REBECCA SUNDERLIN BEE YARD VISIT

(Report by Bill McLaughlin and photos courtesy of Bill McLaughlin)

With 12 in attendance at Rebecca Sunderlin’s Fountain bee yard on Saturday the 23^rd of August, interest ran high.  In addition to the adults, 3 young aspiring beekeepers also attended.

Rebecca has four hives at this location.  Three of which are the results of captured swarms, and one is the offspring of a Minnesota Hygienic queen.

Rebecca related a funny story about collecting one of the swarms from a tree in the front yard of a person’s house.  Rebecca had told the home owner that she would be out that night and to not leave the house light on as this would attract the bees.  As she was finishing up the swarm retrieval a police officer arrived.  Coming down off the ladder from were she was working in her bee outfit, the police officer inquired what she was doing.  When she told him, he informed her that they had received a call that there was a strange man doing strange things in a chemical suite in a tree. Ah the life of a beekeeper.

During our visit Rebecca discovered that one of the four hives was not doing well enough that it might not survive the winter.  She discussed with the club members various methods of helping this hive.  The merits of combining it with another stronger hive in the yard, or possibly adding brood frames to the weaker hive from a stronger hive were discussed.

One hive, from a swarm taken from a battery box of a road grader on Fort Carson was doing so well that a full depth super was completely filled and capped and estimated to weigh close to 100 #’s. This provided tasty samples of the honey being collected from the predominately alfalfa bee pasture the hives were working on.

The two children of Peggy and Craig Christiansen from Monument, Brice (8) and Surran (9) showed a great deal of interest being right up in the action as it took place and asking good questions of both Rebecca and their mom and dad.

Other items discussed were:

A queen collection program going on with Zia Bee Company from New Mexico trying to raise local naturally surviving queens.

How bee yards are obtained and how to keep them.

And possibly having a “Gadget Day” at a winter meeting.

Those in attendance were:

Bob Besaha from Woodland Park, 2 yrs beekeeping.

Mary Rupp from Black Forest, 2 yrs beekeeping.

Rita Schott from Peyton, 4 yrs beekeeping.

Peggy, Craig, Surran and Brice Christiansen from Monument, 3 years beekeeping.

Jim and Pat Good from Pueblo, 3 yrs beekeeping.

Bill and Samuel (photographer) McLaughlin from Security, newly restarted.

And of course Rebecca Sunderlin, 9 years beekeeping.

We want to thank Kathy Manley for letting us visit her property were the bee yard is and of course Rebecca for taking us through her hives, and discussing all of the different better ways of doing things.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The photos below are from the August 2008 Sunderlin Bee Yard Visit.