Skunk Cabbage

Photo credit Steve Parrish

News flash: honeybees like skunk cabbage. Spring is finally here!

A little hard to see, but this honeybee
is collecting skunk cabbage pollen

Another One Bites the Dust

Feral hive with no bees flying in
and out of it

It's official. The feral hive which the City of Ann Arbor's forestry department delivered to Matthaei Botanical Gardens is also dead. Winn thought as much when he was out here a couple weeks ago, and there was no sign of life today in this 56 degree weather.

Dumped out the other dead hive for the mice to eat. The hive looks very clean inside, so it will be a nice home for the Georgia package that I'll be getting soon.

Onward.

Mouse food

Winner

Winn Harliss is a master at making something out of nothing. I am on a cleaning binge that has extended from my house to my office to the entire Matthaei Botanical Gardens. Put those two things together, and you get some beautiful swarm traps.

Any beekeepers out there who can use corrugated plastic or foam core for observation boards, swarm traps or anything else, let me know. There is still a good-sized stack of old interpretive signs looking for a new purpose in life.

And thanks, Winn, for turning my favorite sign into something of value again.

Swarm trap designed and built by master beekeeper Winn Harliss
out of old Matthaei Botanical Gardens interpretive signs

Strong Hives - Not

Honeycomb from my latest dead-out.
It wasn't like this when I checked in November

First intermediate beekeeping class at the Botanical Gardens on Sunday, taught by Meghan Milbrath. Many things to love about it: an experienced, engaging teacher grounded in research and a roomful of women, for starters. Neither is the norm for beekeeping.

Meghan assigned us to check our hives this week as the weather warms up. Sadly, both of mine are deadouts. Did the larger hive (Georgia queen) go queenless? Take a look at the comb (pictured here).

Consolation prize: a super full of honey. Now the question: with so little honey, is it worth it to rent an extractor? Or should I just use it comb and all?

Also consoling: another intermediate beekeeper's comment that bees, at least for beginners, are like annual crops. Meghan's goal is that we all get past the cycle of having to purchase new bees every year. Emphasis on strong hives. Here's hoping.

Dead-Out Already

My Michigan queen's hive is already a dead-out and it's not even Thanksgiving. Keep your fingers crossed for the Georgia queen.

Train the Trainer

Keep your fingers crossed: Meghan and I have submitted a preproposal to the Department of Agriculture's Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education grant program. If funded, we would develop a "train the trainer" beginning/intermediate small-scale beekeeping curriculum and train Michigan local bee clubs to offer it in their own communities.

Photo credit - Oscar Brubaker

Moving the Hives

Imagine this: myself behind the wheel of a Ford F-250, four beehives strapped in the back, leaking bees. My right hand and forearm are swollen up like baseballs. It is midnight. We are on Pontiac Trail, driving from Tollgate Farm to Matthaei Botanical Gardens. I am cautiously following fellow beekeepers in a faded Volkswagon beetle with one headlight burned out.

People are looking at us.

Let me clear up a couple myths perpetuated by our teachers:

(1) Two small female beekeepers cannot easily move a 300-pound hive, even with a hive carrier.

(2) Bees do not all retreat into the hive on a warm summer night. Not even at midnight.

Moving the hives wasn't really a disaster. More of an adventure. Two weeks later, the girls are at last settled down and ready to believe me when I say the Botanical Gardens really is just as nice - nicer - than Tollgate Farms. While it's true that Twelve Oaks Mall is right across the street from Tollgate, I am not sure the girls really got much value out of the nearly 200 distinctive stores that can be found there. Bees probably liked that area better when there were more than twelve oaks.