Seeking Bee Mentor

[Ttoulamoona]

I'm hoping to find some kind of internship, or hands-on experience working with bees in a natural, organic way, beneficial both for the bees & us. I hope to someday set up a bee sanctuary, but am having trouble finding an appropriate mentor. I'm excited about learning, you should be excited about sharing knowledge! Thank you!

773.431.3508 / [email protected]

[Hot Compost]

I'm hoping to find some kind of internship, or hands-on experience working with bees in a natural, organic way, beneficial both for the bees & us. I hope to someday set up a bee sanctuary, but am having trouble finding an appropriate mentor. I'm excited about learning, you should be excited about sharing knowledge! Thank you!

773.431.3508 / [email protected]

bees love spearmint. get some spearmint & let it grow out and it will be covered with honeybees.

[bjet]

Have you talked to the people at Bee Kind in Sebastopol? They seem really knowledgeable.

I'm hoping to find some kind of internship, or hands-on experience working with bees in a natural, organic way, beneficial both for the bees & us. I hope to someday set up a bee sanctuary, but am having trouble finding an appropriate mentor. I'm excited about learning, you should be excited about sharing knowledge! Thank you!

773.431.3508 / [email protected]

[Bird Watcher]

Definitely contact Bee Kind in Sebastopol! Owners Katia and Doug Vincent
will bee more than happy to guide you to your desired situation:

921 Gravenstein Hwy. S.,
Sebastopol
824-2905; beekind.com

[Claire]

Oh, what fun, what fun! When we first started having hives, my partner went to the Sonoma Bee Club and learned a lot from those people. Then we started catching wild swarms by being on the county list, but the health of the captured colony was sometimes iffy. We only have one hive right now, but I'd really like to recommend the Italian bees we got through Western Farm Center in Santa Rosa. They have been healthy and very self-sufficient and they are the gentlest colony we've ever had. We usually don't even harvest honey, we just enjoy having a thriving hive around.

One of the neatest things I did was to put leaf prints on the plain cream-painted box so it blended into the garden. Made it look like it was growing weeds and garden plants up the sides, but not too much, because you still want it light colored. I could see it out my studio window and it was beautiful, especially when the sun was shining and you could see the fuzzy golden bodies flying around.

Also, did anyone see the swarm that was in the church parking lot across from the Seb. Safeway on Wednesday? On these early spring days when it gets really warm and sunny, the hive will split if they are too crowded. They will have made a new queen by taking an ordinary larva and feeding it royal jelly and she will become a Queen, who after her mating flight will spend her life laying eggs, keeping her colony full of new bees as needed, for the rest of her life (3 to 5 years, I think). So on these warm spring days, half the hive will eat until full and then leave with the old queen to find a new place. They will hang out somewhere while the scouts go looking for a new home, coming back with their various discoveries. This (swarm mode) is when they are docile, usually, having eaten a lot of their honey and they are excited about the new adventure.
They are held together as a swarm by the pheromones of the queen.

If this sounds at all interesting, there are so many books on bees that are fascinating reading. I used to be afraid of them, as I got stung often as a child for some reason. Now I see that they are just busy and devoted and if I don't crush one by accident, I do not get stung. In fact I was happy to stand in the middle of that wild swarm on Wednesday, because we co-exist quite comfortably now. They must be sooo happy to finally have the good weather to go out and get fresh nectar. It's been a long, wet and cold winter for all of us! It's time to smell the flowers in the sunshine.

I'll ask around to see if there's someone you can mentor with that I know of. It sure wouldn't be us. After 20 years, it's just a little hobby and we only know enough to get by. But what pleasure we get from it!

I'm hoping to find some kind of internship, or hands-on experience working with bees in a natural, organic way, beneficial both for the bees & us. I hope to someday set up a bee sanctuary, but am having trouble finding an appropriate mentor. I'm excited about learning, you should be excited about sharing knowledge! Thank you!

773.431.3508 / [email protected]

[LenInSebastopol]

Sonoma County Beekeepers' Association - Home

Come meet folks that feel the same way. There's also a "mentor" map by area. Meets on Monday nights, 7-9 with the next one being April 12.
Oh, and as for the "mentor" things a good mentor will tell you to set up your hive and then leave them alone, the bees having been doing their thing for about 65 million years and they've got it down pat.