First Harvest of the year. Wycked.

This is a different type of hive design that Chris turned me on to. It would be awesome to build this type of hive because it is more natural for bees to have a vertical nest, but know this, It is not designed to get you honey. It is designed to provide a tree like home so the bees can prosper.

Notice the shape of it resembles a tree that flows up counterclockwise. I am going off topic of the dodecahedron and discuss something I learned that I think correlates with this hive design. An old man I met at a bee class was telling me about “dowsing” wood for making beehives. I think he was a little bit off, but he explained that you can figure out the flowing energy of wood by “dowsing it”. Now don’t stop reading but if you were to take four pieces of wood to make a box aka a beehive, you should be able to determine which side of the wood attaches to another side to create a counterclockwise flow of energy. He explained it is a counterclockwise flow because “natural energy” (energy emitted from humans, animals, plants and especially trees……) flows up towards the opposing clockwise down flow of an air current. It’s insane if you think about it. But he kind of has a point when discussing how bees always build up when they are situated in a tree. Theory being, if you have correct counterclockwise flow of a hive, your bees will build up emitting correct energy, aka strong healthy Feng shui bees. I don’t know how to properly dowse wood to get the energy correct, but maybe someone else has an idea or where to look. 

Anyone building hives in the future should take note of this as it could be beneficial for the bees if their energy is balanced. Remember, we don’t know anything about bees when it comes to them feeling energy from the earth. This world we live in is wild, and no matter how much we understand it, can surprise us every day.

 This aint no slapping boards together to make a hive though. This is an extremely complex design that requires geometrical thought. Check it out and tell us what you think. Maybe chicago could be seeing a dodecahedron hive soon enough. 

we got a new friend to the Beebuds, her name is Jana and she is the Bike-a-Bee girl. check out this idea of her’s, its gnarly. 

GoogleMaps is hooking it up with free publicity for one of the Beehives. Advertising it worldwide from a satellite 24/7. If anyone is interested in putting their roof on the map, (literally) let me know. 

This is a picture from a beekeeper friend of mine. William Gorsich who lives around St. Louis has been keeping bees for the past thirty years. He doesn’t keep bees the way we have been keeping them though. Sure he uses Langstroth hives, because yes they are more economical when it comes to pure honey production, but He can’t stand the sight of a gentle bee.

“Why would anyone put a bunch of bees that can’t defend themselves around skunks, badgers, and deer? It just don’t make any sense.” says Will.

Instead of breeding the fight out of bees so we can have a few less “owwies” on our wittle fingers, Will goes around his property and surrounding Western Illinois and Missouri and captures wild hives. He then takes those hives and puts them in a langstroth. His logic is that it saves him a ton of money from not having to buy packages, and it saves him time and resources from trying to raise his own bees. I want to point out that he still raises his own queens and bee packages for sale, but capturing swarms alleviates that strain. 

An interesting thing that William has pointed out was that of his bees, he has not had nearly as many pest problems, and a miniscule amount of hives have failed due to outside controls, such as the fabled CCD (AKA pesticides).  

I ordered three packages from him last year and man are these babies awesome. within six weeks, one of the hives filled out ten top bars. They just wouldn’t quit. And guess what, of all the times we were messing with the hives, taking video and pictures and trying to manipulate the comb, I only got stung twice. The whole myth about an angry hive is simply untrue. We need to keep the fight in our bees, Why would anyone want to combat CCD with a hive that can’t even defend itself from robber yellowjackets, because that’s all we’re doing. Sure the bees are gentle towards us, but if you follow logic, a bee that won’t defend a human taking honey, definately won’t defend a yellowjacket or other robber bee from taking honey.

We need to be the ones that take extra precautions such as more protective gear and maybe the use of smoke. Smoke is beneficial because it distracts, but it shouldn’t be used primarily. Just take your time and enjoy the ride. 

Anyways this picture is of a bumblebee hive that Will captured. Yes you can capture bumblebees, if anyone is interested in capturing a bumblebee hive, let me know. I’m going to try it this spring. 

and if anyone is interested in getting bees from William, let me know as well.

This video pretty much sums up what pollination does for the world. letting all sorts of animals and insects pollinate the flowers…..then if there is time, we get to taste that sweet sweet honey.