Fragments

Let's check out Bob's hive!

2009-03-02T06:42:00.000-08:00

So... after we confirmed the presence of queen cells in our hive, we popped the top on Bob's hive and got a peek at one that was more established. His frames were really full and covered with bees! That many bees can weigh a lot!

Bob wanted us to become familiar with handling and inspecting the frames, so in addition to watching the activity, we were also were looking for the queen! LeeAnn lifted out each frame... and then Bob spotted her. Slightly larger with different coloring, we watched her as she worked her way from cell to cell, depositing eggs along the way.

With our "tour" concluded, LeeAnn replaced the frames in the box and reset the lid. All bees present and accounted for!

And here's the pay off: our fruit trees are getting more attention than they ever got before. Our girls arrived just in time for the blossoming of our fruit trees. We're looking forward to a great harvest this year!
- Gary

Let's Get Bzzzzy!

2009-02-27T10:45:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, our bee "mentor" (LeeAnn calls him her "bee buddy Bob") came over to show us how check on the progress of our queen development.

When we first set up our hive, Bob had given us a few developed frames from his established hive to get us started. Since the queen stayed with his colony, our "girls" were now without a queen, and that's not a status they're content with. Not having a queen causes the colony to adjust their efforts so that they can start raising a new queen. Special attention and different activity occurs inside the hive which results in a queen cell (or cells) being developed. Our task today was to inspect the frames to indentify and check the progress of these cells.

Since we are still quite new to all this, Bob stepped us through a lot of things. First, we needed to get our smoker going. (The smoker is used to distract the bees so that we were less of a threat to them.) LeeAnn suited up with the full outfit: coveralls, gloves, hat & veil. She looks ready for action!

After quieting the bees with the smoker, LeeAnn lifted the lid and we had a look see. After less than a week in their new digs, the the girls were hard at work, building out their comb. Learning how to handle the frames with all the equipment was a bit of a challenge at times, but Bob provided some great tips.

We inspected the frames and talked about some of the different things we saw. We found different colors of pollen, identified the drones (male bees), and sampled a bit of honey straight from the comb... or I should say, along with the comb. Bob gave me a piece about the size of the end of my thumb and I put the whole thing in my mouth. It was sweet, and the comb was like.... wax! Bee's wax! It's tasteless and kind of has the texture of chewing gum. Yum! I'm looking forward to getting more of that soon!

Then, we noticed the distinct shape of the queen cells... 3 in all. The girls were right on track with their development and nuturing, so we wanted to disturb them as little as possible and promptly returned them to the box. From these cells will emerge their new leader. The first queen out will claim the throne and quickly dispatch the remaining contenders. It's a cold existense in the bee world... there can only be one queen bee!

Next: Let's check out Bob's hive!

The Carnolians have landed!

2009-02-25T12:56:00.000-08:00

Carnolians?

Are we being invaded??

Not really.

No... they're not a race of aliens from Star Trek.

No... it's not a musical group.

No.... it's not a family of circus performers.

Actually, this all-female group has taken up residence in our back yard... and we're so excited!

Once they arrived, we oriented their habitat near the back of our property, I removed the wadded up paper towel that was shoved into the doorway, and out they came... dispersing into the air!

Yes.. something was definitely a-buzz! ;-)

So... the lastest addition to our litany of Castle Guards is, in fact, a colony of bees! We've talked about hosting a hive in our yard for several years, so for Christmas, I surprised LeeAnn with a full-on, deluxe beekeeper's starter kit; hive, outfit... everything. Giddy was about the best way to describe her reaction. Since then she's been reading the books I got her (including Beekeeping for Dummies), and she's attended a meeting of the local beekeepers association. One of the other members became her mentor and "split" his bees with us. (I was picturing thousands of 1/2 bees flying in circles, but I digress.) He took our hive and brought it back to us with a few frames of his bees transferred inside. We estimated there were about 1,000 -2,000. The one box will hold 20 -25,000 "girls" (its' about 20" x 20" x 16"). We started giving them all names, but gave up after a while. ;-)

The Carnolians are reputed to be a gentle strain, but very diligent workers; up & out to work early in the morning and not put off by light rain showers.

So... hopefully we'll be jarrin' up some sweet bee by-product later this year! I've already got a name for it...

"The Real Honeys of Orange County"

OK... groan if you must. ;-)

G

Welcome to Fragments!

2009-02-23T13:47:00.000-08:00

As an adjunct (and content feeder route) to the annual issue of the Stone Tablets, Fragments will be a place to post my latest info and insights, music and musings, opinions & observations, rants and reflections.

Perhaps the best way to get you up to speed is to do a quick flashback. well... maybe not quick from your perspective, but for me it'll be a breeze! I'll just start out by putting up a link to our Stone Tablets archives where you can get your fill of stories and adventures from the past 5 or so years.

http://www.goldstandardproductions.com/Stone_Tablets/

If you check the URL, you can see that this page is camped out on my business web site for the time being; this is a temporary situation. Now if you do go to this site, you'll also notice that it's promoting the 2007 issue as the most recent. Well... this is a temporary situation too. Most likely you've already received the '08 & '09 editions. (I think I sent it to everyone in the world... at least once!) But, this very rudimentary web page will help you navigate to several past issues. Hopefully within the next week or so, I'll have a new Stone Tablets web page... correction... web site(!) up and running. I'm currently taking a class in Dreamweaver CS4 and I need a final project for the class, so this seems like a good opportunity.

In the meantime here are a couple of links to our more recent issues. As always... good adventures and fun reading.

2008.pdf

2009.pdf

Let us hear from you....

Cheers!

Gary