The swarm began like any other swarm. Just a big, roaring, exaltation of bees, 20,000 strong and taking to the sky in a glittering amber cloud. I couldn’t possibly know in those first exhilarating moments that by days end, the bees from RainTree hive would change my relationship with bees forever. The morning started out…
It has been five months since I brought my bright and beautiful Sun Hive home, and just three months since I escorted a small cast swarm up a wooden ramp and into its dark and enfolding interior. Small the swarm may have been, but the bees took to the woven hive like they had been…
Yesterday morning dawned foggy and cold. In my morning walkabout in the backyard, I noted the first bronze and peach leaves crowning the top of our old vine maple and the brown heads of the bending goldenrod. Fresh borage plants are poking up happy blue flowers and yet one more small, self-sewn crop of phacelia…
In 2014, I fell in love with the idea of keeping bees in skeps, old-fashioned traditional hives of woven straw or grass. Michael Thiele was hinting at hosting the first Sun Hive workshop (a type of skep) in the United States, and I knew–come hell or high water–I would be at that class. In the…