We Made the Cover Of the Washington City Paper

In this year's edition of the City Paper's "Encyclopedia of DC 2013", the NPR bees were profiled, the hives we introduced earlier this year (I hope they survive this winter!!).  Yours truly made the cover:

Here is a link to the accompanying article:
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/45216/public-radio-bees-insects-are-the-new-pledge-drives/

More shameless self-promotion.

Merry Christmas!

Jeff.

Look At This Ad The Washington Post Ran Today

This was a full page ad.

Junior Beekeepers

I like to think I helped create some future beekeepers today. After boiling another sugar-water mix and walking out of the house carrying our masks, gloves and syrup, the same secondary school boys from last week immediately perked up. They actually remembered, and were excited about helping me feed the bees!

Late Season Hive Check in NoMa - Video

We have a client with a unique culinary use in an industrial area of the neighborhood known as NoMa.  We had originally placed a couple of hives in an alley behind their use, an alley that was essentially only accessible to them although it is technically in public space.

Their first load of bees were literally sucked away by a giant fan that we did not know about that ventilated an adjacent garage.

So with a ladder, some rope, and some sweat we relocated the bees to the rooftop.  The nice thing about this location, in spite of the access, is the large area for the hives, putting them regulation distance from the property line for conformance with our new law.

Here is the video we took that day with more details.
Jeff.

Tenemos Abejas!

They're finally here! All 20,000 are snuggly tucked into their new hives at Almeria, on a eucalyptus table right next to our newly-planted potatoes and largest lagunita. It was somewhat of a struggle to get to this point -- and it only happened today through sheer coersion -- but it happened! We have bees!

For Those Of You Wondering About The Bees at NPR....

Check out their new blog entry


http://www.npr.org/blogs/thisisnpr/2013/09/26/220790498/its-easy-bee-in-green

Making Simple Small Hive Beetle Traps

My friend Jerry showed me how to do this.  Cheap, easy, and effective.  We use two of these on the top of each brood chamber (on the frame top bars), set close to the edge of the box where the beetles like to congregate.

Harvesting a Ton of Rhode Island Honey

You may remember that we have a place in RI where we have two hives on the roof.  When we returned this spring I had expected both to be dead, based upon the national stats on dead-outs after this winter.  And these bees had to deal with both Sandy and a cold and long winter and high mite infestations.

Got Abejas?

*Through a partnership with Global Bees, DC Honeybees was able to help install two beehives at a primary school in Almeria near Cusco, Peru. Here are our updates and stay tuned for more!*

WE BOUGHT OUR BEES TODAY! Our director, Oscar, came back from his business trip, corraled me, Mads and Baltezar into his car, and drove us to his “bee guy” in Cusco. Well, this was a friend of his former bee guy who now is apparently a fugitive avoiding law enforcement somewhere in Argentina. Sounds a little crazy, but apparently todos los apicultors en Peru son un poco loco, and actually, that’s pretty much the same in DC too. Anywho, I digress. Once we got to the Mundo de las Abejas de Jossua (a self-proclaimed Gringo, according to his flyers) the Quebecoise owner, Jossua, immediately starting falling all over himself to help us out. We told him about Almeria and our current state of funding, or better yet, lack thereof, and immeiately he jumped on board, handing us some sort of cure-all diluted propolis spray por los ninos.

Over the course of what seemed like five hours, Jossua had — very thouroughly — gone over the beekeeping basics, rattled off the same bee statistics that Jeff Miller and I quote for DC Honeybees engagements, scooped out taste-testers from each of his honey/pollen products, and last but not least, showed us his nucleus colonies on the rooftop behind his shop (sound familiar Jeff?)

Australian Broadcasting Corp Piece on Bee Losses in America

Some of our friends and fellow beekeepers were interviewed about their rooftop hive for this very nice piece.  Check it out HERE.

My new $688 Acquisition

This is me getting ready to expand the apiary to do some pollination.  We have lots of Don's bees, and lots of equipment.  We are building pallets.  We are making splits.  We are considering purchasing a trailer to drag these things.

But we need to identify our hives by markers other than our colors (white, and Ballerina Pink, per my kids....those things will stand out!!).  We need to properly mark our hives for identification so that they are easily recognized and loaded in the almonds.  Ahhhh....the almonds.

We Made the Drudge Report!

Well, sort of.

Here is the headline:

NPR Shows Off New Facility: Wellness center, café, beehives on roof... a gong?

Those are the beehives we installed for them a few weeks back and are managing.  We will take what we can get.

Here is the article.

Making Pallets

With the bee delivery season behind us we are making splits and introducing queens to increase the number of colonies we have to 40 at our off-site apiary.  These 40 will make the trek to FLA in September or October to feast on the Brazilian Pepper nectar flow, build up in size, and then be ready for the almonds in February.

Pollinator Week!

Pollinator Week is back! Designated by the United States Department of Agriculture, National Pollinator Week will run from Monday, June 17 through Sunday, June 23. Events will run throughout the week in an effort to educate people about pollinators and their essential role in maintaining a healthy ecosystem. 

DC Events

Monday, June 17, 7-9 p.m.

Vanishing of the Bees Film Screening

921 Pennsylvania Ave., SE

Thursday, June 20, 6:30-9 p.m.

Cirque D'Insectes

City Blossoms Garden at corner of 11th and Harvard NW              

Friday, June 21, 10-2 p.m.

USDA People's Garden Pollinator Festival

2th and Independence, SW

June 12 - 26

Pollinators Depicted in American Indian Art

U.S. Dept. of the Interior: 1849 C St., NW

This celebration will recognize the importance of birds, butterflies, bats, beetles, and, of course, bees! Honeybees are specifically designed to carry pollen, which they consume as a source of protein. In flying from flower to flower, bees drink nectar and collect pollen grains they store in pollen-baskets on their hind legs known as scopa. In doing so, honeybees help to transfer pollen from the male anthers of a flower to the female stigma, initiating fertilization.

Pollinator Partnership has a full list of events.

Article On Bee Shortages In the Almonds This Past Spring

 My buddy Jerry from, Rock Hill Bee Farms, sent me the following article.  You may remember that Jerry has helped us supply bees to the DC area, and has graciously allowed me to partner with him as we expand our apiary for pollination.  I am posting it as a link as it is rather large:

http://www.ilsba.com/uploads/1/0/6/4/10649295/what_happened_to_the_bees_this_spring2013_opt.pdf

The article is especially interesting for us hobbyist as it details the commercial beeks' issues with varroa last year, which translated into significant losses coming out of this past prolonged winter.  Sound familiar?

It also tries to put into perspective the science behind the threat of neonics.

Jeff.