Most people buy and hang up yellow jacket or wasp traps at the height of the summer, when yellow jacket workers become a real nuisance to outdoor activity as they forage for food. Unfortunately, the ample food supply during the long summer days had the workers not very interested in the traps – you likely will not catch very […]
I’ve been getting a lot of calls about Bumble Bees recently, probably half a dozen so far this season. In comparison, last year I got maybe five calls total about Bumble Bees. I’m not sure if the particular weather we have been having has been favoring the Bumble Bee population, or if my website is […]
Last Saturday, we took the Little Bee Man to Woodland Park Zoo to check out their annual “Bear Affair” event – a weekend dedicated to raising awareness about native bear species in Washington State. As part of the exhibit, Zoo staff staged a “non-safe home” demonstration: They outfitted the Grizzly Bear habitat in the Northern […]
Last Saturday, I got a message from a fellow beekeeper friend about a swarm of honey bees she had spotted in her parents’ yard. The swarm in question had set down and formed a nice cluster around a tree branch about 20 feet above grade. This was only the second swarm I had heard about so far this year, […]
What started out as sort of a dreary morning ended up turning into a pretty nice day. With all this crazy weather Seattle has been having lately, we sure didn’t want to miss out on a nice sunny afternoon. So we decided to load the entire gang into the bee mobile and we went for […]
So far, 2011 sure has had some very weird weather. Seattle has had the coldest April on record. Saturday we broke a record for rainfall – almost an inch in just six hours, and I think we set another record on Sunday. Over the weekend I got an email from a friend about a honey […]
With all this unseasonably cold and wet weather we have been having in Western Washington, the Stinging Insect Season is off to a bit of a slow start. However, as the daily temperatures get warmer, the hybernating queens are starting to wake up and are beginning to build this season’s nests. I expect to see […]
I was just over at a friend’s house, and was checking out the progress on a construction project. All of a sudden, I saw some movement on a window sill. Sure enough, there were three paper wasps. These were workers, not queens. Which means they had to have hatched somewhat recently. After some poking around, […]
When I first started backyard beekeeping as a hobby, I blogged about it at http://www.crownhillbees.com. I recently read over the old site again, and decided that rather than letting it linger out there in abandoned blog never-never-land, I would import the posts and host them here on the DanTheBeeMan blog. I hope you enjoy reading […]
It’s the time of the year, where Beekeepers in the Pacific Northwest are getting ready to have their final honey harvest. Last week, I reserved a 4-frame extractor, uncapping tank, and an electric uncapping knife from the Puget Sound Beekeepers Association (PSBA). I joined PSBA earlier this year, because they are the local Beekeeper’s club, […]