Oak Orchard Honey

I always like it when I see people giving a name to a hive. It really seems to make the hive more than just a bunch of hard-working bees. Also, it seems like it might help my memory of what's going on in the hive if I allow it to have an identity. So, out of a sense of pride and the desire to know stuff, I'm going to name my hives after the Presidents of the United States of America. This is an amazing group of people by all accounts. I'm an elementary school teacher, and so it is, I have the duty to know important stuff like this to further the education of our young people. The problem is, after I get to Madison my memory kind of fades out until I get to Eisenhower ; that's were I pick up the trail again until I make it to #44. I guess I know the order of fifteen of the presidents. Knowing this probably, and somewhat sadly, puts me in the neighborhood of 99th percentile of Americans. If-ever-I-can-get to forty-four hives, I'm gonna have a wealth of knowledge ab...

Bees all in one corner It appears that my hive #1 that I started out with two years ago as the strongest hive has succumbed to starvation. I have read that the bees can get separated from plenty of honey (in this case a full medium above them) by eating their way into a corner. This is what looks like happened. I was out in the bee yard in February after a long snap of cold weather and rapped on the side of the hive to hear the familiar sound of bees and heard nothing. I kind of knew then that it was not good. It was finally 50 degrees today, our warmest day since back in November - I think. I went out to see what had happened. While my other hive buzzed with activity, along with pollen coming in, I tore into hive number one. Bees in cells I cleaned out the hive and and wondered if it had been ventilated well enough because it looked very mildewed. I also saw in one corner of the brood box a small but concerning amount of mold growing on two of the frames. I would be very inte...

Another amazing Gigapan shot of bees at the elusive almond groves that I have only read about. Click image above to see full-screen image.

The amazing technology of Gigapan allows you to look closely at every cell of an unhealthy frame of comb. Click on the image to view the full screen version of the picture above. Other bee related images can be found by searching for honeybee in he search window at Gigapan,org .

Thinking about spring; I've always wondered why spring isn't capitalized. I'm not sure, but I imagine that the Victorians capitalized Spring. I'm going to start capitalizing Spring, and if I am confronted by a semanticist I will say that I am using it in the form of an apostrophe (which I just found out today from a poet friend, is a usage form when addressing inanimate object as if they are people) This seems to work for Spring. So, I'm waiting on Spring along with everybody else. I guess the beekeepers are ones who feel that it must come as soon as possible. I imagine most people in Upstate New York are tired of winter by now, but the beekeepers know that out in the bee yard there are dark boxes where time is of the essence.

Seems Aristotle lived from 384-322 B.C., and he is pretty much considered to be one of the greatest thinkers of the ancient world. He had a the cool job of educating the son of Philip, King of Macedon the famous Alexander.  Aristotle maintained a very close relationship with Alexander the Great and was in position to study much of what existed in Alexander’s Greek empire, along with the art of beekeeping. A collection of his writings on the subject can be found at http://www.beeclass.com/DTS/aristotle_on_bees.htm One interesting observation mentioned in Aristotle's writing is the use of Thyme: ...there is another disease, which is like a wildness in the bees, and causes a strong smell in the hives.  The bees should be fed on thyme, the white sort is better than the red.  They suffer the most when they work with materials affected with the rust.

 Aristotle's remarks on drones is interesting. I wonder if they teach this at business school today?: The drone is anoth...

Picture of the sun this morning. School is almost over for the year. On June 24 all the paperwork for the year has to be handed in by 11:00 a.m. and I can walk out the door. In the next couple weeks I have two trap-outs I'm going to try for the first time. I've read the blog posts, looked at pictures, and watched the videos. One of the colonies is in a tree that is up pretty high in a tree, so I'm going to get a travel-lift from my brother to reach that one. The other is in an inaccessible area of an old house that is the grandmother's home of a teacher I work with. I should get some interesting posts on my blog from those situations. Not too interesting - I hope. About two weeks ago the catalpa blossoms emerged, but I really haven't seen any real honeybee activity on any of the blossoms. June 5 was the first day that I noticed them, which seems earlier than last year. I think I posted the bloom date on the BeeSource forum last June after school ...