Alameda County Beekeepers in the News
Several club members and other local beekeepers are mentioned in an article published today in the East Bay Express. Alameda County Beekeepers Association member (and contributor to this blog) Susan Kuchinskas wrote the story.
Read it here: Are Bees Too Busy?
Comments
Susan,
The following is a copy of an email I sent to the feedback address at the East Bay Express after reading your article. I did not realize that you are a member of the Alameda County Beekeepers Association (as I am, too) The Express responded asking me whether they can print my email in their next edition. Initially, I said "Why Not?". Subsequently I emailed the Express that I did not want them to publish my email unless it would be OK with you. Not everyone likes to be publicly corrected. So they may be in touch with you about it. I also said that it might be OK with you but that you might want to apend your own comment. Anyway, here is what I wrote, addressed directly to you, incidentally.
"Thank you for your well written and informative article about Colony Collapse Disorder. Overwork certainly may be a factor. Hopefully the cause will be found or, in any case, the bees will carry on anyway.
Nitpicker that I am I am compelled to point out a couple of factual errors in your piece. I suspect that you have already been told about them. It has to do with "swarming."
It is not a new but, rather, the old queen that takes off with with about half of the worker bees in the hive, i.e., not "a thousand or so" but perhaps as many as 30,000. The new queen, created by the worker bees by feeding "royal jelly" to selected larvae, will fly out one time to mate and then will return to the home hive.
When the swarm clusters on a tree or what-have-you, it will wait for the scouts to find a new home -- several days, perhaps -- and then relocate, i.e., the bees do not remain at the cluster site "if they don't find a good spot" elsewhere. They inevitably do.
You wrote that, in the spring, "the combs drip with honey." What a mess that would be! When the bees build up comb structure they cleverly slant the cells slightly upward so that the nectar (that will become honey) can't leak out. When they are satisfied that they have honey, not unripe nectar, they cap the cells off with beeswax. So there is little, if any, dripping.
Again, congratulations on your efforts to educate the public about Colony Collapse Disorder and the interesting life of the honey bee
Russell Bruno"