One of our colonies has been exceptionally strong, so we were able to harvest nine frames of honey from that one. The other has been queenless for a time and hasn't been very productive, so we didn't extract any from it. We couldn't complain; a 50 pound harvest (about 17 quarts worth) seems bountiful to us, even though I know of beekeepers who get 300 pounds in a season with two hives. If we were to sell all of our honey at the going rate, generally $7-$9 a pound, we'd have a good start at recouping some of our $555 start-up costs.

Our harvesting party turned into a neighborhood affair as several people joined us for John's teach-in at the site of the hives (our neighbors' backyard). Madeleine and John's five-year-old daughter alternately watched with interest—she in her own bee suit (now Maddy wants one)—and played quietly by themselves, completely unfazed by the sight of thousands of bees buzzing around. After we "worked the hives," we traipsed the honey-filled frames to our shed where we had set up the extractor equipment.

Because we don't have all the fancy beekeeper's equipment, we haven't perfected a method for recapturing all the beeswax that gets lost in the extracting process. Nor have we perfected a straining system to keep small bits of wax out of the honey, so you'll notice in the photos that our honey comes in "creamy" and "chunky" varieties (although the wax does rise to the top by itself in a matter of hours). It all tastes the same, and Madeleine will attest that it's yummy. We hope to have more honey to harvest by this fall, and we expect by then our harvesting techniques will have improved. In the meantime, there will be a lot of bread baking and granola making happening in the neighborhood this week.

You can find more photos of the event here.

So after having a beekeeper keep bees in a hive in our backyard for the past couple of years, our neighbor, Dell, and I decided we should go ahead and learn the art and science of it ourselves after our beekeeper went missing-in-action when our last colony died off in the fall. What that has meant practically is that for the last three months I've been reading books about beekeeping, attending meetings with the Alameda County Beekeeper's Association, visiting other beekeeper's hives in Alameda, attending a local "Introduction to Beekeeping" class, and ordering equipment, while Dell put forth half the money and provided the space to house two hives. I haven't minded too much, as it's proven to be an intellectually stimulating and exciting diversion from chasing around a toddler, hanging laundry, and cooking meals. The more I've studied, the more intrigued and excited I've become. The science of honey bees is fascinating and I've been reminded why I was a science major in college. Every time I get home from a class or a meeting I spend the rest of the evening regaling Paul with random facts about bee behavior. (For example, the queen bee leaves the hive once in her lifetime when she mates with several males in mid-air.  Then she returns to the hive to lay approximately 1,000 eggs a day every day for the rest of her life until she dies, gets kicked out of the hive by a younger queen, or gets eaten by said younger queen). Last week, I got to suit up in a full bee suit and veil for the first time to smoke and check on three colonies a few miles from here. I came home encouraged that I now know enough to begin colonies of my own.

I've been having lots and lots of dreams about bees, and have been wringing my hands about where and how I wanted to procure the bees to fill our two hives. Finally, yesterday I got a call from a veteran beekeeper that I could come to catch a swarm with him.  It was an exciting afternoon as we had to capture the swarm that was 25 feet high in a tree. The end result was that my neighbors and I drove home from Berkeley with somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 bees in my trunk. Today as Paul, Madeleine, and I checked on the hive several times, we witnessed hundreds of bees taking their inaugural flights around Dell's backyard as they got their bearings around their new home.

I hope to capture another swarm before the swarm season ends this month to put in the other hive. We'll probably get a honey harvest this year, although some beekeepers have warned me it will probably be "small" -- just 50-60 pounds per hive this year since we're starting from nothing. That will be just fine with me. When Dell and I decided to do this in January, it was because we wanted all our fruit trees well pollinated, so the thought of honey was like the icing on the cake. Now, of course, I'm pretty excited by the prospect of a honey harvest too.

It's a little tricky to make out, but the first photo shows the swarm of bees clinging to a tree limb 25 feet up in the tree. To capture them we attached a painter's bucket with metal hinges to a long stick, raised the bucket to just beneath the swarm, gave it a sharp jab, and all the bees fell into the bucket. Then we literally poured the thousands of bees into my waiting hive on the ground. At dusk, when all the remaining bees found their way into the hive, we closed it up and popped it in the trunk for the bumpy ride. Dell and his wife Pat decided that to celebrate we should stop for a drink on the way home. Before going into the bar and after coming out, we opened the trunk to let the bees get some fresh air.

It seems that our bee hive got hit by the mysterious disease called Colony Collapse Disorder that is sweeping the country recently and killing tens of millions of bees. Twenty-four states have reported bee apiaries being effected by an unknown plague that wipes out entire bee colonies at a time. What is unusual is that beehives affected by the disease are being found empty since the bees fly away to die, which is unlike their normal behavior. The day after we read about this disease in the San Francisco Chronicle, we went out to check on our bees and discovered they had all disappeared. Our beekeeper says it's possible they ran out of room in the hive so they swarmed and flew away to find another home, but we think that we or the neighbors would have noticed 30,000 bees taking flight at once. 

We were fortunate to get our bees replaced by those of a friend, so we were only without our local pollinators for about two weeks. Our new colony arrived in time to start pollinating our plum trees at the time of their full bloom. This time the hive is just over the fence in our eager neighbor's yard so little Madeleine won't incur the bees' wrath by sticking her curious hands in the entrance to their hive.

When we returned from vacation a couple weeks ago, we discovered that—to our surprise—our bee keeper had taken the first harvest of honey.  He left us this three pound jar out of the total nine pounds he harvested.  He says that's a pretty modest amount, and that in the future it will be a lot more.

Our beekeeper José added a new box for our growing bee community.  The three-story tower on the right is the one they're currently occupying.  At some point he may get a second queen to start the other hive (the short one on the left with the green top). 

The bees seem to be doing well, and José thinks we may have a first honey harvest in a month or two. 

Our neighbor planted some clover especially for the bees, but they have been disappointing him so far.  We've noticed them a little bit in our trees, but otherwise only see them if we watch them coming and going from the hive.  The bees come in and out through the slot along the bottom of the hive (see the close-up below).