Category Archives: Bee Keeping

Bees swarmed and Book released today

Man, what a day.

After observing their pre-swarm activity the day before, it appears that (at least part of) the hive known as Fuzzy has swarmed and taken up temporary residence in the redwood tree right outside my office.  I was feverishly working on releasing the production version of the book when Owen said, “Hey Hal, what’s up with the bee activity in the backyard?”

And there they were – forming up to the right of Daphne and hovering around various trees outside my office.  Eventually they settled on the redwood, ~15′ up and made a very cool swarm on a branch.  By this time, Al had arrived on a drive-by visit and came out back to watch… at about the same time, Joanne, Al and Owen all said, “how ’bout if you put the nuc – nucleus / temporary holding hive – up on the roof near them and see if they’ll go in?”  Naturally, I said, “no”, then re-thought the issue and Owen and I put it up there… to no avail.

Here are a couple of pics – the first are from yesterday after the initial swarm, the second are from this morning after they’d tucked in to save heat / themselves from the cold of the night.  (CLICK THE PIC to see them up-close)

And then this morning…

The bees swarming provided a very, very interesting real-life biology experience for all of us who were present for “the show”… very cool, even if a couple did try to hunt down Al and Owen (Joanne and Liv had beat-feet earlier.)… and, eventually, me.

About an hour after the bees had formed up and we’d all settled back down again, I provided Charlie with the production files of the book materials and he posted them for download (with Al and I watching from my desk).  With the files posted, I was the first downloader of the first official production release of my own materials.   It’s been 4+ years that I’ve worked on it and I want to say to each of you, thanks for your never-failing support… the content is much more complete and higher quality than I’d originally envisioned, so I’m pleased to have taken the time to think through, discuss, refine and release this content.

Yesterday also marked the two week annvy of Pan’s passing, but we’ve all shared our memories of her and we’re doing ok here.

Bee My Honey?


Yesterday I added our first honey super and took a pic of a frame from the 2nd brood super. As you can see, they’ve created a great deal of comb, have filled quite a bit of it with nectar and in the upper white area, have capped some of the cells.

I don’t know about you, but to me it’s pretty ugly looking and not at all what I think of when I think Honeycomb and Honey.

Anyway, there you have it – honey is on the way 🙂