Donner Party Kitchen Staff -- Cookin' up something different...

Green Oak Ranch

Hanging out at Green Oak Ranch in Vista.

Capturing a swarm

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.

Throwing a swarm

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.

The death of a smoker

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

Bee Jumping

One of my co-beeks goofing off.

Me abusing my bosses bees.

One of my co-beeks abusing my bees

2010 almond pollenation in Kettleman City

Christopher Samuel Amos Glock

I'm an Honorary Uncle again! :mrgreen:

King Snake

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

My bees

I have the camera set up again.

http://www.donnerpartykitchenstaff.com/

Bee Swarm

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.

Dispatching the rattler

Alfredo goofing off

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.

Rattlesnake

I killed a rattler in one of our apiaries today

The Terry Dance

King of the Hive

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.

'Bekah

Facebook

Sorry about the lack of postings here. I got turned on to Facebook, and have been spending most of my computer time there.

Awesome T-shirt

I'm speechless...

Farmer Bees Christmas Dinner 2008

sorry about the picture quality, it was dark & I used a camera phone

We had our Christmas dinner tonight at Mi Guadalajara in Escondido. It's a nice restaurant with great food. Had a great time talking and joking around. We actually had conversations that didn't involve bees (gasp!) :o It was nice to meet everybody's families. Being such a small company, 6 people, we get to know each other well.

Alfredo and Jose & his wife are on the left. Saturnino (aka Tony) is all the way at the end in the dark shirt. Hermelindo & his wife are somewhere down the table past Dave's wife. Dave (da Boss) & his wife Marcia are sitting on my right.

Bee Bread

This is how we make the pollen substitute to feed the bees. On the left you can see the finished pallets loaded with the mixture. The round cylinders are 55 Lb (25 Kg) containers of pollen. To the right of them are the pallets of soy flour & brewers yeast. Hermilindo is filling 5 gallon buckets with sugar syrup from the tank on the truck. The scale in the middle is what I use to measure out the dry ingredients. Tony is dumping 40 Lbs of pollen into the mixer.

This is about a 3 Lb patty in the hive.

Also, you can eat this stuff. All the ingredients are food grade.

Dad's cancer

I post a lot of funny stuff, work related pics, family pics & anything else I find interesting here.

This isn't one of those posts.

Several months ago my dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Out of 13 samples taken during the biopsy, only one showed any cancer. They felt that they had caught it very early. His Dr. advised him that even if they did nothing, he would probably die of something else. One of the things dad & I share is that if we do something, we are thorough, we make sure it is done right.

Yesterday my dad's prostate was completely removed with DaVinci Robotic surgery. The 5 hour operation took 11 hours. The operation itself went smoothly, but as they were counting the tools used during surgery, they came up missing one biopsy needle used during the procedure. After many, many X-rays, the Dr's were confident that the errant needle was not inside my dad.

Pops had us worried there for a little bit, but he's fine now. Please keep him in your prayers for a smooth recovery.

Realization

My bro Charley & sis (in-law) Brooke recently turned me on to Facebook. It's a site I've heard of, but never looked at till now. It has allowed me to reconnect with several old friends over the last few days.

I've been going through a bunch of pictures on my computer and uploading the ones I thought were cool to my profile. Part of this included a bunch of pictures from my short career as a long haul truck driver. I realized that as much as it cost me, how great the risks were, and how much I hated being away from home, it's hard to regret the time I spent on the road.

I have been to 46 of the lower 48 states. I've driven in conditions pulling a 53' trailer that most people couldn't drive in a car. In all seasons, in all types of weather, I've seen all of this great country. The people I've been able to meet have taught me more about human nature than a doctorate degree in psychology. I got my Ham Radio license. Dealing with different attitudes, points of view, ways of doing things & problems that were different every day & that had no choice but to be solved. We might have been 3000 miles away from home and 1200 miles away from dispatch, we had to find a way to make it work.

As much as I'm glad it's over, I am grateful for the experience.

Had a little problem at the office

We were mixing batches of pollen today when an air pocket in the sticky, sloppy junk popped on me. I got a face full.

I thought you checked the fuel!

I was eating lunch at work today when suddenly I heard a small plane flying at full throttle. Then it stopped. :shock: Then it started again. Then after a few seconds, it died, again. It would run for 2-3 seconds, then die for 5-6. I was trying to find the plane while this went on about a half dozen times. There is a very large field next to where I work, I figured that's where he was headed.

It is a very strange feeling to have a small aircraft pass 100 feet directly over your head when it's engine isn't running. :? I could hear the swoosh-swoosh-swoosh of the prop windmilling.

He got down to less than 50 feet before it started again. This time it stayed running and he flew off.

My day off

Spent some quality time laying tile at my brother Larry's house. As much as I tried to forget that I knew how to lay tile, I still got sucked in.

Breakfast time

We keep a cat at the honey house to help control rats & mice. So far it's survived without becoming coyote bait, this is a smart cat.

When I walked in this morning I noticed she was eating something. This was strange, as her food dish is on the other side of the building. A closer look revealed that she was chowing down on the back half of a squirrel.

Naked Beekeeping

Sorry about not posting for a while. I've been having some serious problems getting online. :evil: It looks like I've engineered a solution. :D

Feeding bees

Now that I'm able to get back online, I've got a lot of stuff to post.

It's late in the season and the nectar flow has ended. The bees, especially because the colonies are concentrated in apiaries, can not forage enough food to keep the colony alive. As a result we must feed a pollen substitute (protein food) & sugar syrup (ProSweet 77) (carbohydrate food) to the bees. The syrup we are using right now is blue because we've added Fumagilin-B to prevent Nosema (bee dysentery). The tank behind me holds 335 gallons, the one you can't see on the end of the truck holds 300. That's about 7334 Lbs of syrup. Filling 1 gallon feeders inserted into each hive, 2 guys will go through most of this in one day.

Every two weeks we have been giving each colony about a 3 Lb patty of pollen substitute. With around 4000 colonies, that's a big job for 5 guys! :shock:

The secret recipe:
90 Lbs Soy flour
90 Lbs Dried brewers yeast
50 Lbs Granulated sugar
40 Lbs Pollen granules
30 Gallons Sugar syrup

Robbing

This colony is being robbed. Bees from other colonies are trying to find any way possible to get in and steal the honey they smell inside. You can see dead bees littering the ground around the hive.

It's not always clear what causes bee's robbing instinct to kick in, but once it starts, it can destroy a colony. Bees in the colony being robbed will defend the hive to the death.

New Rebekah & Samantha Pictures

I can never have too many pictures of my nieces. :mrgreen::mrgreen: