The story of a migratory beekeeper, told via haunting miniature dioramas. By Adam Makarenko. More on his website.
HOLY SHIT BEE ATTACK IN NEW YORK CITY →
(But no one was hurt). Every year around swarm season Gawker can be depended on making a few grossly inaccurate bee panic stories. Got to love it.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
The Italian is really loud tonight. But does it mean something?
(Just in case)
Ow we all got stung. :(
Bee work today.
Italian: fifth box is filling up with bees and honey. None of the honey is capped in the fourth or fifth boxes—just fields and frames of open nectar. I put another super on top, making a sixth box. I was hoping to do an early harvest once they capped some honey frames, but I don’t want to hold them back either. More honey later > some honey now, I guess.
I also added the green drone comb in the fourth box, third frame. The larger cell size on the foundation should invite the bees to fill it with drones. The longer development time of drones should invite parasitic mites to feed off them. But then I’ll kill everything on the green frame (bees, mites and all) in two weeks, reducing re-infection. Sad, but beats chemicals.
Russian: Still has sugar syrup in the feeder (I dropped in 20 pounds of sugar syrup last weekend. Didn’t check inside.
One odd thing—there was a single bee that kept chasing me for a good 5 minutes afterwards, aggressively butting her head into my veil over and over even when I moved well away from the hive. Eventually I went downstairs and got an electric mosquito zapper, came back up and zapped her. Also sad, but even bees have jerks.
(actually she didn’t die, to my surprise, but was just stunned. After she recovered, she seemed to forgive/forget/fear me and left. Or I scrambled her 960,000 neuron brain. Bees are not people.)
Serving suggestion: vanilla soy ice cream with black sesame and chestnut honey. So good. (Taken with instagram)
Walt Wright on Swarm Control →
A bookmark to help me find this next year. Remember to perform anti-swarm maneuvers in March (earlier, if next year is freakish warm like this one).
Check it out, a honey extractor that takes entire supers rather than individual frames.
