Open a Channel and watch the Honey Flow!

It began with a sleepless night which unfolded into a kickstarter campaign that has become a hive of bees on my roof!  Now I'm a member of the San Diego Bee Society and I'm packing my bags for a five day training at Esalen called Land of Milk and Honey.  All thanks to the generosity of others.

That's the short story, here's the long story!

I have mixed feelings about bees.  I love honey, I love flowers, I love fruit!  But I'm also a bit of an allergic person to bites, mosquito bites can become 4 inch welts on my body.  I feel a little fearful of these insects and their power, and I was not completely convinced I had a good idea at first, and worried a bit I might have an awful idea. But I guess that's part of the experiment, to determine whether suburban bee keeping is a good idea or too much of a hazard.  Well, in the beginning, the first few people I shared my bee idea with were family members, and they were not supportive at all!  They were full of doubtful questions and inquiries.  But I investigated thier worries and found a lot of great information about risk and liability, which is much more limited than you might think.  I asked a good attorney friend of mine what she thought, and she had a colleague who kept bees at his home in Hilltop and she would introduce us.

Our new hive, from Felipe, in its pallet cage on our roof, a few bees hanging out.

What a fortuitous connection.  The kind gentleman was happy to show me his hives, situated on the roof of his garage.  He had been keeping bees for one year and is 105 year old house just above downtown.  He particularly enjoyed collecting wild swarms from around the city with his 19 year old son.  Consequentially, he had a lot of hives, I think about 7!  After a lot of talk, he asked me if I wanted some bees, and after a little stammering, I said yes.  He invited me to come back that night, as night was the time for moving bees, when all the colony are huddled together in the hive.  I returned at night with my husband and we sealed up the entrance to the hive and put her in the back of my prius and drove her home and put her up on our roof!  Instantly I had a hive of bees, which aren't easy to come by, and the actual physical hive, and langstrom hive, the most common type of hives used.  He had a local welder build custom stands for his hives out of rebar and had also developed with this welder a perfect wand hive tool.  All of this he gave me!  Thanks god I had brought several cans of my tea along to give him.

Examining a beautiful comb from Felipe's Top Bar Hive.

Two days later I returned to my new bee friend's house and along with his son and another, more experienced bee tender who had come to help, we opened all those remaining 6 hives and gave them all a looky-loo with varied maintenance on each.  It was fascinating, my first experinece working with the bees, opening up hives, looking at frames, surrounded in bees.  At times it felt a bit hectic, one hive in particular was really noisy and aggressive, they call it "hot" meaning africanized and I got stung twice through my heavy work clothes, ouch!  But other hives you could tell were different, more quiet and calm, these are hives with Italian Honey Bees.  I learned to use the smoker, to pry open boxes with the hive tool, to cut and reposition into frames pieces of comb and to begin to understand what I was seeing when looking at the comb.  There is brood, bee babies, uncapped honey and capped honey.  It was amazing!

Bee equipment purchased through the generosity of others.

The next day, with my one day's experience, my husband and I went to work on our new hive.  We decided to try our own take on a bee suit, weraing our 4 mm wetsuits.  Neither of us got stung, so I think it was a good idea!  We also wore leather garden gloves, boots and veils and we taped up our wrists and ankles the way my bee friends had shown me.  Our friend had collected a swarm from one of his own hives into a nuc box, or a basic hive box empty of any frames.  He should have then put some frames in, but was probably too busy.  Well the bees were busy too and had built a hive right off the lid of the box.  I wish I had a photo to show you how cool it looked when we lifted the lid and saw the rows of comb extending down from the lid.  I think there were about 9 rows of comb with the smallest about 5"x4" and the biggest 14"x8".  The biggest pieces were just amazing slabs of comb and honey and brood.  I did my best to detach the comb from the roof and reposition with rubber bands into the frames.  Then the frames were placed into the nuc box and covered with the lid, after giving the lid and sides of the box a good scraping to remove all the wax comb.  Almost all the frames were filled, I think 8 in total.  So I new I needed some more equipment to let this hive grow.

Building frames for the Langstroth Hive.

More frames, equipment and a book from City Nursery.

City Farmers Nursery is a new discovery for me.  In addition to all your gardening needs, they sell chicken supplies, bee supplies and have farm animals in different sheds and cages all over the rambling facility.  I saw the most beautiful Heirloom Wild Turkey as well as ducklings, chickens, rabbits, and goats.  I purchased a bunch of supplies there to expand my hive.  I had purchased some foundational supplies already on-line, a smoker and veils, but I prefer to spend a little more and support a local business.  Soon I'll explore a coandle making store called Knorr Candle Suppliers.

One of the many farm animals at City Farms Nursery.

A few days later we sported our suits again, smoked up our hive and opened her up.  I could see that a lot of the comb was sagging and nnot supported up in the frames, but I didnt have time then to work on that problem.  Instead I just added new components, a super box with ten frames each with a strip of foundation hanging from the top.  The queen excluder screen between the nuc box and super and a new inner cover above the super. In a few days I'll open her again and try to better support the comb in the frames with string and more rubber bands.

Lighting the smoker filled with dried pine needles.

Smoking the hive to calm the bees before opening their home.

Opening the top and blowing more smoke on the bees.

Examining the comb.

Scraping beeswax from the lid.

Long story short, my campaign only became successful today, and I'll receive the funds in about two weeks.  But the flow was opened and the support came strong and fast.  With the power of credit cards I have already bought most of the foundational supplies and have fortuitously already begun to keep bees!  I am enrolled in the course at Esalen and will be there in just two weeks!

Thanks so much to the 34 souls who contributed financially and to the many others who contributed their positive intentions.  I'll keep you posted.

P.S the queen's name is Carlota