Hanging out at Green Oak Ranch in Vista.

Turn up your volume first.

It would have been perfect if I didn't forget to get a hive lid out of my truck. I borrowed a company lid from a nearby stack.

This morning at work I witnessed a colony throwing a swarm. They decided they were overcrowded, so half of the bees decided to leave with a new queen. It's hard to see because of the position of the sun, but the bees were flowing out like water. This is a very rare thing to see happen, like a piping queen. Even with all the work we put into preventing swarms, I'm glad I was able to see this.

This is what happens when a branch knocks your smoker off the truck and you run over it.

One of my co-beeks goofing off.


Me abusing my bosses bees.


One of my co-beeks abusing my bees

I'm an Honorary Uncle again!

Found a King Snake today. Non poisonous, so it kept it's head.

I have the camera set up again.

http://www.donnerpartykitchenstaff.com/

I tried to shake the cluster out over my head. It was too low in the tree for me to do that. My co-beek Alfredo almost took off his veil in the middle of it.

This is what it's like moving bees during the day, except that normally you don't take off your veil. The bees were trying to rob the honey under the netting. Saturnino took the video with his cell phone.

I killed a rattler in one of our apiaries today

Left home in Wednesday's pre-dawn hours, got home about 2230 Saturday. We worked from dawn to dusk to deliver, evaluate, switch & feed 3000 colonies.

This is the last 8 colonies to be worked before we head home.