Honey, I'm home!

See this wonderful oven mitt made for me by redheaded snipit? see the cute honeybee perched on its thumb? See the brunette honey bear with local honey? ok you got three hints...what am I thinking?

yes, I am contemplating the next step in the eat local food lifestyle: keeping bees. I attended the most amazing, informative symposium this past weekend. Wow, eye opening. I was aware of the bizarre phenomenon of Colony Collapse Disorder and just this past week KQED did a show on forum, describing it as a whodunit with no smoking gun, no bodies even. Spooky, all these bees just disappearing. No common denominator, except perhaps unusually hot dry weather last fall and pollen with little to no nutritional value. So malnutrition perhaps. But is more? GMO pollen, high fructose corn syrup made from GMO corn, some new fungus, virus, bug. aliens form space? Anyway, it makes a person a trifle respectful of insects and how under appreciated they are. Did you know that about of third of what we eat is tied to bees (both native and honey bees) for fertilization?

I came away with a conviction to keep bees. My neighbor Denise already does, and she lost both her colonies this winter to CCD. Fortunately we have beekind here in Sonoma county and they are the source of all things melliferous, including queens all ready to get their groove on.

The symposium was really for hobby beekeepers looking for better answers to the dreaded varroa mite than miticides and other more ecological methods for making bees happy. We saw traditional skeps from Germany and more humane hives. We saw a wonderful slideshow on all the beautiful native bees (we have over 250 native bee species in California alone, mostly solitary as opposed to colony forming. I also learned just about everything I care to about tracheal mites and varroa mites Did you know one method to control varroa is to shake powdered sugar over your colonies every week during prime drone brood season? There, now you can sleep better tonight knowing that. I know I will.

Sunday evening Steve and Ben where making the rounds of the birdhouses, making sure they were clean and ready for their new tenants and wouldn't you know, one had become home to a colony of bumble bees! Steve bravely rehung (with nary a sting) the birdhouse in its same spot as the sweet little ladies were rather confused as to where their villa had disappeared too. I feel honored they have chosen to take up residence here. I think it is a good omen.