Honeybees at Sunset’s Celebration Weekend

All of Sunset was buzzing today as we prepared the grounds for our annual event, Celebration Weekend. Two full days of celebrity chefs, garden seminars, and bees!

In our Make It Your Own area, we’ll have two observation hives (look for our booth near the Cargotecture house). Members of the Beekeepers Guild of San Mateo will be there to talk bees. And at 2:15 on Saturday, at the Make It Your Own stage, I will give a talk about beginning beekeeping with beekeeper Thomas Keller. (No, not that Thomas Keller. This Thomas Keller works at Tesla Motors.)

I spent this afternoon helping Tina Keller (AKA Tina K., Friend of Nugget) install a little box of bees into an observation hive. The bees (a swarm captured recently at Tesla) weren’t so sweet; the close, cloudy weather put them on edge and they were attacking my camera, making it difficult to get good photos.

This is the observation hive. There are five frames in the bottom box, and one frame across the top between two plexiglass sheets. The hive will be sealed up, so no bees can escape.

We had trouble getting the queen into the hive. We finally scooped her up in a queen-catcher and coaxed her into the observation hive, where she promptly hid from sight.

Once she was in the hive, the bees scurried in, and fanned at the opening (just under that little wingnut on the left) to let any stragglers know that this was home.

Beekeeper Kelly Diedrich also put together an observation hive for us. Her hive is a little different, but still fascinating. And her queen is marked so she’ll be easy to find.

Hope to see you there!