A beekeeping service dog!

Via Treehugger:

In the photo above is Bazz, a black labrador that beekeeper Josh Kennett has trained to detect by smell a serious bee disease called American foulbrood. The Paenibacillus larvae caused by the infection are usually only visible under high-magnification microscope, but thanks to Bazz, that's not necessary.

Microscope analysis might not be needed thanks to Bazz's nose, but the dog still had to be protected from bee attack to get close enough to sniff out the hives. That's why Kennett built this protective suit that makes Bazz look a big like a canine astronaut.

Beekeeping dog in 'astronaut' suit detects infected hives by smell (Treehugger)

Silver Lake compound is bee paradise

Primary colors hive, Silver Lake.

Kirk writes:

I went to Walker's house to drop off some honey for an art project she and her husband are doing. She lives on a hilltop in Silver Lake. She and five of her neighboors have joined their places into a community.

She has twenty hives up there and her neighbors have some hives also.

She has hives she calls "Home Depot hives" that she and her husband make. She has some Warre hives. There's a hive in a cabinet. And Japanese hives!

Hives on the roof!

Outdoor kitchen.

It's a beekeeper's Paradise up there. You can keep bees in the city, have good neighboors and build a community also.

—kirkobeeo

But wait! You've got to hear how fired up Kirk is as he tells the story. Plenty more details follow:

Michael Bush on unsustainable beekeeping systems

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.

Roberta's Highland Park heroes

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

I got a sad call from my hive's host yesterday. The Ag department came to check the hives and said that they needed to be moved. I would only have a few days so I needed help fast. I knew that Warren was helping Shannon, Eric and their children host bees and become beekeepers so I called him right away. He immediately said he would help, my first hero.

We've both had sketchy hive move experiences so we did a lot of planning to make this happen right. We would need moving screens (thanks Ceebs!!), wooden planks to screw the boxes together, ratchet straps and some muscle. At the last moment Warren smartly thought we should ask for more help because these are 4 boxes hive and at the bottom of a hill.

I immediately thought of Tom and Ryan and I emailed them a few hours before the planned move at 7pm thinking that it wasn't fair to ask for such a big favor like this. Well, Tom called and said he was up for it and would meet us there, my second hero. Then as I started walking to the hives located at the bottom of a small hill I saw someone laying down by the hives in the dark and waving. It was Ryan already waiting by the hives! I can honestly say that my heart leapt, my third hero!!! He was very calm and confident that everything would go smoothly. I really needed that.

Moving a hive the easy way

Rob getting suited up.

Kirk writes:

If you take your time to move your hive, have a helper (or two), and go late in the day, that makes it pretty easy.

Rob and Rick have the entrance screen on and some of the 1x4's.

We put a piece of window screen in the entrance, screwed four pieces of 1x4 on each side of the hive. Then we screwed the top and bottom boards on.

Rolling to the truck.

I have a hand truck with 1x4 screwed on the tongue so the hive is supported. I have rope attached to the hand truck also to secure the boxes. Wheel it to the truck. Pick up the whole thing, put it in the truck. Transport.

In the truck.

Now if it were summer, we would have put a screened top on also.

—kirkobeeo

Kirk gives a bee rescue clinic

Today Kirk did a cut-out on a hive high up in a tree, then used the box of those bees to set up a trap-out. He was accompanied by Backwards Beekeepers Maurice and Danny; photos are courtesy of Danny's blog, Living in SoCal.

Do you want to be notified of future bee rescue clinics that you can attend? Join our Yahoo group.



Kirk is not fond of ladders.

The tree hive, now tied into frames in a nuc box.

Adding a feeding shim to the nuc box.

Giving honey and pollen to the cut-out bees.

Now in Eagle Rock, setting up the trap-out.



Photo credit: tagging along with kirkobeeo and maurice (Living in SoCal)

Roberta's death-defying bee rescue

Roberta sends this hair-raising bee rescue story.

Note: The Backwards Beekeepers do not recommend these kinds of rescues. Getting on a tall ladder is a quick way to end up in the hospital. But Roberta is an unstoppable force of nature, so what are we to do?

She writes:

We had another adventure taking down a couple of squirrel boxes full of bees this weekend. The second one had my heart beating as it was REALLY high. John called us because he had a squirrel box (custom built after he saw a few squirrels run over in front of his house) that was full of bees since spring. Dave needed bees and he and his wife came but all of us were shocked at the height.

John rented a 24’ ladder and I went up and was dubious about getting the squirrel box down. I thought we had less than a 50% chance of making it work since at one point I was bending backwards on the ladder. Luckily Dave had built a box to pulley it down. I slowly tipped the squirrel box into the Styrofoam one and down it came. A pure miracle. Dave will cut them out later.

Anyone have some ideas about making these boxes bee proof? Someone said WD40 on the roof, another suggested attaching astro turf to the ceiling. Any other thoughts?

—roberta

Video: Re-queening a mean hive

Kirk found this great video made by TheOhioCountryBoy on YouTube.

Very occasionally a hive will turn mean to the point where the bees become unmanageable (it happened to Amy and me earlier this year). This video shows an elegant method of re-queening such a hive from brood with calmer genetics. It's a step up from Beginner's Beekeeping and requires you to put up with the mean bees for several weeks, but it has the great benefit of eliminating the bad behavior without losing the hive.