Showing posts with label Bees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bees. Show all posts
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Happy Mother's Day
Offering up natural bouquets, happy bees, giant smiley faces, and virtual hugs. We love our moms!
Friday, September 11, 2009
Residents and Visitors
The top critter has moved in and set up shop (hmmm). The cute little bee (that's my thumbnail) had deformed wings and was only able to scramble along the ground, alas). Don't ask me about the cicada-bee-goliath thing (first time I've seen anything like it). The last one, you tell me. I generically call it a garden spider (kind of like LBJ with birds -- Little Brown Jobs).
Welcoming all insights.
Welcoming all insights.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Poppies, Purty Peeps, Projects...
The honeycomb c/u is cool for two reasons: you can make out the Cordovan bee muppet-like traits; you can see eggs in several cells (they look like grains of rice... one per cell).
Friday, May 15, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
File That Under "B"
First swarm lesson: with a non-stop pollen and nectar supply and a warm climate, our urban apes may feel the need to expand more often than usual (the more space taken by food stores, the less for eggs).
Swarming is natural but beekeepers try to stay a step ahead of swarming by splitting the colony and/or expanding the space (otherwise, the little honeymakers literally fly away). We figured we had plenty of time before the urge to expand would hit this crew. After all, this colony was brand new in June, got hammered by mites in December, lost its queen (perhaps to the mites) in January. We bought a new Carniolan queen but found the colony had already hatched their own (so the Carniolan is in a new start-up: hive #2).
There's a queen in the middle of this ball of bees. It looks fierce, but swarms are not typically aggressive. It was remarkably easy "filing" them away for transfer to a proper box. Yes, they're all in that box.
Swarming is natural but beekeepers try to stay a step ahead of swarming by splitting the colony and/or expanding the space (otherwise, the little honeymakers literally fly away). We figured we had plenty of time before the urge to expand would hit this crew. After all, this colony was brand new in June, got hammered by mites in December, lost its queen (perhaps to the mites) in January. We bought a new Carniolan queen but found the colony had already hatched their own (so the Carniolan is in a new start-up: hive #2).
There's a queen in the middle of this ball of bees. It looks fierce, but swarms are not typically aggressive. It was remarkably easy "filing" them away for transfer to a proper box. Yes, they're all in that box.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Royal Goyals
The Bee Whisperer from NC points out a queen bee.
Check out the closer shots and see if you can identify the workers, drones and queens. There is a queen in each photo -- one is a local girl and the other is from Slovenia via northern CA. Extra points if you can tell the difference.
Check out the closer shots and see if you can identify the workers, drones and queens. There is a queen in each photo -- one is a local girl and the other is from Slovenia via northern CA. Extra points if you can tell the difference.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
