Blog Migration
February 3rd, 2009
As my focus turns to Bee Thinking, I have added a blog to the site here: http://www.beethinking.com/blog that will replace this one.
If you’d like to stay up-to-date on the going ons of my project, please head to http://www.beethinking.com in the future!
Thanks for reading, and be excited, for Spring is nigh!
Tags: bee thinking, moving, new blog
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Bees, Snow, and New Shop
December 18th, 2008
The past few months have been quite chaotic. Work has been busy, house hunting seemingly unending and woodworking has proven to be enjoyable. Last month we found our new home, and through some fortuitous occurrences, we are now the proud owners of this house:
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| From New Home |
It’s old, beautiful and has space for bees in the yard. More importantly, it has a 500 square foot finished garage that I will be using as the shop for my beekeeping business. This will allow me to build hives in a heated, roomy area! I am excited beyond measure.
This week we are beginning to move into our new home, but the recent “snowstorm” in addition to illnesses has proven to make moving difficult. We hope to be moved in by Sunday.
The bees are bundled up tight, enduring uncommonly cold weather for the Portland metro area. Here’s a shot of them in the snow:
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| From Snow Bees |
I’ll update again once we’re moved into the new place! I must go work diligently on http://www.BeeThinking.com
Tags: Bees, house, snow, woodworking
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Busy, Busy, Busy
October 29th, 2008
Jill thinks I’m too busy. I never think I’m busy enough. Thanks to some fortuitous e-mail connections, I recently got involved with the Zenger Farm Community Bee Group and am now taking over coordinating the project with another adventuresome soul. We meet the last Tuesday of every month, discuss beekeeping and listen to a presentation by various interesting individuals. At present we have only a few hives, but come Spring 2009 we intend to have 7 or more that will be managed by members of the community turned beekeepers within our group. If you’d like more information — and the page is being updated shortly to reflect the leadership changes — please go to http://zenger.eroi.com/heifer-project . If you are interested in joining the mailing list, please send me, not Wisteria, an e-mail and I’ll send you the instructions.
In other news http://www.beethinking.com is proving to be very well-liked by the world beekeeping community, and so far I’ve had dozens of links submitted, members join and traffic has increased accordingly. In the coming months we will be holding giveaways of items donated by various suppliers to registered users of Bee Thinking. If you’ve not yet joined, do so now to ensure that you don’t miss out!
My hive is doing very well and I don’t think I can do much more to prepare them for winter. They’ve been fed approximately 8 lbs of syrup, powdered sugared to combat Varroa Mites and ventilated the best I can with a “Vivaldi” feeder from Ruhl Bee Supply. I am quite pleased that there are still dozens of drones coming and going every hour, as this is a sign that the hive feels it is strong enough to warrant the feeding of now-useless drones at the critical time before the dormant season.
Lastly, I’ve created the foundation of my third top bar hive, as can be seen here:
Tags: bee thinking, feeding, Top Bar, zenger bee
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Hive Building and More
October 18th, 2008
All,
I’ve been quite busy the past few weeks building hives, working on http://www.beethinking.com and being a husband! Thankfully my wife is patient with my obsessions.
I’ve got the basics completed for 3 hives and I’ve ironed out the steps to fit the garage, materials and my skills.
I’ve been building the follower boards en masse:
I’ve also been cutting the holes for the legs but leaving the legs off of the hives so they are easier to stack. Next year when it’s time to place the hives in their new homes I will put the legs back on:
On another note, http://www.beethinking.com has been a tremendous success so far. The overall reaction from the bee community has been positive and I’ve had dozens of individuals join the site and submit links, and hundreds of visitors daily. It is my goal to make it more accessible, up-to-date and dynamic in order to make the user experience even better. The more people who submit links, articles, news and ideas, the better the resource will be.
Tomorrow Jill, my parents and I leave for Newport, OR for a night of relaxation and eating! More to come.
Tags: Building, community beekeeping, top bar hive
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BBQ and Bee Celebration
September 29th, 2008
Yesterday I had two aunts, an uncle, cousin and friends over to my parent’s for breakfast to celebrate one of the last sunny days of the year for hive number one. After our wonderful pancake, egg and bacon breakfast, I suited up and displayed for my family the inner workings of a beehive! They were quite fascinated and I think it went well. However, during the inspection I removed a great deal of burr comb from between the two deeps. After the inspection I took off my suit and began cleaning up comb. Much to my surprise, as I clumped some comb together I felt a sharp pain in my left index finger and proceeded to grimace without caterwauling…as I didn’t want to worry my family members. I went inside, dressed my wound and walked back out to finish cleaning up. Then it happened. Again. While I was standing next to the hive an obviously angry bee dive bombed me in the left temple, and without hesitating proceeded to sting me. I stood in shock and embarrassment, still grasping my mangled finger. I slowly loped inside and dressed my newly-injured forehead. What a day!
Other than that, I’ve been working diligently on Beethinking.com which I hope to make more progress on before woodworking class begins on the 6th!
I asked my mother to inspect the status of the top feeder I put on the hive yesterday. Today she suited up, grabbed the brush and hive tool and took a look. Always overly-compassionate to creatures of all sizes, it was quite an ordeal for her to put the inner cover back on. She meticulously brushed the bees off of the edges, hoping that they would avoid death-by-crushing! This, of course, irritated the bees profusely and caused them to take their aggression out on her. Finally, after a few minutes of bombardment, she got the inner cover back on and fled for her life.
Tags: Bees, fall, family, feeding
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Fall is Here
September 27th, 2008
Greetings,
August first is the first day of Fall for beekeepers, and it seems that my bees took notice of this change of seasons as well. Frantically working, aggressive and quick to devour the sugar I feed them, they have had a noticeable change of demeanor since Summer ended.
Being that tomorrow (Sunday) is likely to be one of the last sunny weekend days this year, I decided to have a Fall bee breakfast and invited a few relatives over. I’ll be cooking pancakes, amazing them with bee stories and odd trivia, all while sitting but 20 feet from the hive, watching the girls working diligently. After breakfast I’ll be opening the hive and letting them see inside a hive for the first time. Hopefully, while we fill our bellies, we’ll get to see the drones thrown out of the hive to certain death! I’ll update you with photos and more information as soon as possible.
Lastly, I’ve begun work on a website that I intend to be an extensive, searchable directory of bee links and information, I.E. the one stop resource for bee information on the web. It’s neither close to completed nor pretty yet, but you can find it here: http://www.beethinking.com
Tags: Bees, beethinking.com, fall, family
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First Top Bar!
September 14th, 2008
It began at 3:00PM and ended at 9:00PM, but I finally have 85% of the first top bar hive completed! Halfway through I had to stop by the hardware store for some screws and nails, but all in all I think it went very well. I have determined that I absolutely need a table saw to make clean, efficient cuts on the follower boards — the most vital portion of the entire hive!
This coming week I will get in touch with some old friends who own a sign company and beg for some scrap plastic for the hive roof. Other than that I simply need to finish the top bars, cut a hole and install the viewing window, drill some entrance holes and the hive will be good to go!
The materials:
The scribbles:
The hive!:
Me, excited:
Bees feeding:
Tags: Bees, Building, Feeder, Top Bar
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Needed Update
September 14th, 2008
Greetings all,
I apologize for the long delay in updating. I’ve been rather busy with work, bee studies and my husband duties. My fervor for bees is not is not subsiding!
Yesterday Jill and I went to Zenger Farm in Southeast Portland for a slow food gathering. I learned of the event from the current director of the Zenger Farm Bee group with whom I’ve been speaking a great deal recently. There were a few presentations going on, including: Honey bees by the Zenger bee group; Native pollinators by the director of The Xerxes Society; and an introduction to Zenger Farm’s organic farming practices. Mace Vaughan of The Xerces Society was a fantastic speaker with tremendous enthusiasm for bees; a winning combination in my book! It was great to see members of our community learning about bees - native or otherwise - and hopefully some of them will take the plunge and get involved with beekeeping!
Yesterday I also purchased the materials required to create our first top bar hive. Today I will begin building it and I intend to have it completed before the end of the month. I hope to show it to the Zenger Farm bee group and also educate the members about some of the alternative hive styles such as Abbe Warre, the National, etc.
The bees are doing well, furiously preparing for winter. They are noticeably more agitated, and a couple weeks ago I could tell prior to opening the hive that they were not in a good mood! Immediately upon opening the hive I was dive bombed by numerous bees, and in turn I quickly closed it back up and decided to wait for a calmer time. I had a frame feeder filled with drivert sugar in the hive, but due to a great deal of honey buildup I decided to get them a top feeder and replace the frames that the frame feeder removed. This gives them a couple more frames in which to store honey for the winter, hopefully giving them sufficient supplies to live without much feeding until Spring.
It has been amazing to witness the speed with which they accumulate honey stores. When I first got them more than half the top deep was barren. Since then they’ve filled all but two frames, likely because I didn’t have them in the hive! I wish that I had documented their growth with pictures. From now on I’ll try and do that.
Frame feeder:
Bee after powdering:
Tags: Abbe Warre, National, Slow Food, Top Bar
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Training Flight Video
August 24th, 2008
On most sunny days the young bees exit the hive and hover outside the entrance on what are known as training flights. Here’s a video of my bees doing just that on Saturday, August 23rd 2008:
Untitled from Matthew Reed on Vimeo.
Tags: honey bee, OR, portland, training flight, Video
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Bee Yard and More!
August 21st, 2008
This past weekend we had a family gathering at Sokol Blosser Winery (The family winery). I spent some time surveying the yard of my aunt, Susan Sokol Blosser, deciding where to put three top bar hives during Spring 2009. We decided on the location in the pictures below that will offer some wind protection, ample sun and quick access to a multitude of flowers in her gorgeous yard.
Also, I have been spending a great deal of time working on a business plan, locating grants and gleaning information from my incredibly knowledgable family. In the coming months I should have a lot of the details ironed out and hopefully some grant money in the works!
In October I intend to take a beginning woodworking class at Northwest Woodworking Studio in southeast Portland. This should give me the basic knowledge necessary to make the creation of 20 top bar hives go a little more smoothly…
The Sokol Blosser Bee Yard:
Flowers in the Sokol Blosser Bee Yard:
The Sokol Blosser Winery Vineyard:
My typical ankle protection method:
Bees protecting their precious honey:
The queen’s brood pattern looks solid to me:
Saturday evening bearding:
Bearding close-up:
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