When Brother Dear was here last week, we drove him an hour south to Chico, home of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., for a tour of the facilities — if you don’t know, Brother Dear is a Super Beer Geek and creates incredibly tasty brews in our pump house – Sierra Nevada is kind of where it all started for Beer Geeks. Anyway, the roads from here to Chico are lined with almonds, walnuts, and olives, and pallets of bee hives everywhere. Northern California is completely inundated with bees and beekeepers, and Brother Dear and I were amazed.
This week, Honeydew was constantly on the phone, discussing hive numbers, strength, location, and when the almond growers are likely to call for the bees to go into the orchards. He and Keith – rehired for spring and summer! – spent a lot of time out in the holding yards, going through all of our hives to check on their readiness to go into the almonds. You can’t just throw a hive of half dead bees into an orchard and expect it do much almond pollinating – and you can’t expect an almond grower to pay you for your lack of effort, either. Bees are “graded” when they go into the almonds, a process I’ll go into another day, but suffice it to say, we’re inspecting the bees right now prior to their “grade.”
Honeydew has been in a mighty good mood all week – he can never be sure just what he’ll find when he goes out to work the bees for the first time since fall. Sometimes the bees eat more honey than he anticipated, or sometimes they’re struck by disease, but the end result is that most beekeepers will find a few dead hives this time of year. And so the topic of “loss” is a hot one in beekeeping households right now.
However, we don’t normally have loss due to fire like these hives below!
Yep, somehow the tenants near our “junkyard holding yard” set two of our hives on fire. Not sure how they managed to do that, but awfully happy it was only two! However, even with the fire, our loss rate is only at 3.3% – and that IS smokin’ hot! We’re happy campers right now.
Not so much heat at the Warehome right now, though. Brother Dear sent us this picture yesterday.
And suddenly, I’m not homesick at all …
2012. Glacier County Honey Co. Some photo credits to Sanford Stone. All Rights Reserved.
January 27, 2012 at 6:09 pm
Please tell Sanford that Sierra Nevada just announced they are building a new plant just outside Ashville. It came down between Ashville and Roanoke.
January 28, 2012 at 11:36 am
He is well aware and very excited! We have great friends in Asheville.
January 27, 2012 at 9:10 pm
Cool info. I’ve got family in Redding and Chico! Lived a time in both many years ago. If you get a chance, go visit “Old Shasta”. There used to be old Ghost town there and a old Jail. When I was younger we got to go into the jail and actually walk out onto the Gallows. Really creepy feeling when we walked downstairs into the jail. I can still remember the hair standing up on the back of my neck! Don’t forget to tour Shasta Dam! Massisve….
January 28, 2012 at 11:36 am
Thanks for the recs, Shireen! Will do.
January 28, 2012 at 7:01 pm
those black plastic frames, are they Manlakes PF 100’s???
thanks
January 28, 2012 at 8:29 pm
No, they’re from Pierco, but we run a huge mishmash of wooden and plastic frames.
January 30, 2012 at 4:30 pm
yea, so do we, nothing standard, always looking for something better
January 31, 2012 at 7:56 am
I really prefer how the wooden frames sit in the extractors, but the plastic ones sho’ do last longer!