Spring Flowers

 

The California poppies are really starting to bloom.  Bumblebees love these flowers.  

I took a walk this morning, the first really nice day of the year after the rains.  Everything is blooming are getting ready to.   I saw the bees on a flowering Jade plant.  The midwestern house plant I used to nurse along as a kid, often unsuccessfully, grows quite large here in San Francisco.   I have a few in my front yard that are about 4 feet tall and wide.  I kind of consider them a weed now.  But surprise surprise, the bees love them when they flower, so I won't be as hasty pulling them out. 

The bees also love rosemary, which is is full bloom right now.

This cherry tree was covered in bees.  But I still had to chase them around for these blurry shots.

  

 

Beekeeping Book

 

If I was all fancy, I would know how to make it so when you click on this image it would take you to a website.  But I am not and I don't.    So you're gonna have to do it the old fashioned way. 

I was excited to get an invitation to be in a beekeeping book written by a woman named Ashley English who writes on her blog Small Measure and also a weekly column for Design Sponge.  I filled out her questionnaire and maybe (fingers crossed) I can be one of the featured beekeepers.  Her blog is awesome and her other books look great.  I would be proud to be in one.  And even if I am not, I will probably buy one.  And maybe you will, too. 

Tasmania

My dear Tasmanian friend visited this week from New York and brought me a gift from her dad in Tasmania. He kept bees for a while and thought I should have this book.  It really meant a lot to me.  I met him when he came to visit San Francisco many years ago.  We had a great time at a trivia night held at a local pub. If not for him, we would have lost.  He knew every single answer to the questions about the Olympics.  They had booked a hotel on 6th and Market, an area notorious for drug dealers and sex workers and violent crime.  We were concerned that they would get a bad impression of our fair city, but all her dad noticed was the local wildlife:  pigeons, grackles, crows.  When he and his wife came to visit again, my friend took them to Big Sur for a few days.  I was working and could not go along, but I sent a bunch of natural history field guides along with them and hoped it would make their visit more pleasurable. 

I guess he remembered the kindness and returned the favor by sending me his beekeeping manual and permit. 

January Inspection

A quick look into the hives in January in a beautiful clear light. 

One hive recovered from the foulbrood but the other is almost dead.  

We only found about 100 bees huddling in the box.  

Nothing we could do for them but wait for them to die.  

It was heartbreaking to see them that way and know we could not help them.  

These photos celebrate the beauty and light in the living hives.  

Spring is just around the corner. 

Bee Poetry

This beeing-- is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
-rumi.

Christmas Bee Customs

"In connection with these Christmas customs there are two curious observances among the more secluded dwellers of Shakespeare's greenwood, which, though they partake of the nature of superstitions, may very well be allowed accord here. They both occur on Christmas Eve, just upon the stroke of twelve (the witching hour), when the occupants of cot or farmstead, in the one instance, troop down the rustic garden to the beehives, " to hear the bees sing their Christmas carols." The belief is that these busy insects are as pleased at the birth of a new Christmas Day as the members of the human family, and testify their mirth by singing a set of new carols for the occasion. It is certainly a pretty and poetical custom which draws the peasants into the dim garden at midnight on Christmas Eve in the simple faith that the bees are singing Christmas in."



Shakespeare's Greenwood: The Customs of the Country By George Morley 1900

thanks to Historical Honeybee

Another One Bites the Dust

I went out to the hives yesterday to give them more antibiotics and to change out the sugar water in case it had gotten moldy. I got a nice fire going in the smoker and opened up the smallest sick hive to see how they were doing. I've been sick this weekend and did not get out there as soon as I had hoped. But I think it would have been too late for this hive anyway. They were all dead. I searched through the ones lying on the screened bottom board but did not see the queen.







I took apart the hive and prepared it for the process of cleaning out the contaminated frames. Two out of five failed before the rains have even started. This is not a good way for them to go into winter.



I opened up the others and did not smell any foulbrood stink. I gave the big hive antibiotics and decided again to skip the ones that were still healthy. No need to overuse antibiotics if they are not needed. I put one of the ziplock baggies full of sugar water into the top of the big hive and poked some holes in it with my swiss army knife so they could get at it without drowning.

When hives die like this I feel so guilty that I don't know enough yet to prevent the diseases or help them in time. I really want to move them to a sunnier spot. This garden is just about warm enough in the summer but it gets really dank and cold and wet back there in winter. All the cold sinks down into that low spot and all the diseases that kill bees love that kind of environment. Peter was talking about moving them up onto his mother's side deck or onto our roof. The roof would be perfect except we would need to build a staircase to get the heavy boxes up and down. The deck is better for access but worse for safety and convenience to his mom, who would lose the use of it all together.

I consoled myself by taking some photos of the healthy bees with my new macro lens.