Last night, I scored a virgin queen from Zia Queen Bee Co but night’s no time to install a queen. So Queen Elizabeth and I spent the night together chastely waiting for sunlight and attempting to stay warm.

Keeping the queen warm in my pocket til I can take her home

The queen spent the night in a sock on a shelf 6 inches above my head

This morning before my 9 a.m. meeting, I installed Good Queen Bess in the lonely hive. And now my job is to wait 3-4 weeks for her to:

1. Engage in a productive sky orgy
2. Return safely and start laying
3. Be deemed acceptable by the colony

In the meantime, nature doesn’t need any meddling from me.

Anatomy of a queen cage

The chicken wire keeps our chickens away from the hive

I hope to see something like this: Fresh bee eggs on black foundation with spring pollen nearby

A gorgeous swarm in the neighborhood

Our swarm transfer process

Exposing their Nasonov glands to waft a “homing” pheromone

For more on technique, see: http://mistressbeek.com/2010/05/13/how-to-catch-a-swarm/

“Why are we spending $80 on labels?” my husband asked. “We don’t even sell our honey!” And he’s right. Our 1040 reads a fat zero on the “Honey Income” line but, I might argue, if the IRS measured quality of life, mine would skyrocket every time I bottle a jar of honey. This weekend I harvested 2 gallons of honey from my Nob Hill hive, and the bottling process was pure pleasure.

My honey jars, inspired by the Chicago Honey Co-op

If you’re an aesthete like me, or if you aim to sell your honey, here are a few ideas for inspiration and sourcing.

Inspiration

Beeline cylinder jars	Abella’s custom jars	Concept by Ah&Oh
Chicago Honey Co-op	Classic hexagon revisited	Honey trio by Bee Raw

Jar Sources

For interesting jars, consider alternative glass sources like candle jars or salve jars. Here are a few low-cost options to move beyond the plastic honey bear. Click an image to find the product page.

Tall French square	Candle bottle	Blue straight jar
Black lid straight jar	Unusual round jar	Tall cylinder jar

Find a few more ideas at: http://www.sunburstbottle.com/glass-jars

Label Sources

• www.myownlabels.com
• www.dionlabel.com
• DIY: Etched glass labels
• DIY: Decal glass labels

But eventually, one must don a pair of work gloves and dig in. This weekend, I finally lifted the lid of my devastated hive and began the slow and disgusting work of cleaning her out.

Fortunately, the chill of winter had killed all remaining wax moths, and robber bees had removed all remaining drops of honey. So, you see, avoidance seems to have worked in my favor after all.

What would have been a sticky slime-filled mess, was now simply dessicated and devoid of life.

And so, I’ll clean off the cocoons and webbing. I’ll freeze the frames to kill any remaining moth eggs. And I’ll pick up my heavy heart and start over.

We’re an eccentric crew.

With over 400 teachers, students, attorneys, engineers, scientists, accountants, fighter pilots and more, the Albuquerque beekeeping scene is endlessly varied. And one of my greatest pleasures is to volunteer as co-chair with Jessie Brown to organize our collective efforts.

Hands down, the highlight of our annual event series is our Spring Field Day. Lucky us, today was another beautiful and bee-filled day in the Rio Grande Valley.

View a slideshow of the full photo set.

Learn more about beekeeping in Albuquerque.

I keep bees for the pure moments of surprise, doubt, and confusion that inevitably arise when I least expect them…

• When the burgeoning hive that towers like a honey-filled monster in my backyard disappears without a trace while I’m in Sweden.
• When the walkaway split that I created like a reckless cowgirl manages to A) raise a queen; B) mate the queen; C) return the queen before her sisters revolt; and D) grow a new generation in time for winter.
• When the perfect hive succumbs like a midnight victim to varroa.
• When the underdog colony I presumed dead in March turns out to be jammed full of bees and blasting into summer.

I keep bees for the magic of utterly unexpected moments filled with challenge and hope; disappointment and glittering joy. I keep bees for all that I could never hope to control.

So giddy up, it’s time to dig into my hives and see how they fared the winter.

First hive check of the year

Spring is unpredictable in Albuquerque with great swings from night to day, so I try not to open my hives AT ALL until late March when temperatures stabilize. This restraint prevents me from destroying clustering bees or chilling brood but it’s also a fine line — how late is too late? If I delay too long, will the colony swarm?

What the landing board can tell you…

To slake my curiosity, I watch the landing board for weeks before opening the hive. I’m looking for 2 things:

• Pollen on the legs of bees entering the hive: If worker bees are carrying pollen inside the hive, this likely means a) there are fresh larvae inside needing pollen and b) those workers aren’t robber bees.
• Lots of orienting bees in the afternoon: When temps warm up each afternoon I should see the familiar arc of new bees orienting themselves near the hive entrance. If I don’t see this but there’s pollen entering the hive, something is keeping the queen from laying aggressively.

First… a health check.

Once it’s consistently warm enough (above 60° F), I’m ready for my first hive check of the season. Here’s what I look for to determine the overall health of the hive:

• Bees: Are the brood boxes full of bees? If so, this means a strong hive with enough bodies to possibly split the hive.
• Pollen: Are the bees finding and storing pollen in the hive? Pollen = protein for new larvae, so it’s  a critical component in building colony numbers.
• Capped Brood: Is the queen laying? The ultimate goal of the first Spring check is to determine whether the queen is solidly laying worker brood. A solid brood pattern looks like the image below, with worker brood as far as the eye can see with only a few holes for heater bees.

A gorgeous brood pattern -- solid worker brood as far as the eye can see.

Then… a swarm check.

While we’re in there, let’s gauge the colony’s likelihood of swarming. Here are the indicators I look for:

• Drones or capped drone brood cells: If there are drones walking around, consider making a hive split. If there are capped drone cells (but no live drones), start preparing for a split, maybe 1 or 2 weeks out.
• Swarm cells: If the hive contains swarm cells, split ASAP. In fact, some experts say that the presence of swarm cells means it may already be too late as the hive is determined to swarm regardless of your interventions.

In the case of my hive check this weekend, I found drone cells (but no live drones) and queen cups (but no swarm cells). In about a week, I’ll go in and split this hive in two. More on that technique below…

Problem solving.

With a strong disease-free hive, the main goals for Spring maintenance are to provide room for brood & honey and prevent swarming. Here’s how I manage both:

Provide room

If the hive doesn’t have enough empty frames in the brood chamber, the queen can’t lay eggs. And if the super (assuming you’ve overwintered with 3 boxes) doesn’t have empty frames, there’s nowhere to store honey.  In my case, I had both problems. Nowhere to lay eggs and nowhere to store new honey. My hive was totally honeybound.

So, I decided to “checkerboard” the hive by alternating empty and full frames in the super and upper brood box (but keeping existing frames with brood next to each other for warmth. It still gets chilly at night in Albuquerque).

How to checkerboard a hive:

• http://www.honeybeesuite.com/how-to-checkerboard-a-hive/
• http://beenatural.wordpress.com/vertical-natural-comb-hives/checker-boarding/

Split hives

If your hive is burgeoning with bees, drone brood, and swarm cells, make a split ASAP. Otherwise, start preparing for a split in 1 or 2 weeks.

How to make a split:

• http://mistressbeek.com/2011/04/17/hive-splitting-lazy-girls-swarm-prevention/

Requeen

If your brood pattern is spotty or the hive is aggressive (in urban areas, it’s important to promote docile bee genetics), make a call to your favorite queen breeder and order new royalty for your hive.

• http://www.honeybeegenetics.com/
• http://www.beeweaver.com/

But first, what is an entrance reducer anyway?

Many beekeepers, myself included, reduce the size of the hive opening each winter to give the girls an edge in controlling pests, ventilation, and more. It’s a cheap, quick, and commonly-used intervention.

Read more about entrance reducers

What happens if I don’t use an entrance reducer?

The colony gathers propolis to reduce the entrance as it pleases. As you can see in the entrance to this hive, my girls simply formed columns of propolis this past winter to ventilate and protect the hive according to their needs.

Propolis columns at the hive entrance

I’m going to leave these sticky columns intact until the heat of Summer and see how the girls adjust them to suit their collective desire. Watch for photos…

UPDATE: Here’s what the propolis “front door” looked like one month later.

Besides getting free beekeeping training from TBH superstar Les Crowder, you’ll also get to hang with me out at the Candelaria Farms hives in Albuquerque’s North Valley. It’s a rural quiet spot amidst the City’s bluster; a place that creates moments of comet-like beauty such as a flock of Sandhill Cranes flying overhead as you walk up to check the hives between client meetings or classes or otherwise dreary deadlines. The result? Pure connected creaturely bliss.

[Download an internship application | Deadline is March 14, 2012]

Just this afternoon, I was greeted by a group of Sandhill Cranes near my hives at the Candelaria Farms Open Space in Albuquerque, NM