on June 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply

        And that it does! It’s the first year I’ve planted borage in my garden and the honeybees adore it.

        How’s your season progressing?

  • Bee Sting: You gotta know when to fold 'em 

    mistress beek 4:35 pm on June 16, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: hawk wasp, sting

    My first minute in the hive, I was stung.

    It’s an otherwise innocuous day, the first after a long string of late nights launching this new website. The first day in weeks I’ve had a chance to nurture myself or my hives. But something wasn’t right in the Ann Hive.

    Perhaps they’re crowded or hot or moody, but whatever they are it’s not desirous of my presence in their lives today. First the sting, then head-butting, and finally a low threatening hum.

    And that’s when I walked away.

    So instead of an update on the quite busy Ann Hive, a new colony this year from a B. Weaver nucleus, all I’ve got is this photo. It’s a tarantula hawk wasp, the beautiful blue NM state insect, capturing a wolf spider on my back porch. And if it’s stings we’re worried about, I ended up on the right side of my backyard bargain as the hawk wasp has one of the nastiest stings known to man.

    Wasp vs. Spider

    Wasp vs. Spider

     

  • Where the wild bees grow 

    mistress beek 3:31 pm on June 9, 2009 Permalink | Reply

    Just past the cluster of roadrunners and lizards, not far from the Rio Grande bisecting Albuquerque, there’s a wild hive of honeybees.

    The girls work quietly in an old cottonwood along the bosque bike trail near Paseo del Norte.

    IMG_2956

    IMG_2967

    		 IMG_2946
     

    • Gord 4:16 pm on June 9, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      What a gorgeous purple. We picked up a good-sized swarm in an old residential neighbourhood yesterday morning and would love to know where the hive is that they came from. Any hive that can cast a four-pound swarm after the wet, cold, spring that we’ve had must be doing well.

      • mistress beek 4:26 pm on June 9, 2009 Permalink | Reply

        Congrats on the swarm! What does this bring your hive total to?

    • Jessica Loomis 11:12 am on June 14, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      I need your help. We live on the Westside of Albuquerque and we have a huge colony of honey bees that have implanted themselves in a group of rocks on the ground next to our house. I would hate to exterminate them and would really appreciate some guidance on what we can do to have them removed without killing them. call me ASAP 505-908-0985

      • mistress beek 11:51 am on June 14, 2009 Permalink | Reply

        Hi Jessica! Congrats on the bees ;-) How long have they been there? If they just arrived, it’s a temporary swarm and they’ll move on in a day or two. Regardless, you can call the City’s 311 # to report a bee swarm. The City has a list of local beekeepers who will snatch up swarms of honeybees. Of course… these kids may not be honeybees, sometimes it’s hard to tell.

        Hope that helps!

  • Bird of Paradise: Bee-Friendly & Xeric 

    mistress beek 10:36 am on June 8, 2009 Permalink | Reply

    Its gifts are double, this strange flowering bush-tree. It’s called Yellow Bird of Paradise ( Caesalpinia gilliesii) and it grows shockingly well in Albuquerque without much supplemental water which is a boon for city-kept bees.

    Currently, my girls are harvesting both nectar and pollen from Caesalpinia gilliesii like sincere clowns in a circus display. Some dangle and bob from long red stamens plucking what pollen they may. Others, more aggressive perhaps, dive straight in and deep where nectar lies at the bottom of petals the color of egg yolk.

    Harvesting nectar from the yellow bird of paradise bush

    Harvesting nectar from the yellow bird of paradise bush

     

  • Langstroth + Top Bar = A Very Confused Bee Hive 

    mistress beek 6:09 pm on June 1, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: langstroth

    This here’s a little tale about how we supered our top bar hive. Yep, I hear the purists cringing and the aesthetes too. And they’re right — we’ve got a Frankenstein on our hands.

    All super-ed up and ready to grow

    All super-ed up and ready to grow

    Why did we do it?

    The Kerry hive is full beyond belief — every bar is packed with honey, pollen, and fresh worker brood. No matter how many bars I harvest, the girls are drawing more within a short week or two and showing no signs of a slow down. It’s a full house.

    So, rather than fight the gift of a madly productive hive, we’re rolling with it.

    How did we do it?

    First, let me admit it’s all my partner’s idea.

    He’s obsessed with Langstroth hives and secretly bought a couple to “experiment with.” Next thing I know, I hear myself saying it’s OK to add Langstroth honey supers to a top bar hive which, were I sober or not in love with him, I’d have thought the most perverse of sins.

    So here’s what we did:

    1. Remove one bar from the back of the hive
    2. Cut spacers about 3/8 inch (enough to allow “bee space”)
    3. Put spacers between bars at the back of the hive
    4. Place an empty super on top of the spaced bars at the back of the hive
    5. To provide evenness for a cover, place an empty super at the front of the hive (there’s no space yet between the bars underneath this super)
    6. Place a cover on top of both supers

    And here’s the photo essay version…

    (More …)

     

    • Sarah Dolk 9:20 pm on June 1, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      OMG. He actually did it. I told him I saw someone do it online, but I never sent him the link. Honest!

    • Brian Morris 6:31 am on June 2, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      I am interested to see what happens with this. Great photos!

    • Gord 10:39 am on June 3, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Like you said, you didn’t want to fight the hive. Sure beats harvesting every few days or risking them getting honeybound and bailing out.

      • mistress beek 10:54 am on June 3, 2009 Permalink | Reply

        Let’s see how it goes! We can hear ‘em busy in the new super so that’s a good sign…

        • Velbert 6:08 pm on June 8, 2009 Permalink

          Your thinking is right I would let both queens go about laying it will make for a stronger hive some time though at the season end the old queen will leave with a small swarm if you catch this swarm just kill the old queen and put the bees back into the hive. I have tried to save these a got a frame of brood from the hive and they still ended up leaving

          Velbert

      • Ron 12:15 pm on June 4, 2009 Permalink | Reply

        I agree with Gord. Necessity is the mother of invention. Lord knows I’ve never seen this kind of setup. But you’re doing what you have to do with the circumstances you’re dealt.

    • Kim 12:20 pm on June 3, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      So fun to hear about your adventures–I think your “hive rise” is cool!

      • Stevedore 5:22 am on June 7, 2009 Permalink | Reply

        Interesting solution to a problem we all wish we had. Do you still have two queens in this hive? Does each side have it’s own entrance? You could put a divider in the center and manage it like two separate hives.

        • mistress beek 7:55 am on June 8, 2009 Permalink

          Hi there! You know, as far as I can tell there are still two queens in the hive. There’s only one entrance at the moment and no divider. Very very provocative idea to add a divider and manage it as two hives…

          One of the queens is in her second season, so I’m wondering whether it might benefit the hive to leave it open and assume the new queen will eventually supercede her? Late summer is harsh for hives in Albuquerque so perhaps the massive build-up will help them surivive?

          Would love to hear your thoughts.

        • Stevedore 3:49 am on June 9, 2009 Permalink

          I guess I’d be reluctant to change anything now, especially after so much success and with a dearth coming. If the piping has stopped, perhaps they’ve already settled on one queen. You may want to rethink gapped bars for the passage between boxes, as the bee space is already built in to your 1-3/8ths top bars. There’s a good thread on self-spacing top bars on the Biobees forums. Do the supers use top bars too, or frames & foundation?

  • Interview with a commercial top bar beekeeper 

    mistress beek 8:27 pm on May 28, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: antibiotics, russian,

    Les Crowder, photo by RD Managain

    Les Crowder, photo by Jeff Spicer

    Bioneers’ RD Managain just interviewed Les Crowder, a veteran commercial beekeeper in New Mexico.

    Crowder on varroa resistance:

     I started keeping bees when I was a kid. It was then I read an article in the American Bee Journal was reading about the varroa mite in Europe, written by an Italian who was researching the Italian honeybee in its natural state. He calculated how many feral beehives there were throughout Italy. When the varroa mite arrived, many of the feral hives died.

    About eight years after the arrival of the varroa mite, he noticed a general increase in the feral Italian honeybee population in the wild. He concluded that they had developed a natural resistance to the mite. And, of course, nobody applied any miticide to those bees. They’re just wild bees out in nature. So, honeybees left alone will naturally develop mite resistance.

    On antibiotics:

    Antibiotics interfere with their digestion, just like if we take antibiotics we get diarrhea sometimes because we kill off our natural flora. My wife just recently wrote an article for the American Bee Journal, which they declined to print, indicating that the use of antibiotics can set up conditions for things like Candida and Nocema cerranae [a pathogen tentatively linked to colony collapse disorder] in honey bees. In beekeeping, they advise you to give antibiotics to bees, every beehive, every year as a preventative. It is administered in the winter to prevent them from getting sick in the summer, which doesn’t make any sense.

    [Read the full interview with Les Crowder]

     

    • Tim 5:27 pm on June 1, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Mistress Beek, good interview with Les. I met him once at a bee meeting up in santa fe. I am currently living here in ‘burque, built a solid topbar hive over the winter and am looking for a swarm or split. you got any leads? -we have been trying to coax a swarm out of a neighbor’s wall with no luck :( .

      -your fellow bee lover,
      Tim

    • Gord 10:41 am on June 3, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Excellent interview, that. Nice to have some validation of what my partner and I feel but haven’t been able to properly explain.

      • mistress beek 10:53 am on June 3, 2009 Permalink | Reply

        Cool. I’d be interested in knowing what you and your partner have been concluding; what in particular resonated?

  • Double Team: Two queens in one hive 

    mistress beek 10:15 am on May 23, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: queens

    Flouting all objection to polygamist cults, I’ve got two queens in the Kerry hive.

    While to some this might make for “sweet sweet lesbian bee action“, in my case it’s just honey overload and a fat, fat hive.

    • In the front, I think the old queen is laying.
    • In the back, I’ve got a new queen laying. And how prolific! In an utterly beautiful tight pattern, she’s laying combs of dark bees (Russian? Carnolian? Hopefully not “Africanized”).

    Why the harmonious co-existence?  Aren’t Apis mellifera queens renowned for their Battles Royale, fighting brutally until only one remains victorious? 

    Alex, examining the Kerry Hive

    Alex, examining the Kerry Hive

    Perhaps my hive is undergoing a drawn-out supercedure. Or perhaps they’re waiting to swarm. All I can say for certain is that:

    1. Queens are piping when I open the hive
    2. There are two brood nests
    3. There are new dark bees in the hive
    4. The girls are producing ungodly amounts of honey

    If the unusually cloudy weather in Albuquerque ever clears up, I’ll open the Kerry hive again and sleuth out more details.

     

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