Long Beach Beekeepers

Long Beach Beekeeper Bill Lewis prepares to pour five gallons of fine honey into the tank. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Some of us more expendable club members tested the beer recently and are pretty sure it won’t kill you. The finished product will be clear and more carbonated than the beer in this glass, poured straight from the tank a few weeks ago. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Be at the Long Beach Beer Lab (Wrigley, so 518 West Willow Street, Long Beach, CA) 6-8 PM Monday, December 9, for the Beekeeper's Buzz honey ale release party! One ingredient: five gallons of Willow Springs Park Honey Bee Sanctuary honey!
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A student dips candle wicks into hot, liquid beeswax repeatedly to build up small birthday candles. Two cans of liquid beeswax sit in a couple of inches of water. A bright red cast iron pot has been pressed into service as a double boiler. The student is dipping both ends of an inverted U of candle wick, to make two candles at once. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Three students are totally focused on stirring a few drops of essential oils into their lotion, to give it a pleasant scent. The woman on the left looks at the tabletop, out of frame. The man in the middle holds his jar of lotion in one hand while stirring it with the other. His companion watches the process closely. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Plastic tubes full of lip balm mixture cool and solidify on the table. A couple of empty tubes are visible at the upper left. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Only Jennifer Duke outdoes Jennifer Duke: In this case, with a second Beyond Honey: Gifts from the Hive class in ten days! She's a force of nature.
More information in alt text. More photos at flic.kr/s/aHBqjBMZSs .

Instructor Jennifer Duke laughs with two Gifts from the Hive students as she fills a jar with lotion. Jennifer, in her trademark blue shirt, stands and the head of the table and the students sit on the right. The table is littered with various supplies and accessories: A couple of mixing bowls full of lotion, completed birthday candles, and tiny bottles of essential oils. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Two Gifts from the Hive students make a food wrap. Only their hands are visible, on opposite sides of an ironing board. An aluminum foil baking pan holds beeswax shavings which will be melted into fabric squares, impregnating them with wax so that they are flexible and reasonably impermeable. The student behind the ironing board holds a steam iron, which she is sliding across a sheet of paper she holds with her other hand. The other student holds the paper down on her side of the ironing board. The heat of the iron melts beeswax into the fabric piece sandwiched between two sheets of paper. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

A Gifts from the Hive student stirs a large glass mixing bowl full of lotion ingredients using a stirring wand with a wire whisk attachment. Only the student's hand is visible. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Instructor Jennifer Duke had a full house for her 9/15 Beyond Honey: Gifts from the Hive class. Students took home lotion, lip balm, birthday candles, and food wraps!
More information in alt text. More photos at flic.kr/s/aHBqjBN6aP .

Pee-Wee Herman's criminal buddy leans from the prison bus at the drive-in theater to signal his approval of Pee-Wee's movie premiere: "Great so far, Pee-Wee! Action-packed!" Newcomers often respond to Long Beach Beekeepers meetings much like this.

Bluesky video: Making the world a better place!

UC Riverside Center for Integrative Bee Research (CIBER) graduate student Emilia Burnham, Nosema ceranae researcher, attends the 2024 CIBER Bee Health conference in pink high heel shoes, pink dress, pink jacket, pink N95 mask, and 2024 California Honey Queen regalia (sash and crown). Don't dream it, be it. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

At our action-packed Sunday meeting: Emilia Burnham vs. Nosema ceranae; Honey of the Month; opportunity drawing; more! Deets at longbeachbeekeepers.org/event-5815299 ; caption in alt text.

Jeff Salcido (right, wearing cap) and Marta Vallez (right, on-brand and wearing white Long Beach Beekeepers t-shirt) talk bees with visitors (left) in the Bixby Knolls Expo Arts Center during the 8/2/2024 First Fridays event. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Ray Teurman (left, in white t-shirt, with eyeglasses pushed back on his head) answers the beekeeping questions of three young men in the Bixby Knolls Expo Arts Center during the 8/2/2024 First Fridays event. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

A fire dancer spins flaming things above her head on the sidewalk outside the Bixby Knolls Expo Arts Center during the 8/2/2024 First Fridays event. She's not a beekeeper, to my knowledge; but who knows? She COULD be! If she is, I'll bet she's the kind who doesn't wear gloves. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Look for the Long Beach Beekeepers information table in the Bixby Knolls Expo Arts Center (4321 Atlantic Avenue) for an Arts Month-themed First Fridays ( bixbyknollsinfo.com/events/first... ). Volunteer at longbeachbeekeepers.org/event-5876832 !
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A European honey bee (Apis mellifera) forages among yellow flowers in a low shrub, between 9,000 and 10,000 feet above sea level. The photograph was taken next to White Mountain Road, on the way to Schulman Grove and the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest Visitor Center, 8/30/2024. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

A European honey bee (Apis mellifera) forages among yellow flowers in a low shrub, between 9,000 and 10,000 feet above sea level. The photograph was taken next to White Mountain Road, on the way to Schulman Grove and the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest Visitor Center, 8/30/2024. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

A European honey bee (Apis mellifera) forages among yellow flowers in a low shrub, between 9,000 and 10,000 feet above sea level. The photograph was taken next to White Mountain Road, on the way to Schulman Grove and the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest Visitor Center, 8/30/2024. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Honey bees foraging by White Mountain Road over 9,000 feet up. The growing season is weeks long. Can bees overwinter there? Do they travel thousands of feet up to forage? Could a local beekeeper move hives up high in warm weather? How does the honey taste?!
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A Bluesky screen celebrating 10 million users indicates that the Long Beach Beekeepers account (#lbbeekeepers.bsky.social) was user number 1,472,876!

OK, we weren’t here at the creation; but we didn’t drag our heels getting here, either!

Un instructor de Apicultura 101 sostiene un marco de colmena cubierto en su mayor parte por abejas. Traducción de Israel Romero. Foto de Jacob Dickinson. Was that difficult to read? Tell your Spanish-speaking friends! They'll see something like this: Take a free beekeeping class in your native language! Sunday, September 29, 2024, 8:00-9:30 a.m. at the Willow Springs Bee Sanctuary. Details and registration at https://longbeachbeekeepers.org/event-5768292

¡Toma una clase de apicultura gratis en tu idioma nativo!
Domingo 29 de septiembre de 2024, 8:00-9:30 a.m. en el Santuario de Abejas de Willow Springs.
Detalles e inscripción en longbeachbeekeepers.org/event-5768292
Vea el texto alternativo de la imagen para obtener más información.

Alchemical apparatus: Black and white photo of a system of stainless steel tanks, electronic controls, metal steps giving access to the controls and the tops of the tanks, and other brewery equipment at Syncopated Brewing Company. This equipment was used to brew the Honey Bee and a Mango Tree honey beer. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Gabe and Tanis: Sanctuary Manager Gabe Salinas and Treasurer Tanis Sugden pour Long Beach Beekeepers Sanctuary honey into a Syncopated Brewing Company stainless steel tank, to brew Honey Bee and a Mango Tree honey beer. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Jennifer and Tanis: Past President Jennifer Duke and Treasurer Tanis Sugden pour Long Beach Beekeepers Sanctuary honey into a Syncopated Brewing Company stainless steel tank, to brew Honey Bee and a Mango Tree honey beer. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Join us at Syncopated Brewing Co 6 PM Thursday, August 29 for Honey Bee and a Mango Tree beer brewed with Sanctuary honey!
Deets at longbeachbeekeepers.org/event-5822714 . Park in visitor spot or across Industry Ave. Captions in alt text; more brewing photos at flic.kr/s/aHBqjBCgBJ

Bees never forget

Honeycomb in a wooden frame, as pulled from the hive. The translucent white wax shows that this comb is probably brand new, not previously used for honey storage. (As much as we like honey bees, we have to admit they don't wipe their feet when they enter the hive. The passage of many bees and their little bee feet darkens wax over time.) Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Fort Knox was never like this! Students have carefully cut these blocks of honeycomb to size, to fit clear plastic containers. Smaller containers are more profitable, as they sell for a higher price per unit weight. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Students cut these blocks of honeycomb to fit 8-fluid ounce canning jars. They will pour liquid honey all around the comb to fill the jar, making "comb-honey." Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

The 7/21/2024 Long Beach Beekeepers Honey Extracting and Bottling class emphasized comb honey, cut from frames harvested at the Willow Springs Park Bee Sanctuary that morning. And isn't it gorgeous?
Captions in alt text; more photos at flic.kr/s/aHBqjBCjy6 .

Retired professional beekeeper and avuncular instructor Bill Lewis explains it all, in artistic black and white. Bill wears a stylish full body ventilated bee suit and prepares to open a hive for inspection. (Or has he just closed it back up?) In the background, three students watch closely. In the foreground, a bottle of alcohol for Varroa mite testing and a smoker sit on top of another hive. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

All the activity has stirred up some of instructor Bill Lewis's Italian honey bees, flying around in front of their hive. Although relatively docile, these bees have a lot to think about right now. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

A student explains her innovative bee suit. I couldn't help but ask what the zippered wrist pockets were for. What do I normally have on my wrist? A watch? I wouldn't be able to read it much better if it were inside that pocket than I can right now, through the sleeve. My model explained that the pocket is for a magnet! The magnet, in turn, holds a hive tool where it is easily and instantly available. In the future we will all have these. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Bill Lewis taught his Mite Management in Italian Colonies class at the Long Beach Beekeepers Willow Springs Park Bee Sanctuary, and harvested honey for our afternnon class.
Captions in alt text; more photos at flic.kr/s/aHBqjBCj6h .

Instructor Liz Kennedy shows a frame full of healthy honey bees to the Long Beach Beekeepers Beekeeping 101 class at the Zaferia Junction Community Garden. The hives are located inside a screened enclosure, forcing the bees to leave and return above people's heads. Students in white protective clothing fill the enclosure. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

A reddening pomegranate glows between the leaves. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Roses with a light lavender hue cover a nearby rose bush. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Who's been to the new Long Beach Beekeepers Beekeeping 101 class at the new Zaferia Junction Community Garden location? The new resident pollinators have plenty of work and a short commute.
Captions in alt text; more photos at flic.kr/s/aHBqjBBj14 .

Jessica Webb discussing her work in the UC Riverside CIBER lab in fashionable CIBER t-shirt, holding a honey bee between left thumb and forefinger, and forceps in her right hand. The bee, if still alive, would rather be somewhere else. The lab tour was part of the 2022 Bee Health conference. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Your humble narrator (white button-down shirt, waving Nikon around, eyebrows like angry caterpillars) and Raquel Ramirez (red shirt, holding the smartphone used for this selfie) at the 2023 UC Riverside CIBER Bee Health conference. To be clear, I'm the one on the left, Raquel is on the right. Photo by Raquel Ramirez.

At our Sunday meeting: Raquel Ramirez and Jessica Webb on Next Generation Beekeeping and its science-based approach; Honey of the Month; opportunity drawing! Deets at longbeachbeekeepers.org/event-5730004 ; captions in alt text.

David Bowie and fuzzy honey bee friend, Belinda Bee, performing live at the Tower in 1974: Together, for a brief and shining moment, the hardest working pair in show business. Sadly, they only toured for three weeks before Belinda's wings wore out and she died. The few who experienced this part of the tour were fortunate indeed. "The Bs Live at the Tower 1974" created by Jacob Dickinson and licensed by the Long Beach Beekeepers under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/deed.en ). This is a composite of two other images: "David Bowie Live 1974 (cropped).jpg" from Wikimedia Commons, via picryl; Creative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0 Universal license ( https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ ). "IMG 6931 honey bee3" by Deviant Art user GoatDriver; Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ ).

Look for the Long Beach Beekeepers information table in the Bixby Knolls Expo Arts Center (4321 Atlantic Avenue) for a David Bowie-themed First Fridays (deets at bixbyknollsinfo.com/events/first... ). Volunteers sign up at longbeachbeekeepers.wildapricot.org/event-5784829 !
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Cup o' Bees, or Some Must Die so Others May Live: Bill Lewis (right) has scooped out an appropriate quantity of bees for a statistically valid Varroa mite sample using the bright yellow mite tester cup in his right hand. He's about to pour the bees into the translucent part of the mite tester, in his left hand. As he swirls the mite tester around, the bees will unfortunately drown in an alcohol solution. However, any mites will also die, let go of the bees, and sink to the bottom of the mite tester. (The quantity of bees used is also a fraction of the number of eggs a healthy queen lays every day.) A student watches closely. Bill and the student both wear full bee suits.

Killing drone brood: Here a student uses a tool to spear and remove the larger drone brood from an area of brood comb. This technique helps to control Varroa mite populations because drone brood attracts more mites than worker brood. This is because the larger drones spend several more days in their cells before emerging, giving the mites more time to reproduce. The student wears a full length bee suit and yellow rubber gloves.

Queen excluder: Two students work together to remove a queen excluder and smoke the bees clinging to it, as they go deeper into the hive. The queen excluder is a metal screen with openings which allow worker bees to pass, but not the larger queen. In other words, the queen is confined to one side of the queen excluder. The queen excluder prevents the queen from laying her eggs in what SHOULD be honeycomb. This simplifies extraction.

If you have vulnerable bees, you'd better manage Varroa mites. That's why we have a LOT of photos of Bill Lewis with his beautiful, gentle Italian bees, sharing his knowledge with Long Beach Beekeepers members.
See alt text for captions. More photos at flic.kr/s/aHBqjBxurK .

Jennifer Duke explains the skep, an inverted woven basket, sometimes placed on a base, and traditionally used as a beehive. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

George Garcia (left) gets animated as he and Paul Nelson discuss the Flow Hive. A Flow Hive super sits on the table in front of them, containing several precision-molded plastic frames which drain honey into headers beneath. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Paul Nelson (left) and Bonnie Rice introduce three Honeys of the Month, from the club's 5/11 Honey Extracting and Bottling Workshop. The different honeys are packed in attractive glass bottles. Meeting attendees will be able to sample each one. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

The Long Beach Beekeepers 6/2/2024 monthly meeting featured a CIBER Bee Health conference announcement, a tour of different hives, and tasting honey from the club's 5/11 Honey Extracting and Bottling Workshop.
Details in alt text; more photos at flic.kr/s/aHBqjBwbVP .

Beekeeping 101 Instructor Lucy Barraza (second from right, wearing green rubber gloves) discusses inspection of some of Bill Lewis's Italian bee colonies at the Long Beach Beekeepers Willow Springs Park Bee Sanctuary. Both wear full-length bee suits with hoods and veils. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Beekeeping 101 Instructor Lucy Barraza (left, wearing green rubber gloves) has removed the top from a 10-frame hive, working inside the screened enclosure at the Long Beach Beekeepers Willow Springs Park Bee Sanctuary. She has thoughtfully covered half the top of the hive with a towel, in order to not stimulate defensive behavior as much as she would if the entire hive were wide open. She has begun removing frames from the open side for inspection, and is holding one between her hands. A student watches (right). Both wear appropriate protective clothing. Lucy's bee suit may have been slightly darker to begin with, but also shows some healthy mileage and valuable experience. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Beekeeping 101 Instructor Lucy Barraza (second from right, wearing green rubber gloves and holding smoker) confers with Sanctuary Manager Gabe Salinas (rear, in bee jacket and jeans) before inspecting some of Bill Lewis's Italian bee colonies at the Long Beach Beekeepers Willow Springs Park Bee Sanctuary. Lucy, Gabe, and the three students visible in the photo wear appropriate protective clothing: bee suits (a bee jacket, in Gabe's case) with hoods and veils. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Long Beach Beekeepers Instructor Lucy Barraza (green gloves) leads the 6/1/2024 Beekeeping 101 class at our Willow Springs Park Bee Sanctuary with help from Sanctuary Manager Gabe Salinas (the tall guy).
See alt text for details and flic.kr/s/aHBqjBvKns for more photos.

A white cardboard box with screened sides, for ventilation, holds the entire order of docile Italian honey bee queens. Bill Lewis holds up a single queen cage, with several attendants to take care of the queen. The new queen is insde the cage. Like the box, the cage has screened sides for ventilation. However, the screens also protect the queen from the initially hostile bees in its new hive. The queen cage also has a sugar candy plug filling the hole drilled in the bottom. This is intended to keep the queen inside the cage, and the new hive's worker bees outside, until a few days have passed. During this time, we hope the hive will have come under the sway of the new queen's pheromones, so that she will be welcomed when the plug is finally eaten away and she emerges. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Bill Lewis stands in the Long Beach Beekeepers Bee Sanctuary, in Willow Springs Park. The churning clouds of late spring visible behind him are gone now, and unlikely to return for months. His his white pickup truck bed is in the foreground, with a white, screened box which was part of the packaging for the shipment of Italian honey bee queens he has just distributed. Bill, normally one of our most cooperative models, has had enough exposure for one day and waves dismissively at the paparazzi. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

When club stalwart Bill Lewis showed up at the Long Beach Beekeepers Sanctuary with some Italian queens, May 25. Those churning, cloudy skies of late spring are gone now.
Details in alt text; more photos at flic.kr/s/aHBqjBvzDQ .

Marie-José of Belgium (Marie-José Charlotte Sophie Amélie Henriette Gabrielle), whose 34-day "May Queen" reign made her the last queen of Italy, in 1946 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie-Jos%C3%A9_of_Belgium ). Photo is for illustrative purposes only and may not resemble any Italian queens you have, or even Italian queens you've seen. Ever. Public domain photo from Wikimedia Commons.

Southern California beekeepers: Bored with Italian queens? Ask Next Generation Beekeeping (310.251.6177) about a group order of mite-resistant queens bred by Randy Oliver: www.ohbees.com/products/gol...
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University of California Riverside Center for Integrated Bee Research (CIBER) Ph.D. candidate Genesis Chong, wearing immaculate beekeeping suit with red baseball cap, holds a crowded deep frame of very industrious honey bees. The bees have filled the frame with honey comb, partially capped; and they have constructed a large piece of comb handing from the bottom of the frame. Photo provided by Genesis Chong.

A small dish contains a sample of honey bee larvae and Varroa destructor mites: Apparently 20 of the former (looking like glistening white grubs) and 10 of the latter (the small reddish-brown objects). If this is a random sample from a single hive, these numbers suggest that as many as half of the larvae in that hive could host parasitic Varroa mites. Photo provided by Genesis Chong.

At our Sunday meeting: UC Riverside CIBER Ph.D. candidate Genesis Chong will present "Living with the Enemy: Parasite Tolerance in Survivor Bees." Also: Maria Greschenko's Honey of the Month! Bring questions!
Details at longbeachbeekeepers.org/event-5694643 . Photo captions in alt text.

In the foreground, Long Beach Beekeepers volunteer Melissa Danio begins showing our observation hive to a mother and daughter visiting the June 7, 2024 Bixby Knolls First Fridays. The observation hive is our education and outreach assets, here on the information table we set up in the Expo Arts Center during most First Fridays events. An important part of this First Fridays agenda was a Bob Ross lookalike contest; and indeed, a tall Bob Ross lookalike stands behind the other three people, equipped with palette and blue chambray work shirt. Photo by Jacob Dickinson. More photos at https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBxzJN .

Long Beach Beekeepers information table visitors and volunteer ignore looming Bob Ross lookalike at the June Bixby Knolls First Fridays. We'll be there again tonight, at 4321 Atlantic Avenue, Long Beach. And there's so much more!
More June photos at flic.kr/s/aHBqjBxzJN .

Two Long Beach Poly High School students suit up in beekeeping jackets and gloves for the first time, figuring out how to get their fingers all the way to the ends of their long, long gloves, in preparation for a tailored version of the Long Beach Beekeepers Beekeeping 101 class. Honey Bee Ambassador Mike Pack, President Jaime Guoz and Sanctuary Manager Gabe Salinas presented the class at the Long Beach Beekeepers Bee Sanctuary in Willow Springs Park. Photo by Jacob Dickinson; more at https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBvFyc .

Come into my parlor: Long Beach Beekeepers Sanctuary Manager Gabe Salinas, wearing bee jacket and veil and carrying a smoker, welcomes Long Beach Poly High School students into the screened enclosure at the Bee Sanctuary in Willow Springs Park. Several beehives, some colorfully painted, are visible behind Gabe. Photo by Jacob Dickinson; more at https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBvFyc .

Long Beach Beekeepers President Jaime Guoz (facing camera, standing in front of a pepper tree, and wearing a blue Long Beach Beekeepers t-shirt) discusses stages of honey bee development with Long Beach Poly High School students (foreground), using a photo from the teaching hive in front of him. Photo by Jacob Dickinson; more at https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBvFyc .

Honey Bee Ambassador Mike Pack organized a bespoke version of our Beekeeping 101 class for a few Long Beach Polytechnic High School students, with support from President Jaime Guoz and Sanctuary Manager Gabe Salinas. See alt text and flic.kr/s/aHBqjBvFyc for more.

Long Beach Beekeepers Past President Jennifer Duke, wearing a sage t-shirt with a bee design, plays peek-a-boo with a medium frame almost completely filled with honeycomb. Jennifer was one of the instructors at the May 11 Honey Harvesting Workshop. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Honey flows from a valve at the bottom of a centrifugal extractor through a strainer and into a food-grade five-gallon bucket. The strainer will remove most wax fragments and other debris. Photo by Amy Clark.

wo Long Beach Beekeepers Honey Harvesting Workshop students celebrate the results of their labor. But don't get too cocky, kids! Do you have any idea how hard the bees worked to make that stuff before we STOLE it? Photo by Christina Mainero.

The Long Beach Beekeepers May 11 Honey Harvesting Workshop introduced students to three honey extraction methods: Crush and strain; and hand-cranked and motorized centrifugal extractors.
See alt text for details. Photos and videos are at photos.app.goo.gl/CJDLbHQLK2mL... .

The image, intended to look lik a woodcut, shows a skep, an old kind of European beehive. Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beehive#Skeps ) explains: Skeps, baskets placed open-end-down, have been used to house bees for some 2000 years. Believed to have been first used in Ireland, they were initially made from wicker plastered with mud and dung but after the Middle Ages, almost all were made of straw. In northern and western Europe, skeps were made of coils of grass or straw. Image by rawpixel.com, licensed under CC0 ( https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ ).

Monthly meeting Sunday, June 2! At EDCO Recycling & Transfer, 2755 California Avenue, 2nd Floor, in Signal Hill. "Beyond the Langstroth" will survey alternative hives: horizontals, top bars, Flow Hives, Slovenians, and Warres. And Honey of the Month!
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Bill Lewis (nearest to the camera, wearing a ventilated bee suit, standing in the middle of a cloud of bees) teaches the 5/11/2024 Long Beach Beekeepers Re-Queening Colonies (Group B) inside the screened enclosure at the Willow Springs Park Honey Bee Sanctuary. Bill uses a hive tool to remove and inspect individual frames, looking for honey bee queens and signs of queen activity. Several students watch closely. The student farthest from the camera holds a deep frame which has been passed around so that everyone can look. More photos at https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBqB5Q . Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Bill Lewis led another Re-Queening Colonies class 5/11/2024 at the Long Beach Beekeepers Bee Sanctuary, in Willow Springs Park. Requeening can maintain a high laying rate and influence genetics and behavior.
Details in alt text; more photos at flic.kr/s/aHBqjBqB5Q .

Jennifer Duke, wearing a white honey bee print blouse, discusses what beekeepers can do to discourage their bees from swarming and answers related questions. A screen on the wall behind her displays her presentation. More photos at https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBpaM6 . Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Ray Teurman, in green t-shirt, discusses what beekeepers can do to discourage their bees from swarming and answers related questions. More photos at https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBpaM6 . Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Eight selections vie for the coveted Honey of the Month title. Back, from left to right: Energy Bee Farm buckwheat honey from a local farmers' market; Spanish lavender honey from World Market, in Lakewood; wildflower honey from Our Biz is BEES, in Tualatin, Oregon; Mexican honey with comb, from from Carniceria La Oaxaqueña #01. Front: Italian honey from Eataly, in Los Angeles; Japanese honey (Made by Apis cerana?) from Mitsuwa, in Torrance; French chestnut honey; and Hawaiian honey, from one of the myriad of convenience stores infesting Waikiki. (That's OK. If these stores did not occupy the space, it would just be taken up by more tourists.) More photos at https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBpaM6 . Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

At the Long Beach Beekeepers May 5 meeting: Jennifer Duke and Ray Teurman on swarm prevention, + eight Honey of the Month contenders.
Deets in alt text; photos at flic.kr/s/aHBqjBpaM6 .

Two seats left in another re-queening class: longbeachbeekeepers.org/event-572676... .

Students enrolled in the 5/4/2024 Long Beach Beekeepers Re-Queening and Splitting Colonies class at the Willow Springs Park Honey Bee Sanctuary surround an open hive from which Bill Lewis (center) has extracted the queen. The hive in front of Bill is missing several frames, removed and inspected in the search for the queen. Bill holds the queen in his hand, where he will crush her before introducing a new queen to the hive. (Years ago a vegan friend explained that she could not eat honey, and this is why.) No one involved knew it at the time, but later I realized this was a historical reenactment, with the queen as Marie Antoinette, Bill as the Revolutionary Tribunal, and the students as the Paris mob. More photos at https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBpeEp . Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

The regicidal drama at the 5/4/2024 Long Beach Beekeepers Re-Queening and Splitting Colonies class at the Willow Springs Park Honey Bee Sanctuary having passed, instructor Bill Lewis holds the new queen in a screened wooden container with a candy plug in one end. He will place this queen cage in the hive and hope the bees come under the sway of the new queen's pheromones in the time it takes to eat through the plug and free her. More photos at https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBpeEp . Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Bees spread out over the frames of an open hive. Can you spot the new queen? Or at least her cage? Instructor Bill Lewis and his students at the 5/4/2024 Long Beach Beekeepers Re-Queening and Splitting Colonies class at the Willow Springs Park Honey Bee Sanctuary have replaced the frames they previously removed from this hive in their search for the recently dispatched queen. Bill has pried frames aside, opening a gap in the middle, and has gently placed the queen cage, containing the new queen, so that the screened sides are accessible and the queen can breathe. If you look at the gap between five frames on the left and five on the right, you'll see it. After this, he slid the frames together again, holding the queen cage in place. Now we hope the bees will come under the sway of the new queen's pheromones in the time it takes to eat through the candy plug sealing the cage, and free her. More photos at https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBpeEp . Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

Bill Lewis led a 5/4/2024 Re-Queening and Splitting Colonies class at our Bee Sanctuary. Besides the obvious benefit of getting more hives, splitting hives makes swarming less likely.
Flights of fancy in alt text; photos at flic.kr/s/aHBqjBpeEp .