From "Natural Beekeeping: Organic Approaches to Modern Apiculture"

"All these experiences have nurtured a connection between the honey bee and myself that is deeper and more meaningful than I can put into words. The bees have taught me so much over the years and have brought so many wonderful people into my world. It is my hope that I will always have honey bees around me, until the end of my days...

"...We certainly do not have a situation where there are too many beekeepers in the United States. In fact, I believe that we need more beekeepers in this world, and those beekeepers need to be successful in apiculture. This motivates me to do whatever I can to assist my fellow apiculturists...By sharing what I've learned with less experienced folks, I hope to aid them in keeping their bees alive and healthy. I also hope that, through the good work we accomplish with our honey bees, we can all help to leave the world in better condition than we've found it....This is my primary motivation for writing this book. As with beekeeping in general, it certainly isn't for the money."

--Ross Conrad
Dancing Bee Gardens

"Mother Nature's Honey Recipe"

When we first began beekeeping in early May 2006 we soon realized friends and family will turn up all sorts of bee-related collectibles.

One especially lovely gift was sent to us from my long-time friend, Stephanie, who now lives in Northern California. It's a small, very fun and kitschy tapestry which reads:

Mother Nature's Honey Recipe

Ingredients: 1 Busy Bee, 2 million flowers, 1 beehive

Directions: Take 1 busy bee and travel approx. 55,000 miles to gather nectar. Return to 1 bee hive. Repeat previous steps 2 million times.

Makes 1 pound.

I read this "recipe" every day to remind myself how much work these tiny creatures do in the span of their short lives. To me they are alchemists, and always completely fascinating.

The Beehive and other geysers in Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park offers live-streaming webcams which are fascinating and fun to watch.

"This full-motion, live-streaming webcam is located near Old Faithful Geyser and brings online visitors views of several other geysers in the area. When geysers such as Beehive, Lion, or Giantess are erupting, the camera will be aimed at them and zoomed in for optimal viewing enjoyment. When bison, elk, coyotes, or the occasional bear wander into the camera's view, live video images will be transmitted."

The entire website is fascinating and informative. Webcams bring a whole new and exciting meaning to "armchair travels." Four bison are wandering across the screen as I write.

Old Faithful Area Live Video Cam

And

The Old Faithful Webcam

The Providence Journal: Edmund Hillary, 1919-2008

Editorial: Edmund Hillary, 1919-2008

The Providence Journal

Providence, Rhode Island
Saturday, January 26, 2008

Edmund Hillary, who died this month at 88, astonished the world in 1953 when he reached the top of Mount Everest with his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay. Straddling Nepal and Tibet, Everest rises 29,029 feet above sea level. The New Zealander’s feat, climbing the highest peak on Earth, seemed to cap an era of high adventure that included sledding to the poles and Charles Lindbergh’s nonstop flight across the Atlantic in 1927.

Nowadays, a trip to the top of Everest is far more commonplace. Commercial companies run such expeditions for very physically fit tourists. One Sherpa guide has done it 14 times. But 55 years ago, no one knew whether it was survivable.

In 1924, accomplished mountaineers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine died trying to reach the summit, and many others attempted it but turned back. (It was Mr. Mallory who, when asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, famously answered, “Because it is there.”) About 200 people have died trying to climb Everest, but since Mr. Hillary’s triumphant climb, about 2,000 have made it to the top.

Despite the successes of a one-armed man, a blind person and dozens of other unlikely conquerors of Everest, the mountain remains very perilous, especially the last 3,000 feet. It’s very hard to breathe at any altitude above 26,200 feet; the upper reaches of Everest’s “death zone” combine dangerously low oxygen levels with high winds and bitter cold.

It was this combination of hazards that doomed eight members of an expedition in 1996, which was immortalized in the book Into Thin Air. Author Jon Krakauer was present at the disaster. In all, 15 people died that year trying to descend from the summit.

Edmund Hillary was not your textbook adventurer. Back home in New Zealand, he pursued the pastoral life of beekeeper. And he was a modest man.

Mr. Hillary was 33 when he and the 39-year-old Mr. Norgay reached the top of the world. News of the climb came around the time of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Mr. Hillary was immediately made Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire. (Mr. Norgay received the George Medal of Britain.)

In later years, Sir Edmund joined others in lamenting the commercialization of Everest climbing. He felt a strong bond with the Sherpa, the Buddhist peasants who carried stuff up mountains for climbers. To thank them, he ran a foundation that built schools, hospitals and bridges in the Himalayan region.

Tragedy visited when his wife and a daughter died when their small plane crashed taking off from Katmandu Airport in 1975. Another son and daughter survive him.

Adventure goes in all directions from sea level, including down. The Challenger Deep, off the Mariana Islands, is more than a mile deeper than Mount Everest is high. That, too, has been reached.

So there are few marquee exploits left to make on this well trodden planet. But for the days when there were mountains and ocean trenches to vanquish, brave and hardy souls stepped forward to take the test. Edmund Hillary will remain high on that list of achievers.

Recipes from Honey Garden Apiaries, Vermont

Honey Gardens Apiaries of Ferrisburgh, Vermont, have created a beautiful and informative website. We would encourage you to explore it as well as their blog.

We subscribe to their online newsletter and were inspired by their cooperation with the Vermont Elderberry Project to plant a few elderberry bushes on our property for the pollinators and possibly for our own uses once the bushes begin producing berries. Elderberry (Sambucus) are beautiful, though they don't grow very much for the first year or two and young plants do require protection from deer.

Honey Gardens offer a wide variety of products at their online store. Their site also contains a page filled with all sorts of delicious recipes. Sometimes we really enjoy granola with yogurt for breakfast but it's really difficult to find any that doesn't contain soybean or canola oil, so we do without. It was great to find a recipe for granola at Honey Gardens so now we can make our own!

Here is where you'll find recipes for Meriwether & Charlotte's Favorite Granola, Iced Tea and Elderberry Sorbet, Honey Carrot Cake, and much more:

Honey Garden Recipes

Tentative Course Outline for East Farm Beekeeping School

Mark Robar has permitted us to publish his tentative syllabus for the upcoming beekeeping school, sponsored by the Rhode Island Beekeepers Association (R.I.B.A.), to be held at U.R.I.'s East Farm starting at the end of February. There could be some last minute changes to the course listing, so please keep that in mind if you are planning to attend.

Some time ago Mark mentioned he would like to invite Louis J. Chasse of North Kingstown, proprietor of Arson Alley Apiary, to demonstrate equipment assembly. Like Mark, Louis is also very generous with his beekeeping knowledge and experiences. If he is going to appear at East Farm, we'll let you know!

R.I.B.A's East Farm Beekeeping School, 2008 Syllabus
Feb. 27th
Introduction to R.I.B.A.
Brief history
Why do we keep bees ?
The honey bee colony
Basic beekeeping terminology
Basic beekeeping equipment

March 5th
Excerpts from The Honey Harvest (video)
Choosing an apiary site
Acquiring equipment
Construction of equipment
Purchasing bees

March 12th
Feeding bees
Bee swarms
Supercedure
Re-queening

March 19th
Honey bee pest and diseases (video)
Treatments or IPM's for pests & diseases
(Video)

March 26th
Preparing for the honey flow
Supering
Extracting and comb honey
Fall feeding & IPM's
Wintering
Spring Inspections
Spring flower (video)

"Queen Honeybees Keep Harems of Dancing Males"

Who could have guessed just how sexy beekeeping is? No, not our attire in the bee yard, but the activity of the queen. Here's an article we found yesterday:

"Honeybee queens have sex with harems of males apparently to give birth to much better dancers, research reveals.

"The better honeybees dance, the better they are at hustling for chow, scientists add.

"Taking lots of male consorts is a dicey proposition for bee queens. For one thing, it increases their risk of catching sexually transmitted diseases.

"Also, if a queen's children have several fathers, they don't have as much in common with each other genetically speaking, which in theory could threaten how well they all get along.

"Still, polyandry--where females each mate with several males--does happen among honeybees.

"Indeed, North American honeybee queens each have sex with an average of seven to 20 males, with the giant honeybee in Asia known to demand up to 104 mates.

"To see why honeybee queens might prefer a life of promiscuity, researchers compared a trio of queens each inseminated by just one male drone with a trio of queens inseminated by 15 drones.

"The genetically diverse colonies of queens inseminated by 15 males turned out better dancers--they performed more waggle dances and longer dances. Worker bees use waggle dances to reveal where food is to nest mates, and genetically diverse colonies dispatched more foragers to look for food.

" 'What really surprised us was the extent of difference,' researcher Heather Mattila, a honeybee behaviorist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, told LiveScience..."

The article continues at: Queen Honeybees Keep Harems of Dancing Males

This is one of the many "waggle dance" videos posted on YouTube:
Honeybee Waggle Dance Experiment

Movie production begins for "The Secret Life of Bees"

Author Sue Monk Kidd has a new website on which she has posted this announcement:

"Fox Searchlight began principal filming for the screen adaptation of The Secret Life of Bees on January 9th in North Carolina.

"Written and directed by Gina Prince-Blythewood, the movie stars Dakota Fanning as Lily Owens and Academy Award Jennifer Hudson as her caretaker and 'stand-in' mother, Rosaleen. The two soon discover a trio of beekeeping sisters played by Queen Latifah (August), Alicia Keys (June) and Sophie Okonedo (May). Completing the cast is Paul Bettany as T. Ray, Tristan Wilds (Zach), Derek Luke (Neil) and Hilarie Burton (Deborah).

"Producing for The Donner's Company are Lauren Shuler Donner and Jack Leslie and for Overbrook Entertainment, Will Smith and James Lassiter. Joe Pichirallo will also produce."

Kidd's website: http://www.suemonkkidd.com

The first 2008 catalog arrives

The first of the 2008 beekeeping supply catalogs arrived in the post today. It was exciting. It indicates that a new year of beekeeping is upon us.

Some really harsh cold weather has visited Southern New England this winter. This morning we woke to 14 degrees F. Though we have insulated our hive, we do worry about how well the bees are faring inside. The queen should begin laying eggs again very soon. We wonder about the frigid temperatures impacting her production.

We're hoping that the first days of February will bring at least one mild day--45 degrees or higher, with no wind--so that we can make a quick check on the food stores inside the hive. Hopefully, we'll also see a colony that is still thriving. If we can get them through to the middle or end of March, that will be a blessing.

"Honey of a treatment"

"Amid growing concern over drug-resistant superbugs and nonhealing wounds that endanger diabetes patients, nature's original antibiotic -- honey -- is making a comeback.

"More than 4,000 years after Egyptians began applying honey to wounds, Derma Sciences Inc., a West Windsor company that makes medicated and other advanced wound care products, began selling the first honey-based dressing this fall after it was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

"Called Medihoney, it is made from a highly absorbent seaweed-based material, saturated with manuka honey, a particularly potent type that experts say kills germs and speeds healing.

"Also called Leptospermum honey, manuka honey comes from hives of bees that collect nectar from manuka and jelly bushes in Australia and New Zealand.

"Derma Sciences now sells two Medihoney dressings to hospitals, clinics and doctors in North and South America under a deal with supplier Comvita LP of New Zealand.

"Derma Sciences hopes to have its dressings in U.S. drug stores in the next six months, followed by adhesive strips.

"Comvita, which controls about 75 percent of the world's manuka honey supply, sells similar products under its own name in Australia, New Zealand and Europe, where such products have been popular for over a decade.

" 'The reason that Medihoney is so exciting is that antibiotics are becoming ineffective at fighting pathogens,' said Derma Sciences CEO Ed Quilty."

Article continues at Honey of a Treatment

"Moving the Bee"

"The Seabee symbol is being temporarily dismantled so that it can be refurbished."

"[The Seabees] Construction battalions were born in 1942, when the Navy realized it could no longer use civilian contractors in the war zones of World War II, and the first battalions were formed at the new Navy base in Davisville. Later that year, a Navy lieutenant asked Frank J. Iafrate, a North Providence native with a talent for caricature, to create a logo for the construction battalions. After discarding an idea for a beaver, Iafrate, a civilian file clerk at the time, settled on the bee.

“ 'It works all day; it doesn’t bother you, but if you bother it, it has a way of stinging you,' Iafrate said in a 1998 interview. 'I put a Navy hat on him, gave him a submachine gun to show fighting ability, and some tools in this other arms to show construction ability.'

"Over the years, a couple of hundred thousand Seabees came through Davisville before it was closed in 1994..."

[Link to the article in The Providence Sunday Journal (12/2/2007) is embedded in the title.]

Photo: Brooks Leone and John King move the famed Seabee statue at Quonset Point to a warehouse.

Beekeeper and Mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary Dies at 88

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Sir Edmund Hillary, the unassuming beekeeper who conquered Mount Everest to win renown as one of the 20th century's greatest adventurers, has died, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark announced Friday. He was 88.

The gangling New Zealander devoted much of his life to aiding the mountain people of Nepal and took his fame in stride, preferring to be called "Ed" and considering himself just an ordinary beekeeper.

"Sir Ed described himself as an average New Zealander with modest abilities. In reality, he was a colossus. He was an heroic figure who not only 'knocked off' Everest but lived a life of determination, humility, and generosity," Clark said in a statement.

"The legendary mountaineer, adventurer, and philanthropist is the best-known New Zealander ever to have lived," she said.

Hillary's life was marked by grand achievements, high adventure, discovery, excitement — and by his personal humility. Humble to the point that he only admitted being the first man atop Everest long after the death of climbing companion Tenzing Norgay...

(Photo: Associated Press/Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953)

Volunteers at Trail's End Farm, May 2007

Three members of a small group of volunteers who gathered on an unusually chilly Spring day to help beekeeper Mark Robar assemble equipment for his new queen-rearing program.

Celebrating the 2007 World Series

This photo was taken in our back garden during the afternoon of 30 October 2007. Our team, the Boston Red Sox, had won the 2007 World Series and we were celebrating by watching the rolling rally victory parade on television.

During the parade we heard a LOT of noise. It wasn't Papelbon and Dropkick Murphys "Shipping up to Boston." It was coming from our back deck. Who knew the Jacuzzi Sisters were Sox fans?!

If you're a member of the Nation check out the great rally photos at SawxBlog.com! They might be enough to tide you over until Spring Training begins!

OK. So this isn't about bees and beekeeping. But we suspect our "girls" out at the hive are probably Sox fans, too.

* * * * * * *

20 January 2008

We invited our magical poetess friend, Emily Gutchell, to view our blog recently. Emily is one of our hive's best patrons--she really enjoyed our honey from the 2007 extraction and generously shared her purchases with her friends.

When she saw this photo of the Jacuzzi Sisters celebrating the Red Sox winning the World Series she emailed: "...I'm working on a haiku inspired by your glorious picture on your blog of the birds bathing raucously..."

I'm so pleased to write that Emily has given us permission to include her haiku here!

Five birds flap

erratic

wings joyful

party in the bird bath.

--Emily Gutchell

Copyright 2008

"Colony Collapse Disorder" one of 2007's "Green" Headlines

According to The Providence Sunday Journal (Providence, Rhode Island), Sunday, January 6, 2008, "Colony collapse disorder" was one of the top "green" stories of 2007 listed by the online journal, Grist.org.

Colony collapse disorder (CCD) is the name of the mysterious phenomenon that describes the massive die-off affecting an entire beehive or bee colony. This collapse of colonies has been extremely worrisome to beekeepers and bee researchers alike since it was first noticed in North America in late 2006.

Theories of the cause, or causes, of CCD are many but none is yet definitive. Some include malnutrition, diseases and parasites, pesticides, and genetically modified crops. There are those who theorize that beekeeping practices can be a major contributing factor but, as of yet, no one knows for certain.

There are believed to be more than 100 insect-pollinated crops grown in the United States. Some bumble bee species and certain species of butterflies, also among nature's pollinators, are thought to be facing challenges similar to colony collapse disorder.

The news of these disappearing pollinators seems to stress how imperative it is now to evaluate, and possibly to reconsider, our home gardening and landscaping maintenance, public park and garden management, as well as the intensive farming practices of corporate agriculture.

(Photo: Beekeepers inspect hives in Richmond, RI, Spring 2007. The Providence Journal/Kris Craig.)

New beekeeping school in South County

South County residents who are interested in learning about beekeeping will now have the opportunity to attend courses in the local area, thanks to Mark Robar of Trail's End Farm, the Rhode Island Beekeepers Association, the University of Rhode Island, and several volunteers.

RIBA has presented classes annually at the William M. Davies Career and Technical High School, known in Rhode Island as Davies VoTech. As interest in bees and beekeeping has grown nearly exponentially the class sizes have, too. In 2007 students and beekeepers in the southern part of the state petitioned the Association for a second location, and this year classes will be offered at URI's East Farm, a 70-acre complex on Route 108. The plan at the moment is for the classes to run for five weeks beginning on Wednesday evening, 27 February 2008, from 6:30-9 PM.

The course outline is being finalized and will be available here soon.