Video: Natural Beekeeping Class Preparing for Winter

Visiting Snow Covered Beelandia

I finished grading finals, put my boots on and went out to visit the hives in Beelandia this morning. We had snow a week or so ago, and frigid weather since, so I wanted to brush off the entrances and see the state of the hives. Other than a few dead bees around each hive, all looked normal. I swept away the snow from the bottom entrances and left things as is.

The Return of the Giant Hogweed: An Object Lesson

Here is a video I used in my environmental sociology class to illustrate the problems of globalization to the biophysical environment.

Spring Plans

I am huddled here at home after the season's first big blizzard, I've looked out over the snow-covered hives and thought..."Well what are my plans for the spring?"

After doing some research and attending the "Queen Rearing" course at the U of M last summer, I guess my focus next spring will to begin some queen-rearing. (Of course, all this depends are my hives surviving the winter. They were fed extra sugar and pollen in October and early November, and packed away nicely. There were less mites than last fall, and also very few bees with virus-like symptoms, so I am bit more confident) This means some preparation this winter, so here are my goals:

1. Finding places to place hives and mating nucs. I have one colleague (a former exterminator) who has expressed an interest, the Catholic Worker House one block away, and a small-scale perennial nursery and orchard. I have pretty much reached my limit in hives in Beelandia itself.

2. Equipment Purchases-- I made a number of purchases last summer in preparation for queen-rearing this spring (e.g. card board nucs, grafting equipment, etc. ) My new purchases might include more Pierco plastic frames (With a little extra bees wax "painted" on each frame, the bees accepted these well.), and some pollen substitute.

3. Reading and Rereading More Books-- I am obsessed with collecting as much information as possible on queen-rearing, and, unfortunately, had not had time to do that reading this fall with classes, assessment, advising, and presentations.

Did I forget anything?

"Pollen" Mystery

We've had another unusually warm November day, so the bee have been out. Interestingly enough, the bees have bringing back bright orange "pollen" today. What they are bringing back and where they are getting it is a total mystery to me. There is really nothing to forage.

A Fine November 6th Morning

We are having unseasonably warm day for November 6th in Winona MN. I had a chance to go back home this morning to talk with Nova and noticed that the honey bees were out taking a cleansing flight. All the hives were active.

Because of my busy schedule I have been unable to report the "doings" in Beelandia on this blog. For those of you who wish to know, I winterized all the hives two weeks ago. We got some haybales from a local farmer and have placed them around each of the hives, both langstroth and top bar. They should serve as nice wind-breaks. Hopefully, we will not have prolonged sub zero temperatures this winter.

Presentation Given

I gave my presentation last night at Winona State University as part of the CLASP lecture series held at this university each year. When I speak, I often feel like I am rambling and incoherent but according to audience members it went alright. The presentation was video taped and will be available online in the near future.