Davis Bee Collective

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  1. Davis Bee Collective in the News
  2. Meetings
  3. Services
    1. Swarm Catching & Bee Removal
    2. Pollination
  4. Classes
    1. Backyard Beekeeping
  5. Workshops
    1. Screen Bottom Board Building
      1. Images
    2. Box Building Bonanza
      1. Images
    3. Honey Extraction Party
      1. Images
  6. Equipment
  7. Videos
  8. Members
  9. Meeting Mintutes
    1. September Meeting
    2. November Meeting
    3. Feb Meeting
    4. March Meeting
    5. April Meeting

Contact
Eli Sarnat <ndemik AT yahoo DOT com>
Meetings
Fourth Thursday of each month

The Davis Bee Collective is a group of small-scale beekeepers dedicated to the cooperative practice and promotion of ecological apiculture. They have regular meetings and hold various bee-related events.

Anyone can join the collective. There are no membership fees and meetings are free. If you have a UC Davis email account, you can add yourself to the <beecollective AT ucdavis DOT edu> mailing list by following this [WWW]link. If you want to join the mailing list, but don't have a UC Davis account, email Eli (<ndemik AT yahoo DOT com>) with your request.

Davis Bee Collective in the News

Meetings

The Davis Bee Collective meets regularly on the fourth Thursday of each month. The next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, November 29th at the [WWW]Student Co-Ops on campus. The agenda for the next meeting will include:

if you have more agenda items for the meetings, either post them here or email Eli (<ndemik AT yahoo DOT com>).

Services

Swarm Catching & Bee Removal

If you have a swarm of honeybees at your home or business, give us a call and we will find them a healthy home where they will be lovingly cared for. Before you call, it is helpful to note when the swarm was first noticed, how high off the ground it is, how large it is and how accessible it is. We can usually have someone out to the property within an hour of the call.

Pollination

Members of the Davis Bee Collective pool their hives to fill pollination contracts for organic farms in and around the Sacramento Valley. All hives slated for pollination services are rigorously checked for strong health before transportation.

Classes

Backyard Beekeeping
[WWW]Experimental College Course# 559-1
UCD Campus
Saturdays, 11:00am — 12:30pm
April 14 — June 2
Contact: Eli Sarnat <ndemik AT yahoo DOT com>

The Backyard Beekeeping course will give you the background you need to establish and manage beehives of your own. The course is open to people of all experience levels, integrates hands-on learning with classroom discussion, and focuses on using ecologically sound practices to raise healthy hives.

Topics include...

Workshops

Screen Bottom Board Building

On 2007-04, Davis Bee Collective members met up at the Domes to build screen bottom boards for their beehives. The screen bottom boards allow for better varoa mite control by eliminating the ability of the mites to climb back onto the bees when they fall to the bottom. The screen are especially effective when used in combination with other control measures that knock off the mites. We used scavenged wood scraps to build the frames and 1/8" hardware cloth for the screens. A full image gallery is available online [WWW]here.

Images

L1000226.JPGLike bees, we specialized for different tasks. Matt.JPGMatt cuts the boards all uniform. L1000218.JPGEli makes best use of the whole roll of wire mesh.

L1000228.JPGKarl and his sloped-entrance prototype L1000237.JPGA finished stack of standard screen bottom boards. L1000240.JPGA finished bottom board with a medium hive box on top, showing the entrance and small landing strip for the bees.

Box Building Bonanza

On 2007-03, Fourteen collective members got together at Dave Tipton's woodshop in Davis to build medium-depth bee boxes. It was a long and rewarding day. We built 30 boxes complete with box-joint corners and rabbets for hanging frames. A full album and slide show of the event can be found [WWW]here. Thanks to everyone who organized and participated in this event!

Images

prototype.jpg sanding.jpg

assembling.jpg finished.jpg

Honey Extraction Party

The Fall honey extraction party was on 2006-10. We had about a dozen folks show up and use extractors to spin out over 150 pounds of the good stuff. Thanks, bees!

Images

extractors.JPG uncapping.JPG Jeff_pouring_honey.JPG

Equipment

The Davis Bee Collective enables its members to share equipment amongst the group that may otherwise be too costly or cumbersome for individuals to possess on their own. In this way we can all share in the use and maintenance of books, magazines, honey extractors, filters, pollen traps, wax melters, vehicles, carpentry tools and other equipment that makes beekeeping pleasurable.

Videos

Swarm #1 pic.jpg [WWW]First bee hive capture of the season: Leanne, Tessa, Karl and Eli come to the rescue of a feral colony whose comb had fallen from a tree. Eli climbs the tree, saws down the nest branch and passes it down to Karl. Then the fun really starts!

Dre_bees.jpg [WWW]Andrea Lucky installs her first package of bees: These bees are from Honey Bee Genetics in Vacaville. The queen is a hybrid Russian/Carniolan bred for mite resistance and gentleness. The cat's name is Plucky, and no, she was not stung during the filming of this episode.

Members

Meeting Mintutes

September Meeting

Attendance

Announcements
- Honey Extraction Party scheduled for Sunday, September 30th tentatively at the student co-ops at 11am.

- Renowned entomologist May Berenbaum will be gicing a public lecture on CCD titled, “BSI: The Case of the Disappearing Bees!” Tuesday, October 9th, 2007 at the Activities Recreation Center (ARC), Ballroom A. There is a reception at 5pm and the lecture at 5:30pm.

- 1x12 redwood siding available for anyone interested in pulling it off a shed. Contact Carolyn (758-1250)

Notes
- George Kimball is a new member. He has several hives all collected from swarms this year, and recently removed a colony from a shed wall (will show pictures next meeting).

- Eli queried the group if anyone was interested in participating in the Sacramento Children’s Fair, to which the Bee Collective was invited to present a bee booth. There were some good ideas for activities proposed by Julia, but none of the members present expressed strong interest in participating. Eli agreed to send out an email asking if other members are interested with the meeting notes.

- Discussion about the woodworking class continued. General consensus was that it would be better to have it at Dave Tipton’s house than at the craft center, but that we need to check in with Dave about several questions.

November Meeting

Proposal to plan a future meeting in conjunction with the Sacramento beekeeping group (name?) that meets 4th Tuesday (right?) of each month, or perhaps some Davis members could attend then report back…

- Lots of talk about potential for Experimental College course(s) – namely a beekeeping ‘workshop’ (mention made that in the off chance there’s a scheduling difficulty for spring, perhaps a weekend course might work as an introduction), ideally running the length of the quarter in order to take advantage of seasonal changes in practices (moving from winter to spring). Eli to check on EC scheduling requirements, he also offers his bees (housed at the Student Farm) as educational props. (Does the group want to pitch in to formulate a syllabus, or Eli, are you ready to have at it? More discussion?)

- Idea of a Craft Center / EC course to build beeboxes – Chris to potentially offer it through the woodshop (after finding out scheduling requirements).

- For future reference, about the above 2 ideas (beeboxes & beekeeping classes), Jeff thought it might be a good idea to offer the box-making class in the winter before swarming time – so that people could have their boxes ready to catch local swarms.

- A lot of interest was expressed in becoming involved in the somewhat-abandoned Bee Biology bees – perhaps being able to take over their care, in conjunction with providing opportunities for people to gain experience with bees. Where do we go with this?

- Assertion of basic Bee Collective goals: opportunity to ‘mingle’ with bee-minded folks, sharing of experience & knowledge, pooling of resources that might be out of reach of individuals but which can be accessed & maintained by the group, learning environment for those without access to bees whereby they can ‘intern’ with folks with bees.

- Winter preparations were brought up – esp. in relation to methods of preventing wax moth infestation and a question was raised about availability of a freezer large enough to accommodate bee boxes (freezing kills the moth larvae).

Feb Meeting

Attteenbees!: Julia, Jordan, Joseph, Keren, Jackie, Scott, Julia’s Small Cute Dog Cassava

Back Yard Bee Keeping Class

Next Meeting?

Spring bee preparation

Pollination Services

The biggest contribution that bees make in our lives is not the honey and beeswax they produce (but those are nice), but instead, the pollination of crops. Some Bee Collective beekeepers have hives that are available to rent for pollination services. Drop us a note if interested.

List Serve Issues

Contact List: Names – Phone Number

March Meeting

1. Introductions

2. We watched a video of Eli, Karl, LeeAnna, and Tessa catching a swarm… it was sweet! Catch it on YouTube.

3. Report on Bee Box Building Bonanza

4. Top and Bottom Board Building Bonanza

- do we need a table saw?

5. Eli’s Backyard Beekeeping Class through the EC

6. Spring Management of hives

7. Sacramento Beekeeping Club

8. Proposal to change meeting time

9. Money

April Meeting

Attendance: Sunny, Eli, Karl, Tessa, Natasha, Sarah, Jordan

Hive Status:
CoOps: 4 Hives (– 1 Hive) = 3 Hives (Would like one more hive!)

Karl: 1 Hive – Opened it up. Has 2 swarms. Doing well.
1st Swarm: Queen cells. Sugar cells? No. Emergency cell? No.
2nd Swarm: Few bees. No queen. Capped sealed queen cell. Now nothing. Looking to re-queen. (Would like a queen cell!)

*Post to each other if queen cell available.

Karl is going to Wisconsin to pursue dreams! Hurray!

Domes: 1 Hive: Doing great! Observational hive looking good! (Would like more hives please!)

Eli: Hives are good and bad. Some have mites.

Report on Bottom Board Building:
Tessa – Successful!

Beekeeping Class with the EC:
11 people – None have bees expect 2.

1st Class: Entomology exhibit.
2nd class: 2 Packages of Bees.
$85 Honeybee Genetics – Tom
Video – YouTube (Linked on the Wiki)

Book Club?

Late Spring Management
Flush of blooms then a drought. PULSES of pollen/honey capture. Hit them running.
Make sure they have enough food. Mites.
Bright orange pollen has been noticed.

Show and Tell
Karl: Steam uncapping knife! How awesome!
Boiling point perfect for uncapping.
Picked up a steam-uncapping knife from Sacramento Bee Keeping Supply – No steam supply, just a knife.
Pressure cooker connection.
Will post instructions and photos on blog. Thanks Karl! May 15th possibly honey extraction.

Event?
Field trip—Honey Bee Genetics?
May 27th? Jordan will talk to a fellow on Saturday.

Beekeeping Woodworking Class
Something that would be cool. Dave Tipton/Chris may be able to teach and/or organize through Craft Center. Set up for Fall 2007 class.

Colony Collapse Disorder Working Group
CCD PSU.EDU
Reasons: Pesticides? Noxious weeds? Stress? Immunosuppression? Cordless phones? Genetics?
They have Ruled Out: Types of sugar being fed.
Solutions?
Better regulations on large scale transportation of bees; reduce stress, infection.
More research and outreach and care of native pollinators. Habitat network.
Better Funding.
HONEYBEE GENOME SEQUENCED IN ITS ENTIRETY!

Some talk of CCD followed. Bye!

What's the buzz on the Davis Bee Collective?

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- Don't you need a liscense from the state Structural Pest Control Board to remove bees from people's home's / businesses / structures? - KrisFricke

2007-09-12 10:22:00   I'm expanding by 30 hives down here and could really use some bees if anyone has extras to spare. Must be of known European descent (i.e. not from a feral colony). —KrisFricke

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