It seems odd to me. A
significant part of a bee's biology deals with flight
late in life.They are exquisitely desgined to take
nectar and pollen from flowers in daylight, yet they
spend almost all of their time in a pitch black hive.
During most of her life she hangs around the hive,
wandering here and there, touching relatives and
things. Sleeping, stopping to clean something or
fiddle with wax and comb. Less than a third of
the day is spent working or sleeping. The
comings and goings of her sisters during the daylight
sets the tempo.
I saw an ad for a
yardsale that mentioned bee-keeping gear. The
guy sold me several boxes of ready to assemble frames
and curious little wooden boxes which must be for
harvesting honey and comb. He also had some
foundation wax. All up, enough frames for a
brood box and three supers cost me about $10.
For a while I thought of trying to make my own boxes
but couldn't figure out the geometry. The boxes
and top and bottom boards
 The End Bar lengths: brood 9 1/4", super 6 1/4" |
and
a hive tool came to almost $100. As it
turns out, I'll need to go back to Lincoln Hts |
the LA Honey Company
(1552 Fishburn) for about 20 more wax foundations
($13.50) for
the supers. Now that I've nailed the boxes
together and painted them -- one super and the top are
post-it note yellow, the rest white -- I'll have to
figure out where to put them in the backyard and how
to disguise the hive. Why do I have three
veils? Maybe I'm expecting visitors.
Preface
Wait a minute, who am I to say anything about tending bees?
Well, I like bees and have tended them before and look forward to subsequent adventures while giving them an excellent home in my back yard. Will that do?
Who can tell what someone might gain from my descriptions of our adventures? Perhaps it'll induce someone to write similarly but more cleverly about the events in their backyard.
The LA beekeeping scene:
Crikey, who wants to wade into the politics of it all?
Start at Backwards Beekeeping, go to the LA Beekeepers. All up, you are going to get a hive and have a fine time.
Backwards Beekeepers (10:00am, 3rd Sunday of the month at Farmlab near downtown, under the LA River bridge above Not-a-Cornfield, look it up).
Los Angeles County Beekeepers Assoc. (7:00pm, 1st Monday of the month at the Mount Olive Luthern Church, Foothill Blvd., La Crescenta).
LA Honey Company, 1559 Fishburn, Los Angeles, (323) 264-2383
Bees in the News
Deutsche Welle (Feb. 2, 2011) reports: EU beekeepers stage win against GM crop producers, Nina Haase. The EU's highest court may classify honey containing traces of genetically modified material as "food produced" from modified plants. Such a ruling may enable beekeepers with hives close to GM crops to seek damages.
United Nations Environmental Program, Emerging Issues, Global Honey Bee Colony Disorders and Other Threats to Insect Pollinators (3.3MB pdf). Several studies have highlighted different factors leading to the pollinators’ decline that have been observed around the world. This bulletin considers the latest scientific findings and analyses possible answers to this question. As the bee group is the most important pollinator worldwide, this bulletin focuses on the instability of wild and managed bee populations, the driving forces, potential mitigating measures and recommendations.
Illustrations
Apple Flower with Bee, Simon Eugster --– Simon