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How to catch a swarm of honeybees

14 May

1.  Find swarm.  If the swarm is someplace you can reach with a ladder, and isn’t inside a wall or tree-trunk, you’re all set.

2.  Put on protective clothing, especially gloves!

(that’s me in the middle)

3.  Put an empty hive out in the place you want the bees to live.
4.  Find a bucket.
5.  Set up a ladder so you can reach the swarm.
6.  Climb ladder and brush swarm gently into bucket with your hands.  Most of the bees will fall into the bucket in clumps.


7.  Show off bucket of bees to admiring friends and family.


8.  Pour bees into new hive.

9.  Voila!

(Close-ups taken by me; photos shot from a safe distance taken by my friends and family)

The week that was

8 May
This week I:
- traded stories over an impromptu lunch with an old friend and occasional collaborator.  It was a warm day in Berkeley, we ate outside, and I felt good.
- caught a swarm of bees!  Very satisfying except for the fact that it does not seem to want to stay put in its new home.
- participated in Greenaction’s first annual Walk for Environmental Justice in Golden Gate Park, and then had an apré-walk lunch with friends from the Inner Sunset farmer’s market. My friends traded stories of their favorite parasites (for the record, one was an ‘ant zombie fungus‘ and the other was a parasite that takes over the body of a snail, grows up through its eyes and sprouts little blinking lights at the top).
- celebrated my birthday! Twice!
- ate fresh berries at the UCSC farm and garden’s Strawberry and Justice Festival
- went to a lecture on how to save the world with simple pictures, but was unconvinced
- listened to the last podcast of my advisor’s “Contemporary Sociological Theory” class from last quarter and began the podcasts for his current class, “Environmental Inequalities.” Don’t you wish you were my driving companion?
- got some good advice about online advocacy from the genius in charge of Aspiration
- was given this fabulous update on on the Beany Baby, the Beany Ball bee:

Will work for justice… and honey

30 Mar

The coming of spring means I’ve started to work my bees again after avoiding them all winter.  The hives were a birthday present the year I turned 24, and I’ve carted them around almost everywhere I’ve lived since then.  This means they’ve spent most of their time in various hippie-towns of Northern California – Bolinas, Berkeley, Santa Cruz and Pescadero, with a few years expanding their horizons in the suburbs as well.

My  social science roots show in my almost complete lack of knowledge about actual bee biology.  I know enough about the fundamentals to get the honey, but not much more.  The people I help get started in beekeeping very quickly surpass me in their knowledge of bee breeds, hive behavior, and colony collapse disorder.  BUT, I’m dying to read social geographer Jake Kosek’s next book.  Anyone who hears his talk “The Militarization of the Honeybee” can never look at bees the same way again.  I just hope mine aren’t spying on me yet.

*     *     *

Ken Duckert hosted my bees in his backyard until recently, and used his intimate acquaintance with them to build up this lovely collection of “bee potraits” of my fuzzy friends.  I’ve also put together a few photos of my own below.

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