Backwards Beekeepers

Next Meeting: Sunday, January 29

2012-01-27T16:15:00.000-08:00

Backwards Beekeepers meetings take place on the last Sunday of every month.

The next meeting is scheduled for Sunday, January 29 at 11am. As always, we'll be at the Atwater Crossing arts complex.

If you ordered a Backwards Beekeepers hoodie to pick up, you'll get it at this meeting!

Topics to be covered:

Getting ready for spring
Questions and Answers from Kirkobeeo

Future meetings (mark your calendar!):

February 26
March 25
April 29

Atwater Crossing
3265-3191 Casitas Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90039-2205

There is ample free parking in the complex parking lot - PLEASE park in the lot so the residents of the neighborhood can park near their homes. There is also a cafe that sells beverages and tasty flatbreads if you'd like a snack during the meeting.

Please do NOT bring live bees to the meeting. We are guests at Atwater Crossing and they have a restaurant that is open to the public and other active businesses on site.

Map link

Closest freeway exit is Fletcher off the 2 freeway
Casitas is between Minneapolis St & Silver Lake Blvd…
1 long block SW of N. San Fernando Road (across the railroad tracks)
1 ½ blocks NW of Fletcher Drive
2 ½ blocks SE of Glendale Blvd

See you at the meeting!
Anne & Gwen

Editor's note: There will also be Backwards Beekeepers t-shirts (brown, gray, and green) for sale at $15 each!

Spring is coming to LA

2012-01-24T15:56:00.000-08:00

Kirk says:

Ed in Kagel Canyon sent me this pic. The swarms are about to start.

Settling bees...and neighbors

2012-01-21T18:44:00.000-08:00

Pasadena Backwards Beekeeper Deborah writes:

Re-stacked my hive that was upended in the Dec. 1st winds here in Pasadena. Wasn't sure what the end result would be with so many dead bees on the roof from the cold, but the hive is now thriving!

Just did my first honey harvest ever. Very first jar went to my next door neighbor who was stung in the face four times the day after the hive got tumbled. They have since settled down....(neighbors and bees!)

—Deborah

Another step forward for beekeeping in LA

2012-01-18T16:07:00.000-08:00

In the ongoing march toward legalizing beekeeping in Los Angeles, last night the Griffith Park Neighborhood Council voted in favor of supporting urban beekeeping in Los Angeles.

And of course, the Backwards Beekeepers were there to support the effort.

UPDATE: Another victory at the South Robertson Neighborhood Council! HoneyLove.org keeps score.

Kirk's Sunday mentoring

2012-01-17T14:10:00.000-08:00

Sunday's mentoring crew: Doug, Donna, Pheonix, Aya, Summer, and Emma

Kirk writes:

Went mentoring on Sunday—we had a full house.

Everyone got involved. Emma always spots the queen. I didn't have enough bee suits to go around, so me and Doug sat on the hill and took pictures.

Summer's big hive is so strong we moved more frames up to the upper boxes.

If anyone wants to donate any beekeeper's gear, let me know—I need some to loan out on Sunday.

—kirkobeeo

Simplicity vs. sensationalism in the media

2012-01-14T15:54:00.000-08:00

Kirk at KPCC last June.

Kirk Anderson, co-founder of and chief guru to the Backwards Beekeepers, was a guest on KPCC's Patt Morrison program last Friday. Kirk's done a lot of media appearances in recent years (such as this interview with KPCC's Madeleine Brand last June), and I'm always impressed with his ability to clearly communicate our group's philosophy while remaining his natural and charming self. It can be difficult to stay on message and still have a personality, but Kirk's an expert at it.

Yesterday's appearance came about because Patt and her producers wanted to discuss the recent publicity surrounding the phorid fly, which a researcher at San Francisco State University thinks may be causing declines in bee populations. They wanted a local LA beekeeper to weigh in on the topic.

It's unfortunate that the segment was so short, because while the other two guests (the above-mentioned John Hafernick of SF State and David Hackenberg, a commercial beekeeper) were articulate with their viewpoints, there wasn't time for Kirk to point out that while terms like "Zombie Flies" and "Colony Collapse" make great headlines and stimulating talk radio, they're kind of beside the point.

Food production over the last few decades has moved to an industrial model that plants mono-crops by the square mile and relies on commercial pollination services that deliver bee boxes to the fields by the tens of thousands. These beekeepers, in turn, are so economically squeezed that they're forced to breed for quantity rather than quality, to stress their bees through endless travel, and to supplement their bees' mono-crop diet with cheap junk food that leaves the bees susceptible to parasites and disease.

The industrial model gives us cheap food in the short term, at a high cost in the long term. The bees' plight is one indicator of this.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Ruth made this comment on KPCC's Patt Morrison web page (and, to her credit, Patt read it on air):

This is a tempest in a teacup! Bees have been around for 70 million years, and they will overcome this if we stop feeding them [high fructose corn syrup], loading them with antibiotics and antifungals, and otherwise weakening their immune systems. Bees get rid of all kinds of critters from their hives, from skunks to mice. They'll get rid of these too if we stop messing with their wild genetics.

At least we're getting this point of view into the discussion now. Little by little, we're making progress.

Link: Zombie bees: what’s really to blame for colony collapse? (KPCC)

Your Bee Rescue Hotline at work: Silver Lake

2012-01-13T19:20:00.000-08:00

Ray and Sally in Silver Lake called the Bee Rescue Hotline about a hive of bees in one of their backyard trees. The bees had only swarmed there 4 or 5 days ago, but they had already drawn three small combs, started collecting honey, and had a decent amount of new brood going. Impressive!

I'm not good at identifying trees, but this one has the kind of fast-growing branches that feel like they can snap off without too much effort. And despite not being superstitious, I wasn't all that excited about being up on a ladder on Friday the 13th. But that's bee fever for you.

I borrowed a small kitchen knife from Ray and Sally to remove the very new combs from the branch.

Meanwhile, Sally modeled her new Backwards Beekeepers t-shirt for Ray.

Once I got the box down to the ground, the bees had already found the entrance and were exploring.

I gave the box a quick duct tape job and got them on the move so they wouldn't overheat. Yes, in January.

Here are the bees in their new home, sitting atop the hive I'll join them with if they decide to stick around.

Viewer mail: Charles Martin Simon

2012-01-13T14:49:00.000-08:00

A reader writes:

Hello,

I have a question about Charles Martin Simon. I can't thank you enough for introducing me to his work. He's pretty awesome. Anyways my question is about how he was able to collect pollen with bottomless hives?

Thank you so much for sharing your work.

Sincerely,

Travis

Kirk replies:

Thank You for the question. Charles used a Pollen Trap. He placed it at top entrance of his hives. He got so he didn't care too much about honey.

kirkobeeo

"It's not about honey, it's not about money. It's about survival."

—Charles Martin Simon

Mentoring and making new beekeepers

2012-01-10T20:10:00.000-08:00

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

I worked this weekend with David, a senior at Whittier High School. He contacted me and needed some hours for his beekeeping fieldwork as soon as possible. I put out a call to the group and within an hour Summer and Susan both said that he could take a look at their hives. Susan already had another high school student coming over too, and Summer was hosting a mentoring session herself. Thank you ladies.

We also happened to get calls on the LA Rescue Hotline about two feral hives: a tree hive in Long Beach and a fence hive in Hacienda Heights—so we were set with something to do.

The tree hive was spotted by a woman out walking—it was in the parkway with the bees' path right across the sidewalk. We could easily spot the bees coming from an opening on the side of the tree but it looked hard to set up for a trap out.

Luckily, there was a hole in the tree where a branch had died and was removed. Someone had put a plastic bag in the hole and we removed it to find a window right into the hive. It was great!

We could see lots of nectar so our new bee season is probably getting ready to take off. I still need to find a bee champion in the area before setting up the trap-out so they can keep an eye on it. It will be a little tricky because it’'s an area with all apartments. That means lots of people and landlords. I'll update after I get a plan.

Then we went over to Susan's place and got to see her wonderful hives. David got up close and personal and seemed very comfortable around the bees. Luke, also a high school student and David's partner on their project, came over.

We took a look in the hive and then Luke filmed a short public service announcement, “Give Bees a Chance”. The hive looked great and was ready for another box.

Then we did a consult at Eva's home in Hacienda Heights. Bees had moved into her wooden fence at some point. She had a bush trimmed back and there was the hive. She wanted to keep it but her husband wasn't keen on the idea so I'll find a newbee who wants to take them and we'll do the cutout this week. Shouldn't take more than an hour. We could see right in and it looks super easy. Hard part will be keeping new bees from moving right back in!

David got a good though kind of low-key exposure to bees. For a first time, not too bad.

—roberta

Winter honey 2012

2012-01-09T14:43:00.000-08:00

The rains from late fall, combined with all the warm weather and sunshine, have given our bees plenty to do. We've taken honey from three of our four hives in the last couple of weeks.

Has everyone else been on the honey train lately as well? Send us some photos if you have them!

Summer's mentoring pays off

2012-01-08T16:50:00.000-08:00

Kirk writes:

I did my weekly mentoring today. I just sit back and let Summer do the mentoring now. She has come just about every Sunday for six months. She knows what she is doing. I just watch now.

If you go every week, it helps you go through all the different phases of the bee hive. Summer did a full inspection today on her strong hive.

kirkobeeo

Kirk does mentoring most Sundays at 9:30am (not the last Sunday of each month, though, because that's our meeting day).

Want to come to a mentoring session? Join our Yahoo group; once there, click "Database" in the left margin, then click on "Beekeeper mentors." Kirk's contact info is there.

The Backwards Beekeepers hoodies have arrived!

2012-01-03T18:01:00.000-08:00

Here's Tomas from Grow Your Own Media in Atwater Village, showing off the fresh-off-the-presses Backwards Beekeepers hoodie.

If you ordered one at the end of 2011, you can pick yours up at our next meeting on Sunday, January 29.

If you paid for shipping, your hoodie will ship soon.

Barbara & Roberta rescue bees in Long Beach

2011-12-27T11:36:00.000-08:00

LA Backwards Beekeepers Barbara and Roberta have been doing fantastic work lately—not just rescuing bees, but documenting the process to help others learn from their experience.

Barbara writes:

Warren had contacted us about some north Long Beach bees in need of rescue. Josie had watched a swarm descend upon her lemon tree about 4 months prior and that was about the time she noticed bees flying around in her carport. She has a pretty strong allergy to honey—one day too many of putting honey in her tea gives her a pretty nasty rash—so it was important to remove the bees.

Carport wall before demolition...

Once Roberta and I arrived, it was clear that it would be easier to access the hive from next-door neighbor Monica’s backyard than from Josie’s storage-filled carport. Fortunately we had permission from them both to tear down whatever was necessary to get to the bees.

We took turns pulling down fence boards then took a crowbar to the back wall of the old carport. There they were: lots of bees, living on what seemed to me to be some pretty old comb. I doubt the hive arrived 4 months prior. I’m guessing what Josie saw was a swarm leaving, not arriving.

...and after.

Roberta had thought we would finish in an hour but unfortunately I can rarely keep up with her (who can?), so it took 2 hours. By the time we finished scraping off as much wax as we could, ants had already started moving in to clean up the remaining honey.

I did mention to Josie that since she loves her honey, she should start buying untreated raw honey from a local beekeeper; that the pollen in it might get her over her allergy.

—Barbara

Here are some more great video clips of the process:

Yvonne rescues bees after LA Windstorm 2011

2011-12-12T15:25:00.000-08:00

The birdhouse bees on a happier, hotter day.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Yvonne writes:

Doug and Cheryl gave us a call for help. Some bees moved into a bird house in their Baldwin Hills back yard over the summer. The strong Santa Ana winds, combined with the weight of the bee hive, caused the support beam to break in half and the bird house landed on the ground.

We went and collected the bird house and moved the hive into new digs in Santa Monica. The bees appear to be very happy in their new home!

—Yvonne

Barbara's Long Beach bee rescue

2011-12-07T07:14:00.000-08:00

Ed faces the beehive.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Barbara led a bee rescue at Rosie the Riveter Park in Long Beach. She writes:

It was one of those hives you wish you could just leave alone—comb woven so beautifully through the branches of the tree, its length impressive given its position out at the end of some very tiny branches. It looked impossibly heavy. Somehow it had survived the Santa Ana winds of the night before. I worried that evening that our rescue the next morning at dawn might come too late but when Craig and I arrived at 6:30 a.m. it was still firmly attached, covered in bees and was providing breakfast for a hummingbird. I wish we had gotten a picture of that.

Ed from Long Beach Department of Parks and Recreation had contacted Roberta to see if we could help out with this hive. The City has been very open to the idea of relocating rather than exterminating hives in the city’s parks so we really wanted this to go well. It could only be done on a weekday, so Roberta would not be available. I would need some help. I put out the call for some muscle and Rich, who has helped out before, said he was available and needed bees to bolster his weaker hive. We were set...or so we thought.

The night before the scheduled rescue, Rich injured his back and was not going to be able to lift or bend. There went the muscle. Rich brought his wife Sheleana and I brought Craig, who had helped me with pickups a time or two. Unfortunately we only had one extra veil borrowed from Roberta, so Craig was relegated to taking videos from a distance and being chased around the park by guard bees. He did both very well!

Ed had brought a one-person bucket truck which he was required to operate himself for liability reasons, so with no rescue experience he had to smoke, prune, vacuum, cut comb and bring it all down to Rich and me; we framed it and emptied the bee-filled vacuum into Rich’s boxes.

The top third of the hive had been drawn all through the little branches and had to be brought down as one piece. We estimated its weight at between 15 and 20 pounds. It was absolutely beautiful.

One interesting aspect was that several iridescent green fig beetles had been entrapped and looked like jewels below the surface. Rather than create a huge mess trying to remove the honeycomb from the mass we left it intact. Rich added a third box to enclose it so the bees could deal with it as they saw fit this winter.

It was a smooth team effort with no mishaps and amazingly for Craig, no stings. I’m sure Ed will ask for BBK help again.

—Barbara

UPDATE: Barbara sent some great video clips from the rescue.

Comb show and tell:

Craig gets chased by a few cranky bees:

BIG hunk of honey comb:

Viewer mail: Greetings from Denmark

2011-12-03T16:52:00.000-08:00

A reader writes:

Dear Backwards Beekeepers,

I am a beekeeper from Kongens Lyngby, Denmark, and very glad to have found your blog and get inspired in ways to make beekeeping simpler, and more about the bees than the equipment, and altogether reflect on why I manage the bees as I do.

Reading about your struggles with rigid and ignorant laws, I feel fortunate that beekeeping has very old traditions and has been more recognized here for a long time. For example: A beekeeper chasing a swarm is allowed by law to tresspas on another man's land in order to follow it. A long history, however, also means that beekeepers here has become a bit set in their ways. (At a screening of the film "Queen of the Sun" a man remarked: "In our school apiary we have been using foundation for one hundred and twenty years, so there must be a reason for it").

This Christmas the whole family is going to celebrate the holiday with may aunt and uncle in Phoenix, AZ. If you know of any beekeepers there I would love to make their acquaintance and trade a jar of honey.

Best Regards,

Asger M.

Any Phoenix readers want to meet a fellow beekeeper from Denmark? Leave your info in the comments.

Bee Meeting recap

2011-11-20T22:16:00.000-08:00

We had a great turnout at today's meeting of the Backwards Beekeepers—cold & blustery weather is no match for bee fever!

Kirk answered lots of questions from newbees, then talked about top bar beekeeping; also, Steve from BuBees in Malibu showed off some of his beautiful top bar hives.

A top bar hive from BuBees.

There's no meeting in December, so we'll see you all again in the New Year!

(By the way, keep watching the blog for your opportunity to order the Backwards Beekeepers hoodie!)

Roberta takes the show on the road.

2011-11-16T13:24:00.000-08:00

LA Backwards Beekeeper Robera writes:

A few weeks ago I went to an insect fair in Culver City. I wanted to set up an observation hive for the event, because there were going to be hundreds of children and I knew that they would be attracted to the busy bees. Unfortunately this was the same weekend as another event so the club's observation hive was already taken.

I mentioned this to Richard in Long Beach and he said, "Let me see what I can do." In an hour he sent me a picture of what he whipped up and it was pretty incredible. Lots of ventilation and the viewing area allowed a view of the entire frame. I was amazed. I came over and we took a frame of bees and I was set.

Richard's observation hive was a big hit and the kids made a bee line for the hive when they saw the bees in action. I would have had a pretty boring display otherwise.

Pretty soon I took the observation hive to an event at the Whittier public library where LA Metro was hosting a talk. LA Metro sponsored a young new artist, Jane Gillespie Pryor, who created a bee-inspired work displayed in trains and buses earlier this year (read more about the event here).

In the end Richard generously offered the observation hive to me and I love it. I owe him enormously for it. This time of year there aren't many rescues so it'’s all about generating interest in bees and spreading knowledge.

—roberta

Viewer mail: Top bar hives

2011-10-31T03:06:00.000-07:00

Scott in Illinois writes:

Kirk,

Do you keep any top bar hives, or have you in the past? I am a first-year beekeeper and have 3 top bar hives. I have already made arrangements to add 3 more and 2 foundationless Langstroth hives to my apiaries.

The reason I ask is that it seems like the philosophies of the top bar beekeepers mirror your style of Backwards Beekeeping and vice versa. If you had a preference I would be interested in hearing it.

I also have watched some of your swarm captures and cutouts and it seems that your bees draw out comb much faster than the bees do here in Illinois; do you have any thoughts why that might be?...

We are basically done at the hives til spring here so I don't want to drive myself nuts trying to think like a bee if someone already knows the answer.

Thanks,

Scott P
Kankakee IL

Kirk responds:

I don't have any top bar hives myself. Sam Comfort up in New York State does, and is very successful with them. The top bar hive philosophy is very Backwards; its design was to be simple and cheap so people could keep bees without going broke.

Bees draw comb as needed so it depends on the flow. The last two years have been very good—the two before were the shits. You don't have to think like a bee, the bees do that pretty good. Being Backwards is always more interesting than the conventional beekeeping. Send us some of your pictures would you? We would love to share your knowledge and your success.

kirkobeeo

UPDATE: You can see Scott's YouTube channel here.

Mar Vista leads the way toward legal LA beekeeping

2011-10-30T14:44:00.000-07:00

Chelsea McFarland, Sherri Akers,
LA City Councilmember Bill Rosendahl, Rob McFarland

At today's Backwards Beekeepers meeting, Rob and Chelsea spoke about their increasingly successful push toward legalizing beekeeping in the city of Los Angeles.

Mar Vista Patch writes:

The initiative began back in May, when local residents Chelsea and Rob McFarland approached the Green Committee about creating a feasibility study for a pilot beekeeping program in Mar Vista, similar to the recently-adopted Santa Monica beekeeping ordinance. The motion was passed unanimously and was approved by the MVCC the following month, where outreach began in earnest.

Want to join the cause? Check out HoneyLove.org, and consider attending the November 8th meeting of the Mar Vista Community Council to show your support.

Next Meeting: Sunday, October 30

2011-10-26T07:37:00.000-07:00

PLEASE NOTE: Backwards Beekeepers meetings will now take place regularly on the last Sunday of every month**.

The next meeting is scheduled for Sunday, October 30 at 11am at the Atwater Crossing arts complex.

Topics to be covered:

How to prepare your hives for the winter season so that your bees can thrive in the spring
Legalization efforts in Los Angeles; Chelsea and Rob will tell us about some important things happening and how we can help support the effort
Questions and Answers from Kirkobeeo

Future 2011 meetings:

**November 20th a week earlier than usual due to the holiday
**NO Meeting in December due to holiday & cranky/cold bees

Atwater Crossing
3265-3191 Casitas Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90039-2205

There is ample free parking in the complex parking lot - PLEASE park in the lot so the residents of the neighborhood can park near their homes.

Map link

Closest freeway exit is Fletcher off the 2 freeway
Casitas is between Minneapolis St & Silver Lake Blvd…
1 long block SW of N. San Fernando Road (across the railroad tracks)
1 ½ blocks NW of Fletcher Drive
2 ½ blocks SE of Glendale Blvd

See you at the meeting!
Anne & Gwen

Editor's note: There will also be Backwards Beekeepers t-shirts (brown, gray, and green) for sale at $15 each!

Strong Showing at Moving Planet

2011-10-11T11:12:00.000-07:00

James and Ruth man the booth.

Here's a report from Susan Rudnicki about Backwards Beekeepers' participation in the inaugural Moving Planet event that took place on September 24 in Manhattan beach...nice work everyone!

There is a major over-haul of bike routes to allow safer and wider passage of bike commuters, establishment of community garden spaces where people can raise vegetables and fruits, more school gardens going in, and promotion of backyard food growing with bees and chickens part of the exhibits.

James, Victor and Susan demonstrate bee skills.

We had a great turn-out, even with the dense, foggy weather, and the organizers gave us a premium central booth space as you can see. Our booth (provided by Ruth) had a observation hive with bees from my home, a fully fitted Lang hive so people could see the parts, a tri-fold brochure that James made showing people interacting with the bees and photos of typical places where citizens might encounter wild bees, BBK rescue hotline cards and BBK postcards, a smoker (it was lit), samples of a good local wild honey v.s. a Costco honey and info on the difference, and lots of large photographs decorating the booth showing the interior of a working hive.

James and Victor brush up on their bee talk.

As a result of this showing, we are being asked to do a workshop on beekeeping the Backwards Beekeepers way in February for the Transition South Bay LA group.

One week, Four Trees and 8 Beekeepers

2011-10-09T08:42:00.000-07:00

Trap-out team: Yuka, James, Barbara, Dave, Mark.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

This was a catch-up week for tree trap-outs and a big mentoring and learn-by-doing opportunity.

Bees love to swarm into trees and set up shop there, but it's not easy to get them out. It takes patience and persistence. There are only a few of us willing to do it, and I wanted to show some new people the ropes.

I started with Barbara and Richard. They were helping a woman who called the Bee Rescue Hotline with a pretty common story: bees had entered her tree and she had exterminated them not once but a few times because the cavity was always left open. And with the smell of wax and honey it’s irresistible to a swarm of bees. This time she also had a new little puppy that she didn’t want exposed to pesticides. Great news for the bees!

So we set up the trap-out with my favorite aluminum window screen modified with a little funnel made with a citrus juicer. We anchored a cardboard box just at the opening and in no time a little bee was fanning at the entrance.

Richard has gone a few times to check it out and there aren’t a lot of bees in the box, but they are good tempered and we’re saving them for Barbara for when her top bar hive arrives.

Then the next day I met James, Yuka, Barbara and Mark at the LA Zoo to do two more trap-outs. Dave at the zoo had one of our teams chainsaw off some dead branches from a tree where a bee hive had set up. This made it a lot easier to access. We set up the screen and leaned the cardboard against it.

This one has been tricky because there are so many little places that the bees are escaping. Barbara has gone there a few times (sometimes with Mark or Jeremy) to fix the holes. They've been working hard to plug all the holes in the tree in an effort to get the bees to all come out of one spot. It would be impossible to do this on your own unless you lived just down the street from the trap out.

Then Barbara, Mark and I set up another tree trap-out at Mt. Sinai. It was 6am and still pitch black, but we could still see where the bees were living. No pictures here because it’s a cemetery. Matt, the manager of the grounds, will update with the progress.

We’ll leave them alone to give the bees time to emerge and if we are lucky, the queen will exit and then the bees can be removed and the holes in the trees closed completely with cement. Now that we have a great team of trap out artists, we might be able to help out more callers.

Thanks everyone!

—roberta

Long Beach kids help rescue bees

2011-09-28T14:36:00.000-07:00

Bee rescuers Barbara and Richard.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

We did a rescue of a hive attached to the eave of Tom's garage in Long Beach. His grandchildren had noticed them and were eager to have them relocated to that they could play around in the backyard barefoot again.

As with the dresser bees, Richard and Barbara did all the work while I explained what we were doing to the kids as they watched through a window.

Kids love bees!

We noticed something that I hadn't seen before—a rim of bees around the hive. The bees were on the wall and all facing in the same direction. I'm not sure if they were cleaning or waxing the wall or guarding. I'm just not sure but I caught some video so people could see and give some comments.

Interestingly, we heard about this hive both through the Bee Rescue Hotline and separately through a post from a Facebook friend who was trying to find a beekeeper for the same job. Such a small world!

This hive is going like gangbusters with lots of activity and lots of nectar storage despite it being September. Last week Richard noticed that a bunch of drones were being tossed from this hive and when we did a hive inspection this past weekend we saw the drone cells filled with nectar.

Richard has some great colonies right now and both Richard and Barbara will be mentoring others in no time.

—roberta

Barbara adds:

At 6:30a.m it was barely light when Tom'’s two grandchildren came running outside in their PJs as Rich, Roberta and I began unpacking our gear. Clearly they were ready for this adventure.

We had been there the previous week to check out the hive. The kids had told their Grandpa how big it was (they live next door and play in his yard often) and he thought they might be exaggerating a bit. They weren't. Pruning away the bush that had been hiding it from view exposed a nice big hive—more than a foot wide, 6 or 8 inches deep, and a foot and a half long.

Once we had shooed everyone inside to watch from the windows we set to work smoking the hive, prepping frames for the cutouts etc. We all took turns vacuuming the seemingly infinite number of bees. I was able to reach the hive standing on a 2 foot portable scaffold (great piece of equipment provided by Rich) and began cutting frame-size sections of comb while Rich tied them into frames.

Roberta, ever the teacher, was showing the children pieces of comb through the screened window explaining the different stages of bees in the brood cells, etc. They were fascinated.

After a time Rich and I traded off since I could not reach high enough to get the top sections of comb. We all know what is at the top of comb right? As a semi-newbie I hadn'’t thought of that. I felt bad as I watched honey dripping all over Rich as he cut the comb from the roof edge. He was a good sport about it and besides, he got to keep the bees.

—barbara

Two bee rescues become one hive

2011-09-24T00:36:00.000-07:00

These are some top-drawer bees.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

Now that I’m in Long Beach, I’ve found a new team for bee rescues that includes Barbara and Richard. Barbara has wanted to work with bees for a long time now and has a new top bar hive ordered and ready to arrive this week. After a month of the two of us doing bee adventures together we found Richard. He had helped his grandfather with hives when he was very young and remembering those experiences sparked a new desire to have his own hives.

The first rescue the three of us took on were bees in a dresser. The homeowner’s’ son called the Bee Rescue Hotline and described a beehive in a mattress that had been left outside. As usual, what we found was different than reported. The mattress was propped up against an empty dresser that contained a hive.

There was a good level of activity so we started to remove the drawers to see how many were occupied by bees. Even though this was his first experience with bee rescues in a very long time, Richard took the initiative and did a lot of it on his own.

Richard dives in.

It was a mess getting the drawers out, but once the dresser was open it wasn’t too hard to get the comb tied into the frames and the honey put away. We left the box and frames in place and came back about a week later to find some bees but not a lot of activity so probably the majority of the bees had swarmed off after having their home torn apart.

Luckily we had another call from a woman with bees in her jacuzzi. Her daughter-in-law noticed them when she was in the water and saw a few bees. She investigated the slightly open door to the motor where she saw the bees coming from and a glob of bees dropped to the ground. She stayed calm, and the bees didn’t seem to mind the disturbance. The family called the hotline, and we went out to do the rescue.

The homeowner and her daughter-in-law were happy to have us, at first. We removed the soft new comb (too soft to be tied into frames) and put them in a cardboard box and left that for the foraging bees to return to.

In no time after we left we had several calls within an hour from the homeowner who was very concerned that the bee rescue was going astray. She called with updates about the bee activity including that they were gathering on the box then swarming to a bush and then hanging from a branch on the bush.

Luckily Richard was very patient and calm and went over and gathered the bees from the branch and added them to the dresser bees. Now all the bees are happily fixing up the comb from the dresser cutout.

More rescue stories to come...

—roberta

Roof eave rescue in Santa Monica

2011-09-22T01:05:00.000-07:00

Jim and Josh at work.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Yvonne writes:

My friend in Santa Monica decided that he wanted to take advantage of the legalization of bees and add a hive to his yard. He bought all of the hive gear and then I got a call from him that he found some bees he wanted to rescue.

The suspected location.

What they found underneath.

Jim and Josh pull out comb.

The bees' new home.

The bees were in the roof eaves of a 2-story apartment building. With permission from the landlord, we cut the fascia board off to get a look at the hive. We removed the bees and took them to their new home in Santa Monica.

—Yvonne

A happy tale from the Yahoo Group

2011-09-20T22:43:00.000-07:00

We have a great many people in the group who are dedicated to helping one another and helping bees. If you're a beekeeper or want to learn about it, you really should join our Yahoo Group to take advantage of this great community.This exchange really made my day:

I have 7 hives out in Perris. A few weeks ago I tilted the migratory covers to get some ventilation going when it was really hot out. Now the weather is cooling down, I want to re-snug the lids but can't make it out to Perris for another week and a half. Will this be okay or should I try and arrange to have someone go out there and secure the lids by untilting them? Anyone live in Perris?
-Chris

Chris-
I live near Perris... if you would like, I can go reset the lids for you.
-Gary

Gary-
If you wouldn't mind. I can't pay you but can reimburse with a few jars of honey at the next BB meeting. These are some very peaceful and happy bees. I'm sure they'd be happy to know you. I've inverted the lids to vent the hives. They just need to be flipped back over and to have the bricks reset on top. Let me know if you can do this.
Warmest,
-Chris

Hi Chris-
I'd be happy to... I'll get them tomorrow morning. I'll report on the progress.
Thanks for the offer of honey.... No payment required or requested!
-Gary

Gary-
It's not every day one hears the phrase "no payment required or requested". Thank you.
Truly,
-Chris

Imagine if everyone out in the world played as nicely together!

Michael Bush on unsustainable beekeeping systems

2011-09-15T11:33:00.000-07:00

Natural beekeeping pioneer Michael Bush has agreed to be a guest blogger with us this late summer/fall. For those of you unfamiliar with Michael, take a look at his website Bush Farms.

I suppose we all know that the honey bees and beekeepers are in trouble. It seems like there is some controversy in the beekeeping world and the scientific world over whether it is even possible to keep bees without treatments. But there are many of us who are doing this and succeeding.

Let's do a short overview of the problems in beekeeping and the solutions. I will flesh out the details of each point in subsequent posts. But here is an outline of what I see as the primary issues:

Beekeeping Pests
Contamination
Wrong Gene Pool
Upset ecology of the bee colony
Beekeeping House of Cards

I will elaborate on each in the days to come.

Ask Michael Bush - Feeding Bees

2011-09-10T17:35:00.001-07:00

Natural beekeeping pioneer Michael Bush has agreed to be a guest blogger with us this late summer/fall. For those of you unfamiliar with Michael, take a look at his website Bush Farms.

If you have to feed late in the fall (late October/early November), what is your preferred method to do so?
—Marcin

In my climate I could have two feet of snow on the ground in October. I would be feeding now, if I were feeding. Once the nights fall below 50 degrees (F) and the days don't get much above that point, the bees can't take the syrup as it never gets up to the required 50 degrees.

As far as method, I have pretty much every kind of feeder and use them all because I'm too cheap to buy new ones. But most of mine are bottom board feeders because they are essentially free since I have to buy a bottom board anyway.

But typically in an outyard I just do dry sugar.

I wonder about the cost-effectiveness of feeding... Between time, energy (fuel, etc), and materials, how can this be more cost effective than just leaving a proper portion of honey and pollen at the end of the season?
—anonymous

The people who talk about how cost effective it is typically just compare the price of sugar or HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) to honey and that is their justification. They don't seem to calculate the fuel, time, sugar and work it takes to make all that syrup, haul it to the yards, feed it, set off robbing with it, invite the ants in with it, haul the feeders around and gather them up for storage etc.

More information on these topics on the Bush Farms website:
Bottom Board Feeders
Feeding Bees Dry Sugar
Profit Formula

Got a question for Michael? Send it to beehumans[at]gmail[dot]com and we'll get a bunch answered in subsequent posts.

Learn from the bees

2011-09-08T11:57:00.000-07:00

Natural beekeeping pioneer Michael Bush has agreed to be a guest blogger with us this late summer/fall. For those of you unfamiliar with Michael, take a look at his website Bush Farms.

[Editor's note: This post is now expanded to its full length.]

"Let the bees tell you"
-Brother Adam

I am going to give you the short-cut to success in beekeeping right here and now. The rest is merely elaboration and details. With apologies to C.S. Lewis (who said in A Horse and His Boy, “no one teaches riding quite as well as a horse”) I think you need to realize that “no one teaches beekeeping quite as well as bees.” Listen to them and they will teach you.

Trust the Bees
“There are a few rules of thumb that are useful guides. One is that when you are confronted with some problem in the apiary and you do not know what to do, then do nothing. Matters are seldom made worse by doing nothing and are often made much worse by inept intervention.”
—The How-To-Do-It book of Bee-keeping, Richard Taylor

If the question in your mind starts “how do I make the bees …” then you are already thinking wrongly. If your question is “how can I help them with what they are trying to do…” you are on your way to becoming a beekeeper.

Resources
Here, then, is the short answer to every beekeeping issue. Give them the resources to resolve the problem and let them. If you can’t give them the resources, then limit the need for the resources.

For instance if they are being robbed, what they need is more bees to defend the hive, but if you can’t give them that, then reduce the entrance to one bee wide and you will create the “pass at Thermopylae where numbers count for nothing”. If they are having wax moth issues in the hive, what they need are more bees to guard the comb. If you can’t give them that then reduce the area they need to guard by removing empty combs and empty space.

In other words, give them resources or reduce the need for the resources they don’t have.

Panacea
Most bee problems come back to queen issues.

There are few solutions as universal in their application and their success, than adding a frame of open brood from another hive every week for three weeks. It is a virtual panacea for any queen issues. It gives the bees the pheromones to suppress laying workers. It gives them more workers coming in during a period where there is no laying queen. It does not interfere if there is a virgin queen. It gives them the resources to rear a queen. It is virtually foolproof and does not require finding a queen or seeing eggs or accurately diagnosing the problem. If you have any issue with queen rightness, no brood, worried that there is no queen, this is the simple solution that requires no worrying, no waiting, no hoping and no guessing. You just give them what
they need to resolve the situation. If you have any doubts about the queen rightness of a hive, give them some open brood and sleep well. Repeat once a week for two more weeks if you still aren't sure. By then things will be well on their way to being fine.

If you are afraid of transferring the queen from the queenright hive, because you are not good at finding queens, then shake or brush all the bees off before you give it to them.

If you are concerned about taking eggs from another new package or small colony, keep in mind that bees have little invested in eggs and the queen can lay far more eggs than a small colony can warm, feed and raise. Taking a frame of eggs from a small struggling new hive and swapping it for an empty comb or any drawn comb will have little impact on the donor colony and may save the recipient if they are indeed queenless. If the recipient didn't need a queen it will fill in the gap while the new queen gets mated and not interfere with things.

It saves a lot of worry and a lot of judging. Instead you can give them the resources and then observing what they do will probably give you a pretty good clue what really was going on. If they don't raise a queen, there is probably a virgin loose in there. If they do raise a queen, they obviously didn't have one or the one they had was not sufficient.

Guest Blogger: Michael Bush!

2011-09-07T17:05:00.000-07:00

Natural beekeeping pioneer Michael Bush has agreed to be a guest blogger with us this late summer/fall. For those of you unfamiliar with Michael, take a look at his website Bush Farms.

Michael specializes in figuring out how to have success with bees with the minimal amount of effort. He has influenced and inspired many of the methods that our own Kirkobeeo teaches.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Beekeeping author Dean Stiglitz on Michael:

His writing is like his talks, with more content,detail, and depth
than one would think possible with such few words…hiswebsite and
PowerPoint presentations are the gold standard fordiverse and common
sense beekeeping practices.

Author profile from Michael's book series "The Practical Beekeeper" about beekeeping naturally:

Michael Bush has had an eclectic set of careers fromprinting and graphic arts, to construction to computer programming anda few more in between. Currently he is working in computers. He hasbeen keeping bees since the mid 70’s, usually from two to seven hives upuntil the year 2000. Varroa forced more experimentation which requiredmore hives and the number has grown steadily over the years from then.By 2008 it was about 200 hives. He is active on many of the Beekeepingforums with last count at about 45,000 posts between all of them. He has aweb site on beekeeping at www.bushfarms.com/bees.htm

Got a question for Michael? Send it to beehumans[at]gmail[dot]com and we'll get a bunch answered in subsequent posts.

Welcome Michael...we're proud to have you. May we call you Michaelbeeo?

Rescuing bees from a Long Beach wood pile

2011-09-05T14:09:00.000-07:00

The bee rescue crew.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

Brian called the Bee Rescue Hotline when he realized that there were bees in his woodpile. He had a group of people coming over to build a bunch of skate ramps and he needed to be able to move the wood around.

Barbara and I came over and Theresa met us for her first bee rescue and first hive. Theresa's son just got a new job and spent the money buying her the hive and a couple of bee suits. What a great son! Brian borrowed one to help with the rescue and loved it. He described it as dangerous and put it in the same category as skydiving. He and Theresa were naturals with the bees and were so excited. Barbara is beginning to be the mentor at this point.

We had to do some heavy lifting at first and somehow Brian conveniently had to go to the store when we needed to that. The bees were very nice and in no time we had them in Theresa's hive.

Theresa came back at night to retrieve them but accidentally went to the wrong house and was confused when she didn't see the hive in the backyard. Luckily no one noticed.

She loves her hive and the bees are very good natured. A perfect hive to give you bee fever.

—roberta

Theresa then sent an update:

Wow what a rush. Under layers of plywood a whole world of bees! What intricate creatures.

Roberta was a great teacher pointing out queen cups, good brood patterns and drones. Barbara showing how to lay the comb in the frames. I went back after dark so all the stragglers would be safe at home. Getting to the house with my bee suit on, flashlights at the ready, we walked boldly to the back yard—until I realized it was the wrong house. Whoops!

The ants found the hive in less than a hour. We got that sorted out and today they are all reorienting themselves and seem very happy. These are very friendly bees which makes it even better with the dogs and chickens. I am happy to have bees. Thank you Roberta for the great experience...

—Theresa

Saving bees in a BIG old avocado tree

2011-09-02T11:26:00.000-07:00

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

This hive came crashing to the ground unexpectedly. The avocado tree it was in is thought to be the second oldest avocado tree in Southern California and has being doing great for years. One day this Pasadena family heard a loud crashing sound as one of the tree limbs broke and hit the ground. Luckily no one was hurt.

A hive must have set up in the hollow of the dead tree limb. The colony didn't seem to be fazed by the change in location and continued to fly in and out of the limb. It shocked the homeowner to find a beehive in addition to a 20 foot branch on the ground. Luckily they knew about us. And their son, Rory, knew one of our own beekeepers, Julia.

We arranged a time that Julia and her mother could meet Ceebs and me to relocate the hive to Julia's nuc. Julia is working with bees and creating her senior project around them. Rory was interested In working with the bees so he also joined in with a loaner veil. His mom, dad and sister looked on from a distance and were very excited about the whole process.

We first took a chainsaw and opened up the branch and then Julia cut out the comb. It was tiny bunch of bees and they were super nice. They just kept on flying in and out despite the noise of the chainsaw.

There wasn't much comb to save, but we did what we could. Julia returned at night and all the bees were inside the nuc. The bees are now with Julia and doing well but given their current size, the colony will need more bees to be able to make it through the winter. Julia is already working on getting another cutout to combine with this one. She's a natural with the bees and will soon be able to mentor others—and she's still in high school.

—roberta

Fighting over a bee rescue in NYC

2011-08-31T08:55:00.000-07:00

With wild bees an abundant resource here in Southern California, there's always more than enough to go around.

Not so in New York City, apparently:

In a gale wind from [tropical storm Irene], a hollowed-out branch of an enormous tree was ripped off, exposing a hive of 30,000 to 40,000 honeybees. The hive’s discovery was a jackpot for the beekeeping community and word spread quickly on Facebook and Twitter that a feral hive was up for grabs.

Two beekeepers jumped at the chance to claim the bees, unknowingly setting off a feud between two of the city’s main beekeeping groups...

As throngs of beekeepers and the curious congregated within the thin piece of yellow caution tape roping off the area around the tree, tensions rose. And even as the wood chips were flying, the two beekeeping groups squabbled over how the rescue should be conducted and who the rightful owner of the bees was...

Mr. Fischer said he tried to halt the operation on Sunday because the high winds trailing the storm added to an already potent combination of stinging insects, heights and chain saws. But when his words were not heeded, he left the park.

“There was a lot more testosterone floating around than common sense,” he said.

Around Bee Rescue, Honey and Rancor (NY Times)

Viewer mail

2011-08-29T09:47:00.000-07:00

Hi,

I absolutely LOVE your guys approach!!

I am a new beekeeper in Northern California...no, not San Francisco, farther up than that by a few hours.

Anyway, I have a ten-frame Langstroth hive with a super on it and I had some old wood and wire frames that I took apart. I was wondering if I put a few of those broken down frames as top-bar frames using a paint stir stick and some starter wax if you think the bees will build on it considering all the other frames are either wood-and-wire or plastic? If so where should I put them? Super, middle, outer, etc?

Again, what you guys do is wonderful. Peace.

Regards,
Brett W.

Kirk responds:

Well sounds like you are having fun up there. You should put them wherever you want. The bees just like things to build their combs on.

Keep it simple.

"Everything works if you let it"
--Michael Bush

have fun Backwards is the new forwards

kirkobeeo

Hive removal in Venice

2011-08-28T10:29:00.000-07:00

Roberta opens up the garage wall.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Yvonne writes:

Roberta and I went to help Clancy and Charlotte in Venice. They had bees in the back of the garage. They wanted to keep them but the hive was in the neighbor’s yard and she didn’t like them. Clancy and Charlotte decided that they wanted to move the bees into their backyard.

We took apart the back wall of the garage first. Once we pried the wall open, there was a lot of comb hanging down. We removed it all and then filled up the space and sealed it up.

However, this particular hive (which had swarmed twice) was queenless so we could not move them into the backyard. Instead, they got moved into Backwards Beekeeper Ceebs’ hive.

We promised Clancy and Charlotte some more bees and they finally got a hive from a Cheviot Hills removal.

—Yvonne

First Meeting of the Backwards Beekeepers in NYC

2011-08-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

NYC Backwards Beekeeper Megan writes:

Last week, a funny little group of aspiring and successful urban farmers, bee nerds and wanna-bees gathered on the rooftop of Brooklyn Grange, an acre-sized rooftop farm located in Queens, NY for the first meeting of the Backwards Beekeepers of New York City.

What we lacked in population, we made up for in spirit. We had with us such a wonderful assortment of talent and experience level in beekeeping: Sam Comfort of Anarchy Apiaries came down from the Hudson Valley to regale the group with stories of formic acid burns and swarm catching and started the whole talk with a ditty about an aquatic ant who can save the world. Guitar strings were broken, then came the storm we had all been fearing.

The skies had been opening up off and on all day, even up to the few minutes before the meeting. When we got started the horizon was fairly clear with the exception of some ominous clouds in the distance. Immediately after Sam’s song (which I am convince willed the storm to us) marble-sized hail began to fall, the wind began to whip around and lightening sent us running off of the roof to an open warehouse space a couple floors below.

It was dusty, it was dark. We sat on cardboard boxes on the floor in a big circle. It was like a Die Hard movie gone wrong. We were certainly starting our foray into Backwards-ness on the right foot. If the other NYC bee clubs could see us, they’d certainly have a chuckle at our expense. Let them. We were having a really good time.

Sam finished up his talk and shared his idea for a pay-it-forward beekeeping program and a swarm trap initiative. We got some volunteers for implementing both. Afterwards Tim O’Neal said a few words about never losing your sense of wonder and aspirations to learn more about bees. You never will know it all, so why not just get used to it or even revel in it?

That segued into talk of the basic tenets of Backwards Beekeeping. In a nutshell, that bees know how to be bees better than we know how to manipulate them into bee-ing...so just let ‘em bee! It seemed to resonate with the crowd in attendance, most of whom grow or buy organic food and bike all over NYC as opposed to driving. You know--low-impact folk.

At the end of the meeting, Michael Leung, a rooftop beekeeper from Hong Kong spoke about his project HK Honey and his excitement at learning more about this method of beekeeping (he keeps Apis Cerana, or the Asiatic honeybee in HK, all on their own naturally constructed wax so he is one step ahead of the game) and attending more meetings during his stay. We were glad to have him with us.

We ended the meeting and went out for burritos and margaritas together in Brooklyn. It was really a great time. So far, this club feels an awful lot like a group of friends! The camaraderie was almost instantaneous.

Our next meeting will be at the end of September where we will talk more about propagating bees next Spring. We don’t get as many swarms here as the folks in Los Angeles do, but we want to work on getting people educated about how to get bees that won’t involve buying packages from the south. We hope you will follow our Facebook page to find out details about meetings as they become available. Hope to see many new faces next time!

Bzzz!

—Megan

Next Meeting: Sunday August 28

2011-08-26T06:05:00.000-07:00

PLEASE NOTE: Backwards Beekeepers meetings will now take place regularly on the last Sunday of every month.

The next meeting is scheduled for Sunday August 28 at 11am at the Atwater Crossing arts complex

Topics to be covered:

Your questions answered by Kirkobeeo

Honey & harvesting

Bee rescues

Meet the mentors & learn how to adopt one of your own

Atwater Crossing
3265-3191 Casitas Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90039-2205

There is ample free parking in the complex parking lot so PLEASE park in the lot so the residents of the neighborhood can park near their homes.

Map link

Closest freeway exit is Fletcher off the 2 freeway
Casitas is between Minneapolis St & Silver Lake Blvd…
1 long block SW of N. San Fernando Road (across the railroad tracks)
1 ½ blocks NW of Fletcher Drive
2 ½ blocks SE of Glendale Blvd

See you at the meeting!
Anne & Gwen

Heater hive in Cheviot Hills

2011-08-25T12:09:00.001-07:00

LA Backwards Beekeeper Yvonne writes:

Andrew from Cheviot Hills called the Bee Rescue Hotline when he tried to move an outdoor propane heater, only to discover some bees had taken up residence under the cover.

Hmmm....

Wow!

Thankfully, my nephew Joshua came to help me because when we unzipped the cover, it ended up being a pretty large hive.

Joshua smoked them up really well and then we laid the heater on its side to begin cutting them into frames. Joshua has never handled bees before but laid everything out like a pro.

It was a messy job and it took over an hour but they were framed up and moved to their new hive in Venice, California.

—Yvonne

Backwards Beekeepers to the rescue at the LA Zoo

2011-08-24T10:56:00.000-07:00

Now that's a big hive.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

Ceebs answered a call to the Bee Rescue Hotline about some hives at the LA Zoo. Dave, who is in charge of the grounds, wanted to do some natural extractions rather than use exterminators. Ceebs did some recognizance and started the wheels rolling.

The zoo rescue crew.

We had a huge group of people go there to remove a VERY big hive (as big as me!). It was under an elevated platform for an old aviary that was set to be demolished the following week, so we were in a time crunch. Luckily we had a team of both pros and newbees willing to meet at 6am to take care of it. We had Kirk, Randy, Chris, Ceebs, myself, Chandra, Barbara, Ryan and James.

Kirk at work.

We started out by just trying to figure out what to do. It took a ladder and a set of containers lifted with a pulley system. There was a bunch of chaos after the first few cuts and then Kirk went in and just took it apart in big whacks.

In no time the comb had come down, the brood was tied in and the honeycomb stashed away. Chandra, one of the condor keepers, took the bees home for her first hive.

On another recent visit Randy, Joseph, Ed, Andrew, James, Margarita and Barbara tackled a few hives. Two were under trailers and were pretty big and old. Access was difficult because it required lying on the ground. These cutouts went pretty fast. Then there was a hive in a tree that required a chainsaw but was too deep to extract so will require another trip for a trap-out.

—roberta

Backwards Beekeeper Ed adds:

Here's a joke for you. An Irishman, a Croatian, and a Guatemalan meet at the zoo and...

Joseph, Ed, Andrew.

Oh wait a minute, it's not a joke, its actually the Backwards Beekeepers International Section. Andrew, Joseph and I had the pleasure of doing a great cutout this AM at the Condor Sanctuary. It was a very mature hive located underneath a trailer. I'd say it was a couple of years old.

We did not use a bee vac. All we did was smoke and cut. We spotted the queen and manually placed her in Joseph's supers, collected plenty of honey and were headed for home by 9:30 AM. I don't believe anyone was stung even a single time.

I will post the photos (courtesy of Margarita) on the LA BeeRescue site.

—Ed

Beekeepers meet the paparazzi

2011-08-23T17:13:00.000-07:00

Chelsea, Sherri Akers, LA City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, Rob

LA beekeepers Rob and Chelsea McFarland have been raising quite a ruckus with their organization HoneyLove.org. They're working hard in the fight to legalize beekeeping in our city.

Photos from their recent "National Honey Bee Awareness Day" event are here.

Bees on approach!

2011-08-22T15:25:00.000-07:00

Diane W. (aka Lady Bee Wrangler) sends this story about a great way to expand beekeeping:

That buzzing sound you hear at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport could be a jet taking off. Or maybe it's coming from the 1.5 million bees that call the airport home. In May, the Chicago Department of Aviation partnered with a community group to start a 2,400 square foot apiary on-site. Now 23 beehives are up and running and are scheduled to yield 575 pounds of honey this year.

The project offers a creative, sustainable, and productive way to use otherwise wasted open space at mega-airports like O'Hare. The bees' new home on the east side of the airport campus had long stood vacant, so it was a natural spot for the bee program to begin. And if that's not enough benefit, the beehives provide employment opportunities for formerly incarcerated adults (similar to other projects that teach prisoners beekeeping).

At O'Hare Airport, Unused Land Is Going to the Bees (GOOD online)

Rooftop cut-out with a view

2011-08-19T16:46:00.000-07:00

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

Andrew and I did a cut-out together of another squirrel box, this time for his friends Fleur and Dins in Echo Park. The squirrel box was retrieved from Thousand Oaks a few days earlier.

It was a pretty tricky move because it was overflowing with bees and it was terribly high. Nonetheless it made it back to LA and we put it on Fleur and Dins’ rooftop.

Andrew and Fleur.

This is a great place for bees. It’s up on a hillside and has a spectacular view of downtown LA. It also made for a great nighttime urban beekeeping adventure after work.

The bees had been on the mean side so to minimize the craziness with the cut-out, we vacuumed them up. They were very nice bees this time around and didn’t seem to mind where they were going. They were calm enough that Fleur and Dins stayed and watched. It didn’t take long to get them in their new hive.

Unfortunately, in a few days, the bees were robbed and most of them didn’t survive the attack. They were probably just too nice. Well, Fleur was heartbroken so Andrew immediately called for another cutout. He joined the crew for a few cutouts at the zoo and hopefully he has more bees for her.

—roberta

Victoria's bees move out of the house, into a hive

2011-08-16T15:57:00.000-07:00

No drones allowed, I guess. (click to enlarge)

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

Victoria is a wonderful fellow Long Beach beekeeper. She started out by wanting to host a hive, and posted an offer to do so on the Backwards Beekeepers Yahoo group.

She quickly got a call from a couple who had made a beautiful and uniquely painted top bar hive (see above). They brought it over with a swarm which had already set up housekeeping inside.

Henry in Long Beach helped Victoria with her first inspection, which was a bit tricky. The homemade frames were a little difficult to move around and some of the combs were attached to top bars. Henry put in a deep frame and it kind of fit.

Well, Victoria loved how it was decorated but in the long run wanted to have an easier-to-manage Langstroth hive. So I went over and in a couple of stages we cut out the combs and moved them to a new hive. The bees were just a little bothered by it and then went right back to working.

Victoria and Barbara.

Barbara came on the second visit, which made things go a lot faster. There was a little honey comb that Victoria's hubbie and daughter got to sample. Victoria's daughter wants her own beekeeping veil, which she'’ll get soon.

—roberta

Pacific Palisades Attic Bees

2011-08-15T21:17:00.000-07:00

LA Backwards Beekeeper Ruth writes:

Joe A. was excited to participate in his first cut-out so that he could get his first bee hive going in his yard. Susan R. came too, to help with the cut out just to get more experience and to help save more bees.

These bees had lived in a ceiling or attic space in a house in the Palisades for many years. The owners were doing a total renovation so they decided it was time for the bees to go. Dorothy C. did the logistics on getting all the permissions and helpers together! Thank you Dorothy!

Below is the owner's contractor, Gary, who borrowed a bee suit so that he could make the cut in the drywall himself and get a taste of bee fever! Here are the first trial holes... hmmm, we thought they were in there! It took a minute to find them.

Once we found the right spot we cut a nice big rectangle out of the drywall so we could get our tools in there to cut the comb down.

I like a pancake spatula because it has an angle. Putty knives are good too, once you get it started.

The hive was old but not that big. It went across two 16" bays of rafter beams. We rubber banded 2 full medium boxes of frames together for Joe, and I put 3 deep frames, including some with open brood, into a cardboard nuc box for the stragglers. There were a lot of stragglers.

Joe cut a lot of the comb down himself. Susan and I took most of the honey, and the contractor's workers got some too!

Here are Joe and Susan. We made a great team and enjoyed our morning's work. I will go back and pick up the straggler box
in a few days or a week.

—Ruth

Viewer mail

2011-08-12T19:31:00.000-07:00

Helen writes:

We have just started beekeeping this year. We inherited a hive that had wired wax foundations on the two deeps and one western [editor's note: I'm guessing this means a medium box]. The deeps are pretty full of brood and honey and the western is full of honey so we thought we’d try putting on a second western for honey. We put one on a couple of weeks ago. Since we are sharing work on the hive with a friend and he wanted to use plastic foundations covered with wax and we wanted to use just starter strips covered with wax, we did half of each. Unfortunately they’ve hardly touched either, only sealed around the edges with propolis. I had read someplace that sometimes spraying sugar water on helps, but it didn’t.

Is it possible to successfully introduce frames with starter strips in a hive that has wax foundation in some supers? If so, any thoughts on why the bees seem to be ignoring them? Or what to do to encourage them to start? They do go up and walk around on the starter strips, but they aren’t drawing any comb. We have another hive with just two deeps with wired wax foundations and the bees in that hive have been drawing comb like crazy, so it’s not a matter of not having sufficient nectar & pollen.

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

Helen

PS – My husband and I love your site. His favorite saying now it “Backwards is the new forwards!”

Kirk responds:

Well, it probably isn't the starter strips or the plastic foundation. It is probably the time of year. Bees like to draw comb on starter strips and to draw foundation when there is a flow. Also the bees have to "festoon" or hang on the starter strips to draw comb. This means bees—lots of young bees. So depending on what time of year and where you are located has a lot to do with it.

Also if you are up north or where it gets cold that honey is also INSULATION. So if you take the honey you can set them up to freeze and to starve. I have found bees draw comb if there is a flow.

Plastic: I have seen people use all kinds of tricks to try and get bees to draw out the plastic. If you just are a Backwards Beekeeper you will remove most of the confusion you are now experiencing. One other thing. All bees are Backwards the humans just confuse them.....also All Bees are created equal some just work harder than others.

kirkobeeo your pal

LA Weekly visits the Backwards Beekeepers

2011-08-11T20:49:00.000-07:00

Thanks to David Cotner of the LA Weekly for a well-written piece on our group:

Kirk Anderson, the Backwards Beekeepers' sardonic and direct guru, leads the meeting. He offers sage slivers of advice for the care and keeping of the bees in a way that comes off as completely natural but in reality stems from decades of observational experience that began in the 1970s, when he ordered bees through the mail from the Montgomery Ward catalog.

Beekeeping may seem like something to be pursued by specialists, involving arcane knowledge or insect sorcery. But, Anderson says, "We want to show everyone that it's easy," wryly promising, "You don't have to be a brain surgeon or a politician to do it." For those who were brought to the meeting because of the stern warnings of the recent documentary Vanishing of the Bees, Anderson stresses, "There are plenty of bees -- nature keeps that bucket pretty full."

Backwards Beekeepers, L.A.'s Bee Rescue Service (LA Weekly)

Backwards Beekeeping in France

2011-08-07T13:15:00.000-07:00

Friend-of-the-group Renaud keeps bees in Pénestin, France. He checks in with this photo of himself and his son Grégoire, both modeling Backwards Beekeepers apparel.

Rescuing a Long Beach tree hive

2011-08-06T15:20:00.000-07:00

Jennifer, Maddy and Izzy beneath their tree hive.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Barbara writes:

This rescue could not have been sweeter (well, unless there had been honey). One nice mom, two live wire little girls bubbling over with questions, and a sweet little tree hive all made for a pleasant after-dark rescue event in Long Beach.

I had checked on Jennifer's bee situation a couple weeks ago—I had hoped it would just be a swarm, since she had just noticed it. But it turned out that the bees were settled in and were making comb.

When Roberta and I returned, we found the same little hive, now with one more comb than it had three weeks prior. It required some tricky pruning on Roberta's part, since combs were built through several tiny branches as well as the small main branch. She managed to free it and clear a path down.

My job was to hold the ladder still for her and not let go even if a blob of angry bees fell off the branch directly above and landed on me—a distinct possibility. Since my first bee rescue was the BBQ bees from hell bouncing off my veil and entire body, I figured I could handle a bee bomb on my head. Fortunately, I didn't have to test this theory.

This little hive was really a beauty and the bees were not at all defensive. Roberta was able to invite the girls back out to see it since the bees were so calm. Izzy and Maddy were snapping pictures with their own cameras and so excited that one question was tumbling into the next.

We put the hive, branch and all, into a cardboard box. The hive had so little growth in those three weeks that we suspect it might be queen-less, so Roberta has not quite decided where it will end up. Perhaps it will be added to another hive; perhaps she’ll wait and see how it does on its own.

Roberta and I answered each and every bee question the girls could think of while we were cleaning up, while we were packing the car, while we were strapping the ladder on top of the car, well, you get the idea. I’m sure they will still be talking about their big bee adventure for days. Who knows … maybe they will join a future generation of beekeepers. ☺

—Barbara

A Long Beach cut-out, and a happy reunion

2011-08-02T12:12:00.000-07:00

Barbara and the hive.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

We got a call on the Bee Rescue Hotline from Chuck in Long Beach, who had some bees move into his wall. They hadn't been there long because he had check this area of the house just a month ago. The bees had gotten behind some boards of the exterior wall.

The first sneak peek at the hive.

Chuck is no stranger to a hammer. He put on a veil and started taking his house apart! It took almost an hour to remove everything but it was worth it. Chuck loved it and caught all of the extraction on video.

Barbara and I tied in the three new combs and vacuumed the bees up into a box. They were flying in and out of the box like it had always been their home.

I was going to come back at night to get them, but then I got a call from Chuck the next day. He was very surprised and dumbfounded that the bees were all gone! These were really nice bees so I was bummed that they left—but sometimes this just happens. They just don't like the new accommodations and take off. Hopefully they found a place with someone as nice as Chuck.

Oh and when we were cleaning up I heard someone calling my name. A little strange for a Sunday morning, but it was a wonderful surprise. It was Theresa from our El Dorado cutout. She was so happy to see us and wanted to talk about writing a grant for setting up a hive at the park. She even brought us out some lemonade. This such a small world and it's filled with exceptional people.

—roberta

Urban bees doing very well indeed, thank you.

2011-08-01T04:56:00.000-07:00

Carla Johnson of AP wrote a very good piece about bees thriving in urban environments:

Membership in beekeeping clubs is skewing younger and growing. The White House garden has beehives. The city of Chicago's hives — nine in all, on rooftops and other government property — are just part of the boom.

"I've seen hives set up on balconies and in very, very small backyards," said Russell Bates, a TV commercial director and co-founder of Backwards Beekeepers, a 3-year-old group that draws up to 100 mostly newcomers to its monthly meetings in Los Angeles.

The group is "backwards" because its members rely on natural, non-chemical beekeeping practices. All their hives are populated by local bees they've captured — or "rescued" as the group's members like to say — from places they're not wanted.

"We don't use mail-order bees," Bates said. "Local bees have adapted to this environment. They're the survivors."

City governments, won over by beekeepers' passion, are easing restrictions. In recent years, New York, Denver, Milwaukee and Santa Monica have made beekeeping legal. The Backwards Beekeepers group is working to legalize beekeeping in Los Angeles.

Amid bee die-off, healthy hives thrive in cities (Carla Johnson, AP)

Cut-out adventure in Mt. Washington

2011-07-31T16:43:00.000-07:00

Does this look like a newbee to you? Karen gets right into it.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

Rob answered a call to the Bee Rescue Hotline about a swarm on the wall of a house in Mt Washington. He met Karen there, who has been studying beekeeping and going to meetings. Now she was ready to get into the thick of it.

When they got there they saw it wasn't really a swarm but bearding outside of a vent where a hive had set up. Rob got a group of us together to return and do the cutout. Gwen lent us her ladder and with quick work Rob had the vent removed and the hive exposed.

Even though this was the first cutout she was doing, Karen climbed up the 20 foot ladder and cut out the comb with ease and confidence. She was super cool and a natural with the bees.

The hard part was getting the rest of the bees out of the roof, because there was a lot of space between the insulation and lots of vents to use. There was also a crazy bee activity that looked like robbers that had joined the frenzy.

It took Rob patience and hours to take care of the other vents and coax the bees out. A labor of honeylove.

—roberta

Handling bees in a sun dress?

2011-07-26T16:29:00.000-07:00

Kirk passes along these photos from his recent trip to New York City. He writes:

hell who needs a veil. Emily Vaughn and Sam Comfort looking at Emily's bees

—kirkobeeo

It's worth noting, by the way, that Emily and Sam are dealing with package (i.e. factory-bred) bees here. We do not recommend this sort of thing when dealing with feral bees.

I personally call this "asking for a nasty surprise."

Garage cut-out in Long Beach

2011-07-17T15:35:00.000-07:00

Ryan and his unwanted guests.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Barbara writes:

Saturday morning early (7 a.m. on a Saturday is early to me), Roberta picked me up and we headed for Ryan's garage bee hive in Long Beach. This was my second beeventure since becoming totally obsessed with all things apian. Little did I know this would be my first “hands-on” bee experience.

Ryan's dog checks out the intruders.

It appeared that the bees were limited to a small area behind a loose fascia board and had not had time to get much farther. After puffing a bit of smoke into the hive, Roberta settled down to showing me how to put together nuc frames.

A few minutes after another poof of smoke on the bees she artfully removed the loose board exposing a lovely one-month-old hive. First she demonstrated how to cut all the sides of the combs away from their attachments, removing a couple of pieces and shaking the bees off into the box. Then she showed me how to lay the comb into the frames and put frame into the nuc box. Lastly she said, in her sweet voice,… "OK Barbara, your turn”."

Ackkkk, I thought, I’'m going up that ladder and cutting comb out of a bee hive? So...up I went on the extremely rickety ladder (note duct tape holding it together in the video) into the cloud of bees.

OK, so they were extremely sweet bees, just feeling a bit disrupted. I managed to cut bee-covered comb off without destroying it, or falling off the ladder, or getting stung on the nose when my veil momentarily fell against my face. Success!

I had an absolutely wonderful time. Someone is getting some really nice bees, and as a final touch Roberta got to see her first-ever woodpecker on the way back to the car. I could get used to this.

—Barbara

Bonus video: the bees drinking honey after getting a couple of puffs of smoke.

Help save the bees with a BB t-shirt!

2011-07-15T08:38:00.000-07:00

New color now available! See below.

The Backwards Beekeepers t-shirt is a great way to show your support for all-natural, chemical-free beekeeping and the survival of the feral honeybee population! Proceeds from sales help to fund the Backwards Beekeepers' bee rescue, educational outreach, and community meetings.

The logo design is by Ron Fleming and Brent Stickels at YYES Design, and the shirts are made by American Apparel in the USA. Screen printing is by Tomas at Grow Your Own Media in Atwater.

The shirts are available in gray or brown and cost $15. US shipping is $5, and international shipping is available too—drop us a line to tell us where you are, and we'll let you know the cost (most parts of Canada, for example, ship for the same price as the US).

We have adult sizes small, medium, large, and XL (check the pull-down menu just below to see what's currently in stock). Here's a closer look at the two different colors & logo:

For a limited time you can also grab one in green!

*cat not included

You can get a shirt at most Backwards Beekeeper meetings, or you can order one by clicking the button below.

You'll look good in one!

** Want to save on shipping? Each additional t-shirt you order ships for just $2 more! That means two shirts are just $37, three are $54, and so on. To order multiple shirts this way, e-mail us instead of using the PayPal buttons below. Let us know how many shirts you want (along with sizes and colors), and we'll give you the payment info.

Use the menu below to buy a t-shirt in GRAY or BROWN:

Use the menu below to buy a t-shirt in GREEN:

** See the note just above if you want to buy multiple shirts—save on shipping!

Hollywood Hills cut-out

2011-07-13T17:13:00.000-07:00

Rob finds the honey.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

A call to the Bee Rescue Hotline sent us up to the Hollywood Hills to do a cut-out from an exterior garage wall. The homeowner said that the hive had been there for almost 20 years. There had also been two other hives on the property that other Backwards Beekeepers had removed.

Knowing that the hive had been there such a long time, we were surprised to find just one area with brood comb and an equal amount of space for just honey. It was funny how the bees had set up the hive: on the left of one wall stud was the brood and on the right (between the next set of studs) was the honey. There was very little crossover.

This hive was just barely hanging in there. Leah put the brood and bees into Rob's handmade nucs and brought them to one of her queenless hives.

Ed, Roberta, and Rob.

We checked the hive the next day and there were some bees on the comb, but not many. There were also a bunch of bees left in the wall that didn't want to go into the nuc box that I had left there, so I'll need to move them on another night.

—roberta

Rescuing some Silver Lake bees

2011-07-11T05:42:00.000-07:00

Guess which one's the beekeeper.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

Lisa called the Bee Rescue Hotline about some bees living in an irrigation control box. Chris met me there because he needed bees for a new hive. We got there just as the sun was setting over Silver Lake Reservoir.

We opened up the irrigation control box and there were a few combs so it wasn't too big—just the right size for a quick cutout. Lisa and her boyfriend watched from a balcony while we worked.

The brood pattern was great. And best of all, the bees were so gentle. They went into a few frames of a deep box and we got almost all the bees as we definitely had the queen.

After last batch of bees were put in the box they started to fan like crazy all pointing in the same direction. They made a roar in the box.

Lisa said that she would tweet about us and spread the word about the Backwards Beekeepers. Thanks, Lisa!

—roberta

New beekeeper meets a BBQ hive

2011-07-07T11:06:00.000-07:00

Barbara and Jennifer.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

Jennifer called the Bee Rescue Hotline about a swarm of bees that had started building a hive under her BBQ. She had already exposed them by pulling away the BBQ cover at night. She had worked with bees with her dad when she was younger and would have kept them if her dog didn't have a big reaction to the bee stings.

New beekeeper Barbara came along, and writes this about her experience:

Bees…I’ve always thought about them, enjoyed staring at them in my garden and on the pepper trees next door. I’ve stepped on more than a few in clover-filled back yards as a child. I’ve collected a few ancient coins from Ephesus, Greece with images of bees on them. I’ve read about the Mellisae (bee priestesses) and have had fantasies of making my own mead. I am filling my Kindle with bee books, looking at top bar hive plans, etc, but tonight was the real deal. CONTACT – or hopefully no contact - with real live living, buzzing, stinging bees.

I was already set to go with Roberta to my first bee experience, a cut-out the next Saturday morning. Then she called to invite me to get a swarm under a BBQ right in Long Beach. I was thrilled and thought a swam would be a good intro for me. They would most likely be docile since they had nothing to protect, right? Turns out that was not the case. They had started setting up housekeeping and had drawn some comb.

As Roberta helped me don my borrowed veil I thought to myself, “OK, you are all in now, girl." Roberta is an excellent teacher who spoke to me very calmly about what she was doing and why every step of the way. She had also given me some clear safety tips and I felt very comfortable.

Roberta expertly sprayed the bees with a little water and nudged the majority of the mass into a waiting box. She took the time to point out the little rear ends in the air indicating that we had the queen in the box.

It was soon clear that there were many bees who were very unhappy. They were everywhere around us and on us. The air was filled and we were covered. I could feel them bumping my thick leather gloves and my veil. Oddly, I did not feel fear or panic although I was pretty resigned to getting stung. I am still amazed that I was not.

I am also glad that it wasn’t a “typical” calm swarm situation because now I know I won’t panic.

As we rode home on the 405 we were treated to fireworks from somewhere in Long Beach while thousands of bees settled down with their queen in a box in the back seat. What a night!

This morning I feel like I have been through a life-changing initiation. I can’t remember feeling so good about myself. If you are a newbee given the opportunity to go out on a rescue with an experienced beekeeper, do it. Don’t hesitate. You will be in awe of these wonderful little creatures. That awe will only be exceeded by the way you will feel about yourself having done it.

—Barbara

After we had finished, Jennifer offered to help us on future rescues! Barbara's already signed up to do a cutout this weekend and her real bee gear is on the way. I'm so excited for her.

—roberta

Backwards Beekeeping comes to New York City!

2011-07-06T15:18:00.000-07:00

(click for a larger version of this flyer)

Kirk will be heading to New York City July 9th and 10th to help introduce Backwards Beekeeping to New York City. Sam Comfort of Anarchy Apiaries will also be on hand, no doubt with his ukelele as well.

For more information, e-mail Megan [at] BrooklynHomesteader.com.

If you're anywhere in the vicinity and want to learn about treatment-free beekeeping, Brooklyn is the place to be!

Bringing the bees back to the Boy Scouts

2011-07-05T21:27:00.000-07:00

Lawndale Backwards Beekeeper Dennis passes along this link:

Christopher Stowell, a Boy Scout in Troop 250, Skiatook, OK, needs our help! He's submitting a proposal to the National Boy Scout Council to reinstate the Beekeeping merit badge (discontinued in 1995) encouraging more young people to become beekeepers.

Beekeeping Merit Badge Petition (experienceproject.com)

Robo's World has more on the story.

El Dorado hive cutout

2011-07-05T13:53:00.000-07:00

Ty, Melanie and Theresa

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

We got a call on the Bee Rescue Hotline from Joe at El Dorado Park in Long Beach last week. It is a big beautiful park and they had a pretty big hive up in the beams of a storage area.

This hive has come and gone many times over the years—always exterminated in the past, but this time they wanted to do something chemical-free and give the bees a new home. A group of us Long Beach guys gathered to tackle the tricky hive.

Ty, Melanie, Uri and I met in the morning to get an early start. Ty and I moved the tall ladder into place. From the ground the hive looked big but up close and about 30 feet off the ground, it looked massive.

Before starting we met many of the crew at the park who were all in favor of doing a chemical-free rescue. Theresa, who manages the park, was very supportive of our efforts. She is a wonderful woman who is also an organic gardener and pollinator supporter. She watched from a truck while we started cutting away the comb.

At first we tried to catch the comb in a bucket on a pole but with all the honey, it became a sticky mess. We saved the brood comb and let everything else fall to the ground. There were bees everywhere on the wall and in the rafters. It was crazy!

Then we vacuumed the bees over several rounds and they started to congregate into the box of brood, a good sign that we had the queen.

It was difficult to work on the ladder but the challenge made it exciting. Ty and I got a majority of the stings, but we made it through. It was the stickiest that I've ever been. I washed my jacket right away but unfortunately my camera went into the washer in the rush. Luckily the data card survived!

The bees are now in Bellflower. Thanks to El Dorado Park for supporting us.

—roberta

Meggie's successful trap-out

2011-07-03T20:11:00.000-07:00

LA Backwards Beekeeper Meggie writes:

In late April a former bee rescue client contacted me to see if I could help his mom’s doctor rescue bees living in the exterior wall of her house.

The bees had made a cozy wall hive and were accessing it through an old dryer vent. The homeowner wanted to safely extract the bees from the wall and move them to her backyard garden. I was really excited about helping Dr. Yuo because she knew the importance of these little pollinators to our ecosystem and wanted to become a beekeeper herself.

Knowing that this was a trap-out situation, something I had yet to experience hands-on, I contacted Roberta for assistance and she was kind enough to agree to be my mentor for this project.

Roberta and I agreed to meet at Dr. Yuo’s house at 6am. We started early because we both had to be at work by 7:30am, and we knew the bees would be in their hive getting ready to start their work day too.

When Roberta and I met at the house, the honey bees were peacefully resting in their wall hive and only a few guard bees were visible and on patrol. Soon after Roberta put the mesh down on the wall and started moving things around to secure it, the girls woke up. In this picture you have a bunch of bees trying to get out. Thank goodness the mesh did not have a hole in it yet because they sounded rather cranky - I think they needed their AM coffee.

The duct tape wasn’t sticking the wire mesh to the stucco wall, so we had to get creative and use material lying around the yard. Roberta used muscle power to MacGyver a glass window pane, dryer vent cover, planter and sawhorse to secure the mesh over the stucco opening.

Then, once everything was firmly in place, Roberta was ready to perform “laparoscopic surgery,” as she called it, to create a small opening in the mesh that would allow the bees to get out one at a time.

Here’s a video of the procedure:

Two weeks later my husband Shane and I went to check on the girls' progress. We saw that the trap-out was working perfectly; the bees were huddled together in a football sized cluster inside the box. The bees looked a little cramped in the little box, so after consulting with Roberta by cell phone, we decided to move the bees to a bigger and fancier cardboard box.

On June 11th Shane and I returned to move the bees from their fancy temporary abode to a permanent 10-frame hive box. When we arrived we noticed that the top of the cardboard box was dented and we worried that some animal had pounced on the box in an unsuccessful attempt to feast on the bees.

However, after we prepared our workplaces and opened the box we were happy to see the cause of the dent…10 beautiful pieces of comb!

These industrious bees had created this beautiful hive in about two weeks! The comb was full of capped honey, brood, and lots of bees.

This was a great learning experience but the best part of this trap-out (that became a cut-out) is that we found the queen and gained a new Backwards Beekeeper!

—Meggie

Next Meeting: This Sunday, July 24!

2011-07-01T15:33:00.000-07:00

The next meeting of the Backwards Beekeepers will be held on Sunday July 24th at 11am.

This month we are going to talk about Swarms and what to expect with hives during these hot months. As always, all your questions on any beekeeping topics will be addressed by our leader Kirk Anderson and/or any of the many experienced beekeepers who are in attendance.

The meeting will be in the same location as last month - The Atwater Crossing arts complex. The address and general area information is below. Reminder that there is ample free parking in the complex parking lot so PLEASE park in the lot so the residents of the neighborhood can park near their homes. We try to keep the meetings to about an hour, but there is time afterwards to talk with other attendees. This time we expect that the café will be open especially for us, so please help support Atwater Crossing Café since they have been great about allowing us to use the facility for free!

We'll also have Backwards Beekeepers t-shirts for sale for $15. We have all sizes (unisex S-XXL) back in stock.

Atwater Crossing
3265-3191 Casitas Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90039-2205

Map link

Closest freeway exit is Fletcher off the 2 freeway
Casitas is between Minneapolis St & Silver Lake Blvd…
1 long block SW of N. San Fernando Road (across the railroad tracks)
1 ½ blocks NW of Fletcher Drive
2 ½ blocks SE of Glendale Blvd

See you at the meeting!
Anne & Gwen

Trap-out and hive transfer

2011-06-30T12:36:00.000-07:00

Barrett showing off some very productive bees.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

I went over to Barrett's place before the recent Backwards Beekeeping meeting to work on some projects we've set up.

The first project that Barrett, his neighbor Dave, and I worked on were some bees in the base of the sycamore tree. The bees had been in the tree for about 2 years. After a month of trapping them out, it seemed like all the bees were out and now we wanted to see what was left in the hive.

We found empty comb and no bees which means that the trap-out worked. Then we filled the hive with dirt and cemented the area to discourage bees from coming back. Check out the video for the quick version of the process:

The next project was a hive transfer of a swarm that we put in a deep box about 2 weeks ago. They built comb like crazy. Check out the video to see the beautiful hive they had built:

We cut the beautiful brood comb out and tied them into deep frames. It was an almost perfect fit. Dave spotted the queen with his eagle eye and boy was she huge. She must have been over an inch long! We couldn't catch a picture in time though.

I needed to leave for the meeting but next projects are adding the trapped-out bees to the hive that we transferred and then fix another hive that also suffered from not having all the right equipment at the same time. Medium frames in a deep box—I can only say that I work with what I find in my car.

Barrett has offered to thank the Backwards Beekeepers for the help by hosting a tour of his hives and a satellite meeting on the West side. Look out for details on our Yahoo group page.

—roberta

Grabbing a swarm in Glassell Park

2011-06-25T05:29:00.000-07:00

We got a call to the Bee Rescue Hotline about a swarm in a bougainvillea bush. Amy and I headed up there and met Margot, her husband Ben, and their son Casey. They were psyched to learn about why bees swarm and how a hive works.

We gave the swarm a couple of quick sprays with sugar water, then nudged them into a nuc box. They were as calm as could be.

This swarm is now in our yard and so far, seems inclined to stick around. Foragers are bringing in food, which always seems like a good sign.

Next Meeting: Sunday June 26

2011-06-24T17:01:00.000-07:00

A message from Anne & Gwen - our BB Meeting Mavens:

Our next meeting is on Sunday, June 26th at 11am at Atwater Crossing, just east of the Silver Lake & Los Feliz neighborhoods.

The meeting will be in the same location as last month - The Atwater Crossing arts complex. The address and general area/parking information is below. The meetings last about an hour, but there is time afterwards to talk with other attendees.

There will be a bake sale going on in one of the adjacent suites and the café may also be open, so feel free to support other users of the arts complex! There is ample free parking in the complex parking lot to the right of the building as you face it. PLEASE do park in the lot so the residents of the neighborhood can park near their homes.

Two really important topics will be covered—Mean Bees and Bee Stings. As always, all your questions on any beekeeping topics will be addressed by our guru Kirk Anderson and/or any of the many experienced beekeepers who are in attendance.

Everyone is welcome, regardless of beekeeping experience (or lack thereof).

If this is your first meeting, please spend a few minutes with this blog before you come - it may answer a lot of your questions.

We'll also have Backwards Beekeepers t-shirts for sale. They cost $15 and are very fashionable.

See you there!

Saving a tiny swarm

2011-06-22T10:22:00.000-07:00

LA Backwards Beekeeper Yvonne writes:

Stacy from Windsor Hills called the Bee Rescue Hotline to remove a swarm from a tree in time for a 3-year old's birthday party. The swarm, located in a crabapple tree, was one of the smallest ones I've seen!

Stacy's son Torin gave me a hand in sweeping them into a shoebox. We put the shoebox in the tree to allow the stragglers to join their queen.

—Yvonne

Mar Vista tripleheader

2011-06-21T16:54:00.000-07:00

John and a portion of his bees.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

Today Rob and I did three cutouts in Mar Vista all before work!

John has had bees living in various parts of his house for a while. It started with a hive in a detached office wall. A professional took that hive out, but then more bees arrived. Dean from the Backwards Beekeepers removed that second hive. Then yet another swarm arrived and set up housekeeping in the wall!

This hive then outgrew the wall and swarmed to spot where a window used to be, and then later swarmed to a box that John had put up to catch more bees. Finally it had come time to take them all out.

Catherine, John's daughter who was home for college for summer break, helped us with the job. She seemed to really love it except for waking up so early. She scooped up bees, cut comb and tied the comb into frames. She had wanted to keep the bees and I think next time the bees come back she'll be ready.

The brood comb had a spectacular laying pattern in all of the hives. We split them up into a beautiful nuc that Rob had whipped up in his spare time, a medium box, and a deep box.

I took the medium and Rob came back later for the nuc, the deep box, and the stragglers. But when he got there he found a spot in one of the walls that had yet more comb, so he removed that as well. Sounds like a long day. Ughh! Are we crazy or what?

—roberta

Backwards Beekeepers in an upcoming documentary

2011-06-19T17:40:00.000-07:00

Dan Susman is making a documentary called Growing Cities about urban farming across America.

He and his partner Andrew Monbouquette shot this segment about a hive rescue with LA Backwards Beekeeper Warren, who does a great job of explaining our mission.

Urban Bee Rescue from Andrew Monbouquette on Vimeo.

Kirk on KPCC's Madeleine Brand Show

2011-06-17T11:11:00.000-07:00

Here's Kirk's interview on KPCC's The Madeleine Brand Show from earlier today.

Thanks again to Madeleine and her great crew for spreading the word!

Queen of the Sun showings start Friday

2011-06-16T07:30:00.000-07:00

Queen of the Sun will be showing at the Laemmle Santa Monica and the Laemmle Fallbrook 7 theatres. It runs June 17-23. You can learn more about screenings here.

From their press kit: "Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us? is an in-depth investigation to discover the causes and solutions behind Colony Collapse Disorder." It apparently also features shirtless dudes handling bees.

Here's the trailer:

Viewer mail

2011-06-15T14:45:00.000-07:00

Susan writes:

Hi,

I am not on any social media sites, so just sending you RSVP for the June 26 meeting this way.

Am very excited to have got my first hive from a beekeeping friend in Garden Grove...(she removed a 3 year old feral hive from the floor of my son's tree house prior to demolition of a swimming pool in our backyard) so always wanted to get some of my own back!

I have been reading non-stop: your site, "The Idiot's Guide", and a book by Kim Flottum, "the Backyard Beekeeper"—which mentions NOT A WORD ABOUT CELL SIZE! But the latter book had some great exploded diagrams and photos and recipes for wax and honey use, so I got it too...

Now I know some about the "gurus" of beekeeping wisdom and the many philosophical strands, but think your position the strongest, from a biological perspective (my background is science and biology). Just got my smoker, suit, veil and hat yesterday from Brushy Mountain, and am sure I have my hive in a bad location. Won't be able to work around it and have any room to move and it could be in a sunnier East facing site. I had been worried more about secrecy, previously.

Anyway, I am anxious to hook up with the advocates on the 26th!

Susan
Manhattan Beach, CA

Huge tangerine tree hive

2011-06-14T10:59:00.000-07:00

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

Last night Rob and I went to check out a tangerine tree hive in Culver City. The hive was a substantial size, described as two basketballs, and the estimate was pretty close—big for a tree hive. It was also pretty high up, about 10 feet.

I shot a few pictures and was trying to figure out when to remove it. Rob just said he would do it that day. He's got a bad case of bee fever! Well, how could I say no?

I called Yvonne who came to lend a hand and Rob started cutting branches away. That took at least an hour and we removed several 8-foot branches to create a path for the hive to some down. We smoked the hive, but the bees were still a little mad about it all.

Since it was night, we could get just about all the bees. By some miracle Rob was able to carry the huge branch down and then Yvonne held it while we trimmed branches to make it fit into the cardboard box. It was a team effort, but Rob did all the hard work.

Rob and Yvonne.

Cutting the hive apart to put it in a box is going to be pretty hard because there are branches stuck all throughout the comb. It's really beautiful. I wish it could have stayed up in the branches, but it was spectacular to see up close.

—roberta

Rob follows up on the story:

I looked at the bees this morning, and the ants had already found the box. I decided to go ahead and do the cut out this morning. It could not have gone better. The bees were totally honey drunk, as they had gulped virtually every drop of honey. The hive was almost entirely brood, with very little drone comb.

Rather than try another top bar, I tied the comb into some frames for my large super. Total piece of cake comparatively. The problem though is I only had 5 frames. I ordered a bunch but they are still somewhere between here and Brushy Mountain; LA Honey Supply Co. didn't have frames after I drove all the way out there (seriously…?).

This is so much fun Roberta. You said it…I got one heck of a case of bee fever. Maybe I'm under the control of queen pheromones ;)

I'm not sure where these bees are going right now, but I'm sure to find a nice home. In the meantime, they can call my place home.

Thanks again Roberta, you are seriously the best. Total pleasure working with you.

Cheers,

Rob

Help us legalize beekeeping in LA

2011-06-13T09:10:00.000-07:00

Legalizing Beekeeping is on this Tuesday's meeting agenda for LA City Council District 11. The core of the 11th district is composed of the Westside communities of Brentwood, Brentwood Glen, Pacific Palisades, the Palisades Highland, Mar Vista, Del Rey, and Venice. The district also includes LAX and the surrounding communities of Westchester, Playa del Rey and Playa Vista. A very small piece of the San Fernando Valley is located in the northernmost section of the district.

It looks like the path to legalization in LA will be one district at a time, so this could be a big step for us. We've already succeeded in Santa Monica.

What you can do (this is especially effective if you live in District 11):

1. Go to the meeting (Wear your Backwards Beekeepers t-shirt if you have one):
Tuesday, June 14 from 7-9pm
Mar Vista Rec Center (click for map). 11430 Woodbine St. - Los Angeles, CA 90026.

2. Send an email or letter to Councilman Bill Rosendahl:
email: Councilman.Rosendahl@lacity.org
7166 W. Manchester Blvd.
Westchester, CA 90045
(310) 568-8772
(310) 410-3946 Fax

3. Get your friends who live in this district to contact Councilman Rosendahl or to attend the meeting (see above).

Let's do this!

Baldwin Hills: Tree trap-out and a possible new beekeeper

2011-06-13T03:57:00.000-07:00

LA Backwards Beekeeper Yvonne writes:

Roberta and I were about ready to go home when we got another Bee Rescue Hotline call about a job a few blocks from my home.

Brad has a tree in the parkway with a bee hive in it. His gardener told him to screen them in and he did a pretty good job of that on his own. When we showed up, Brad has already jerry-rigged screen around the tree. The idea, though, was to try to save the bees. While we were there, we found out that the city has been there several times over the years but the bees always come back. Just another reason why it's important to try to do the job right!

Brad's daughters, the beautiful Laila and Mia Sol, came out to watch the entire operation. They were great students and loved watching the activity. They are going to make great beekeepers!

We started by taking the screen down and put up new screen to allow the bees to come out but not get back in. The final step was rigging up a box for the bees to return to. Luckily, we had brood comb from our Lakewood job. We put that in the box and the bees immediately starting flying in. While we were working, a lot of neighbors came by and we were able to educate several people.

Brad became very interested in having his own hive and is considering keeping these bees. After we were done, since I live a few blocks away, he brought his girls over to see my bee hive (and chickens)! Hopefully, we've made a new beekeeper!

—Yvonne

Catching a swarm in Torrance

2011-06-11T14:39:00.000-07:00

LA Backwards Beekeeper Yvonne writes:

Kim in Torrance called the Bee Rescue Hotline about a swarm in her neighbor's tree. It was important to Kim that the bees be saved.

We showed up and found a very small swarm. Kim's son Bennett and his neighbor posed for a picture next to the bees. This easy job was a welcome relief in our busy day! We captured the swarm easily and they were ready to move to their new home.

—Yvonne

Bee extraction in Lakewood

2011-06-08T22:22:00.000-07:00

LA Backwards Beekeeper Yvonne writes:

Roberta and I headed down to Lakewood. We had been called by Bill and Martha who had read an article about the Backwards Beekeepers. They had bees in a roof eave and their neighbor was complaining about them.

When we inspected them, we discovered that they crammed themselves into the roof eave where the space was only a few inches wide. The comb was short but went waaaaay back! It was difficult to see in or to fit any tools in the space.

The homeowners couldn't afford to open the roof up, so the idea was to pull out all of the comb as best as we could, smoke the remaining bees out and then fill up the gap with Big Gap Filler.

Roberta and I took turns shoving various implements in the space to try to pull the comb out. A hive tool worked (barely) in the front but once the front comb was out, we went through a range of tools that could either not fit in or couldn't be maneuvered once in. Finally, someone suggested a coat hanger and we were able to pull out the rest of the comb with it.

Once the comb was out, we smoked out the bees and filled as much of the space as we could. Hopefully, the bees will move on! Martha and Bill were very excited about our work and referred to Roberta as an angel!

—Yvonne

Double trouble in Norwalk

2011-06-06T18:00:00.000-07:00

Roland and Martina from Norwalk check out some comb.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Yvonne writes:

Roberta and I headed down to Norwalk this morning to help a family out with two different hives.

First up, we handled some bees that had taken up residence in a stucco fence. Recently, they had swarmed but there were still some bees in there. The best part of this job was that the family allowed us to take a sledgehammer to their wall! (They are planning on taking the fence down).

Roberta and I opened the wall and pulled out all of the honeycomb. There was no brood or queen, so we knew the hive was dwindling but we encouraged the family to remove the fence soon so another hive would not move in!

The family also had a tree hive. The city had twice patched the tree up with cement but the bees always found another way in. Roberta and I set up a trap-out. We'll check on them again in a few weeks!

—Yvonne

One-way bee door.

Trap-out in place.

It's the queen!

2011-06-05T19:24:00.000-07:00

Summer, Emma, Sadie and David (the hive sponsor).

Kirk did a hive inspection with some mentees, and made a rare queen spotting.

Summer and Emma inspect the three hives.

The queen! Emma spotted her.
You can see here in the middle—big beautiful orange queen.

Roberta demonstrates a cut-out

2011-06-02T06:33:00.000-07:00

Kieran and his bees.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta sends a story and a couple of very informative videos about a recent cut-out:

Kieran called the Bee Rescue Hotline about bees in a wall. He wanted to keep the bees and was interested in getting them out via a trap-out. We tried to trap them out, but there were too many cracks in the wall for these sneaky bees. This left a cut-out as the only option.

The bees looked like they had two hives going, so it was going to a fair amount of work. We could feel the warmth of the bees through the wall, so that told us where to cut into it. I used my new-from-Craigslist reciprocating saw and carbide blade.

The first hive had a lot of comb but it only had capped brood—no eggs and a lot of open queen cells. So the hive was in the process of re-queening or was just queenless.

The second hive had eggs, lots of brood but also a few closed queen cells. The bees had filled the space between the studs so must have become too crowded. Hopefully they won't swam right away now that they have more space! We split some of the comb with a queen cell to see if we can lure the straggler bees into another box.

I also tried out my new homemade portable bee vacuum. I was able to wrangle a bunch of bees this way and we dumped them into the hive and it went on the roof. We left brood and boxes to try to get the rest of the bees with a plan to combine all them into one hive.

—roberta

Spreading the fun around

2011-06-01T17:11:00.000-07:00

Kirk writes:

I took a bunch of newbies to inspect hives in Los Feliz.

Good times!

We're on TV in South Korea.

2011-06-01T05:22:00.000-07:00

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

After the CNN story about the Backwards Beekeepers ran we got a call from SBS (Seoul Broadcasting System), a Korean network.

The crew came along with me to a swarm in Culver City. The homeowners there liked the bees, but couldn't keep them. It made for a good news story to dispel fear about bees.

Here's a link to the story—it played in both the US and Korea.

—roberta

Bee handoff at the LA Zoo

2011-05-31T17:28:00.000-07:00

Sam, Dawn, Ceebs, Roberta.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

The Bee Rescue Hotline got a call from the LA Zoo. Ceebs jumped on it and arranged for us (Sam, Dawn, Ceebs and myself) to check things out at 6am so we could all still make it to work on time. We set up a quick trap-out.

While there, we did a handoff of bees to Sam. I had picked up these bees from a compost bin in Culver City on the way home from work the day before.

All done before 7am!

—roberta

Viewer mail

2011-05-31T11:31:00.000-07:00

M writes:

I live in Bakersfield, California.

This spring has been unusually cool compared to normal years and we've had 10.25 inches of rain, almosts double normal.
I don't keep bees but find the whole thing fascinating. Perhaps later...

Here's my question: is the 1:4 sugar to water ratio in hummingbird feeders good or bad for bees? Does it depend on the season at all?

Bees have discovered my hummingbird feeders and really, really like to drink from them. The bees are cute with their little bee-butts sticking up, but is it healthy or not for them to drink the sugar water that is in the feeders?

I've got a nice size garden of sages and other native plants, so something is always blooming to provide the bees plenty of other natural sources for flowers. There is also a pond/sump nearby for "regular" water for any wildlife who dares live in an urban setting.

Thank you!

Kirk responds:

Hi there.

Bees are very efficient creatures..........they like to get the most for their effort. The sugar water in the feeders won't hurt them. They probably go there because the sugar content is higher than the flowers right now. As soon as the flowers start up in full bloom, they may change their minds.

—kirkobeeo
all communication welcome

Rescuing some squirrel box bees

2011-05-30T17:47:00.000-07:00

Squirrel box (containing bees) sitting on hive box (empty).

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

Earlier in the week I dropped off a squirrel box full of bees (from Elaine in Torrance) at Chris' place. We put the squirrel box on top of the hive box so that the bees could orientate to their new location.

After a few days Ceebs and I went over to do the quick evening cutout. We removed the top of the box and off came the tops of the combs along with it. There were a few combs and lots of bees.

Ceebs and Chris.

We took out one comb at a time, shook the bees into the hive...

...and then put them into the frames. Easy.

The hard part was separating the bees from the squirrel bedding and nuts. We dumped everything from box onto a piece of cardboard and then let them walk right in. It took a little bit of coaxing but they figured it out.

These bees are going to love living up in the hills near Lincoln Heights.

Thanks also to Marcia of Coast and Canyon Rehabilitation and the squirrel box hosts for helping us save the bees. It takes a lot of planning to coordinate but it's worth it.

—roberta

Kirk mentors Emma

2011-05-26T20:59:00.000-07:00

Kirk writes:

Emma came to the last bee club meeting. She tagged along today—we went to take a swarm out of a trap at Leonardo's house.

This is Emma all geared up.

This is the top of the trap. It had comb attached, and there were 5 pizza-shaped combs in the trap.

Emma showing a frame with the comb tied in with kite string.

Bees and comb out of the trap and in the frames; the frames now in the box.

Emma looking at the bees in the box and in the tree. I like to put the box the bees are moved into back in the same place they were removed from. I like to leave them there for a couple of days.

A frame of honey in one of Leonardo's hives.

Emma looking at a frame from Leonardo's other hive. Notice the starter strip and the comb the bees are drawing.

Off to Sue's! Sue and Emma getting geared up.

Sue and Emma ready to inspect Sue's hive.

All in all, a real good day. Me and Emma removed a swarm and put it in a hive box. We inspected Leonardo's two hives. The one big hive of Leonardo's we added a box and moved five frames up.

We went to Sues and inspected her big hive. We looked for a queen, found a queen cell but no queen or eggs. We put a escape board on so Sue could remove the honey. We checked on her second hive—it was empty. We the inspected her third hive: plenty of brood. We moved two frames of brood up and closed up the hive.

Emma had a real good time and so did Sue and I.

—kirkobeeo

Roberta finds a tough trap-out and makes a new beekeeper

2011-05-25T04:20:00.000-07:00

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

Kirk put me in contact with Barrett, who had bees in the base of a Sycamore tree. The bees had been there at least a year. A bee company had come to fill up the opening with a spray foam, but that didn't work. Now it was time to try something new and better, so we met planned a 6am trap out. Luckily Barrett found out that his neighbor, David, had just set-up a new hive a couple of weeks ago and he was interested in helping despite the crazy hour.

We nailed in the screen with a small hole in the middle of a cone shape that would help funnel the bees out of the trap out screen. We tacked down the screen to the ground with garden staples and then buried it in dirt. It looked great but it didn't last very long, as some creature found it the next day and dug up the dirt and closed the hole. We fixed it the next weekend but then those sneaky bees found a way out the back of the tree!

We'll throw some dirt where they are coming out and hope for the best. The trap-out will take a while but in the meantime...

Barrett liked the idea of having a beehive, and I mentioned that we could give the trapped-out bees some brood to make a new queen. Well, I only had mean bees from the Long Beach cutout that I did with Ty; they were on my apartment patio for lack of a better place to put them. Barrett was wonderful and offered to give them a home.

So I rushed to get them and while I was gone David and Barrett made a bottom and top board for the bees. Before moving the bees, I screwed in some boards to the sides of the boxes. I made a makeshift transport set up by sandwiching some screen between two boxes with cardboard on the bottom. Worked pretty well. They were still pretty hot so I used Max's recommendation and put some cold packs on top of the box to keep them cool.

While I was gone, Barrett created a flat area in the side of the hill behind his house. But boy it is high and steep. I still can't believe that Barrett carried the hive all the way up the hill (with some support from David).

We took everything apart except for the cardboard bottom. We removed the screen and ran. It's a long story, but the bees got trapped in the box for a a week—but it seems like they were able to bounce back pretty well and are a lot nicer having all that space up the hill in a beautiful location.

Now there is a swarm in a bush and we're going after that one next. Phew, it's never ending.

—roberta

Kirk mentors Summer on a Sunday

2011-05-24T10:46:00.000-07:00

After Sunday's Backwards Beekeepers meeting, Kirk headed out with Summer for some hive maintenance and mentoring. Follow along with the photos as Kirk tells the story:

Summer runs her hand over the frames to test for meanness.

The acid in citrus helps neutralize the alkali in bee stings.

New Yahoo group for Bee Rescue Hotline calls!

2011-05-23T10:21:00.000-07:00

The Backwards Beekeepers Bee Rescue Hotline is getting busier every season, and we've realized that the volume of calls getting posted to our existing Yahoo group is overwhelming if you're just looking for conversations and advice about Backwards Beekeeping.

So we've established a new Yahoo group called LA Bee Rescue. That group's sole purpose is for posting and responding to Bee Rescue Hotline calls.

Meanwhile, our original Yahoo group will continue to be your forum for questions, tips, stories, advice, and anything else relating to Backwards Beekeeping.

As of Tuesday, May 24th, all Bee Rescue Hotline calls will be posted to the new group. If you want to receive these messages, go there now and join. Just as with our original Yahoo group, you can control whether you receive individual e-mails, a daily digest of e-mails, or no e-mails at all if you'd just like to read posts via the web.

Hope you like this new setup! All comments and suggestions are welcome.

New Facebook page!

2011-05-20T18:59:00.000-07:00

We have a new Facebook page! As it grows it'll be a great place to see collections of photos from our meetings, events, and bee rescues of all kinds—as well as a place to post your own stories, photos, and videos about beekeeping.

Give us a 'Like' today!

News flash: we're part of the 'honeybee underground.'

2011-05-20T18:10:00.000-07:00

Check out our own Max Wong and Kirk Anderson in this article (running in both the LA Daily News and the Pasadena Star-News) about people's growing awareness that bees should be rescued instead of eradicated. Don't miss the photo gallery!

Viewer mail

2011-05-17T18:43:00.000-07:00

Brittany writes:

I live in Bluefield, West Virginia, and I'm just starting my first hive. I want to go the backwards way but I'm wondering how to use the starter strip with the paint stick if I don't have my own clean wax. I ordered a beginner's kit that came with foundation but I don't want to use that.

Thanks for your willingness to help. You guys are awesome!

—Brittany

Kirk replies:

Hi Buddy, it is real simple: don't wax them. The bees will do fine—in nature they don't have waxed starter strips and they do just great.

Good luck, and keep us posted on your progress.

—kirkobeeo

Kirk's mentoring marathon

2011-05-16T21:47:00.000-07:00

Always bring your magnifying glass!

Kirk is making new beekeepers like nobody's business. Check out his latest audio message and follow along:

Summer smokes the bees.

Bingo! Eggs and brood.

Trap-out at Stephanie and Jeff's. Angry bees!

Stephanie and Jeff.

An especially calm swarm

2011-05-12T11:07:00.000-07:00

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

We got a call on the Bee Rescue Hotline about a swarm in a trellis at the West LA Meditation Center. Tim had spotted them and wanted to make sure that they were saved.

I took them off to Ceebs, my go-to-woman for rescued bee distribution and support. I couldn't keep up with all these bees without her.

—roberta

Just in time

2011-05-12T10:43:00.000-07:00

Everyone loves a bee swarm.

We got a call to the Bee Rescue Hotline yesterday about a swarm on a forklift at a Glendale trucking company. When I called back, the manager told me that he'd already called an exterminator, but that I could try to get there before the killing began. "No guarantees," he said.

When I arrived, Jason the exterminator was filling out his paperwork but hadn't broken out the poison yet. The trucking company manager agreed to keep mum about the bees getting rescued instead of killed, since his landlord was paying for the job anyway.

Jason the exterminator.

I climbed atop the forklift and knocked the swarm into one of the wooden nuc boxes custom-made by LA Backwards Beekeeper David S. I got the queen in on the first try, and the rest of the bees started marching right in.

It was a good thing the swarm was easy to catch, because the manager was itchy as could be to get his forklift going again. "I need you to move it along," he kept calling to me. He didn't want Jason to drive away without killing all the straggler bees. (To Jason's credit, he was very interested in the swarm-catching process and lent a hand in holding the box when I knocked the bees into it.)

Kill kill kill!

I finally decided that I had caught most of the swarm, so I taped up the box and put it in my trunk. Then Jason moved in to kill him some bugs. I snapped a quick photo and took off.

—Russell

Danny rescues a water meter hive

2011-05-10T16:10:00.000-07:00

Ventura Backwards Beekeeper Danny had never cut a hive out of a water meter box before yesterday. I'm sure it won't be his last, because meter boxes seem to attract bees like crazy.

Many more pictures are on Danny's blog, Bee Rescue Ventura.

Dennis and Steve on a big bee rescue

2011-05-10T16:00:00.001-07:00

Steve, loaded for bees.

SoCal Backwards Beekeepers Dennis and Steve (of Lawndale and Torrance, respectively) collected a hive of bees out of a big pot in Palos Verdes yesterday. You can read the whole story on Dennis' blog, The Buzz In The Dale.

Dennis and Steve found yet another hive at the same spot, and Dennis will be returning on Saturday to remove it. Want to join him and learn how to rescue feral bees? Join our Yahoo group for details.

Sometimes forwards is just the new sideways

2011-05-10T10:16:00.001-07:00

Kirk did some mentoring with Barnaby the other day.

Here's his audio report. Follow along with the pictures.

Barnaby looking in the hive. These bees are from Coma Apiaries in Northern California. I purchased bees from them in 1999.

We pulled a frame. Good pattern of brood, very yellow bees—haven't seen yellow bees for a while.

Supercedure cell..."but there are eggs and larvae!" he says...bees don't care what Humans say. The queen is being replaced.

Second hive: Barnaby getting ready to open it up.

I don't know if you can see it, but there was a supercedure cell in this hive—also not much brood. "Why the supercedure cell?" the human asks. Well, we saw the queen—she was going in circles like she was frustrated. "How would you like to be ready to lay 5000 eggs a day and have nowhere to lay them?" I said.

The bees think something is wrong—the queen is not laying, so they start to replace her.

Barnaby.

More plastic comb, another supercedure cell.

Closing up the third hive.

The second hive when we opened it sounded funny. I pointed this out to him. When bees are happy they sound in tune. I also had him put frames with wax foundation in the hive so the queen can lay. The bees here been here for a month—their numbers are going down.

A queen excluder is a device that removes the queen's determinism. She should be able to decide whether to swarm or leave or lay wherever she decides is best. When a human or humans decide what is best for the bees the bees fail...humans don't know as much about the hive as the queen and the bees do.

But it has been fun Mentoring Barnaby anyway.

—kirkobeeo

The backyard dresser hive

2011-05-09T15:02:00.000-07:00

Ty in his improvised bee suit.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

I met Ty and Rick Saturday morning to do a cut-out from dresser in Long Beach. Yolanda and Johnny had a dresser that bees had moved into 8 years ago! The bees had gone into the 2nd drawer when it was upright and then at one point it fell down and they went into the top drawer.

Yolanda and Johnny.

This was a really strong hive and was producing swarms regularly. There were 4 swarms in the past month so it was time for the bees to move into a bigger hive, so Yolanda and Johnny called the Bee Rescue Hotline.

I only had one extra veil so Ty jumped in with borrowed dishwashing gloves and lots of duct tape. These were some mean bees but Ty was great and took a bunch of stings and kept on smiling. We got them into a deep box but unfortunately I only had medium frames. Ughh!

Inside the hive there were a bunch of queen cells including some closed ones. The left side of this comb had drone cells and nice capped worker cells on the right.

These bees will go to Malibu where they can live undisturbed and Ty and Rick will get some nicer bees. Not quite new beekeepers but almost. Ty gives a wrap-up in the video just below.

—roberta

Kirk goes mentoring

2011-05-05T09:45:00.000-07:00

Kirk writes:

Debra had bees that I took out of her chimney last year. They left in January. I told her to leave boxes out—maybe a swarm would move in. They Did.

Debra smokes the bees.

Yup, we have brood and eggs. Good deal.

Put the lid on, check in two weeks.

I mentored Debra and Summer both earlier this week. It is fun to mentor.

—kirkobeeo