Stars who like bees profile.

Carol Drinkwater most notably played Helen Herriot on the BBC series All Creatures Great and Small. A series about small town veterinarians in the 1930-40's.  I really enjoyed this series.  In addition to her entertainment career, she also owns an olive farm. 

Carol became a bee advocate after her farm's bees inexplicable died like so many other bees. One could say she's risen to the level of bee advocate.  You can learn more about Carol at her web site CarolDrinkwater.com

New Employee

We got a border collie puppy this fall. Her name is Kate. 

She'll work the sheep on the farm when she gets a bit bigger.  Kate comes from a long line of sheepdog trial champions. The championships include the US National, the Scottish National, and the International. Her great great grandfather was one of those champions.  Here is a video of him running  a trial.

Queen Cell Frame Project

Today's project was making queen cell frames. This device is used to raise queen bees. The frame holds 3 cell bars.  Plastic cell cups are attached to the cell bar. 12-24 hour old larvae are grafted from mother hive into the cells cups. After some manipulation the bees turn these larvae into queen bees. And walla, we get queen bees.

Today's project was a challenge of my woodworking skills and equipment. I was finally able to get all of the dimensions right after a bit of trial and error with scrap lumber.  The thing that saved me was cutting extra pieces. Inevitably a piece gets ruined by the table saw every now and again. Nothing goes to waist though.  Once a mistake is made, the ruined pieces magically become fire kindling.

Winter Project - Queen Stool

Ever wonder what a beekeeper does in the winter? Well, we make stuff like this queen stool. This handy gadget let's me carry around my tools and gives me a place to sit.

Do you want to learn how to identify eggs, larvae, pollen, and nectar?

I love finding stuff like this on the Internet.    You've heard of those projects where you can sit on your computer and map universes for astronomers. This project is the same concept with frames from beehive.  You sit at your computer and map the cells on a frame for his research project.  The cool thing is that there is a tutorial that teaches you how to identify all the eggs, larvae (in different stages of growth), pollen, and nectar.  Give it a look at"

Broodmapper: Honey Bee Development and Citizen Science - eXtension

The project is run by Reed Johnson. He is a bee researcher at The University of Ohio.  I've met him a couple of times and he's an alright guy.

Swarm Season

The sweat clover started blooming a couple of weeks ago.  The weather has also been very warm and not too much rain.  So, feral bee hives started swarming around April 15th. Here is a swarm I caught yesterday on the May the 4th be with you day.

Package Install Day

I've got new places to keep bees this year.  In fact, there are so many places that I had to by packaged bees.  All of the packages are being started at our main apiary. I got through the entire day and tens of thousands of bees without getting stung at the farm.

Bad news is that I stuck my hand in my pocket once I had my gear off. You guessed it, there was a bee in the pocket that got me right on the knuckle.  My hand looks like it was hit with a hammer. Oh well.... I'll head back in a couple of days and see if I can let the queens loose without any stings.