How to Keep Your Bees Out of Your Neighbor’s Pool

July 31, 2017

In the decade I’ve been keeping bees, the only neighbor complaint I’ve heard was when the folks next door had a pool and found “my” bees floating in the water. Honeybees require water for the same reasons we do: to keep their tissues and organs in operating condition, to remove wastes from their body, and […]

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What is Swarming?

June 30, 2017

A honeybee colony is like a sea anemone. Each bee is like a cell within a larger organism, some moving food, some removing waste, and some making stings. And when the organism wants to reproduce it splits in two, like the binary fission of a sea anemone. Individual honeybees hatch from eggs laid by the […]

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The Insect-Hater’s Guide to Loving Bees

May 17, 2016

I’ll admit it, they are scary. Just about everyone in the arthropod phylum are creepy-crawly, bitey-looking things, and bees are no exception. They have huge mandibles (those grabby things on the face that you see in insect-themed horror movies). They have six legs. They move quickly and erratically. And, they sting. But… They are also […]

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Wetland Mitigation Site Study

May 12, 2016

For the past 19 years, Astoria High School’s freshman science students have participated in an annual study of the Astoria Airport Mitigation Bank wetland. Lee Cain and Nick Baisley lead this endeavor, coordinating volunteers and students in two days of data collection. This is my second year volunteering as the bumblebee group leader. Today I […]

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Your First Year

March 13, 2016

My focus this year is going towards this course. If you’re in the area I hope you’ll join us!

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Plants for Your Bees – Flowering Quince

March 25, 2015

Flowering Quince (Chaenomeles speciosa) is a member of the Rose family, cultivated from plants first brought from Japan to Europe in the late 1700’s. The genus went through a few iterations before botanists finally settled on Chaenomeles (which means “split apple.”) Description With space and in full sun, the flowering quince will grow into a […]

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