Author Archives: beerancher

Michelin Rated Honeybees

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A look at French Laundry’s inspiring organic garden and Honeybees in Yountville, California.

Brand Foreman here. I’ll start this blog entry by stating that I love my day job! I’ve been fortunate enough to be working on a design project up in Rutherford, CA in the heart of Napa Valley. So recently I’ve been up in the area taking note of popular destinations in the region. In my note and photo taking wanderings I stumbled into The French Laundry. Of course I had heard of it (if you have not check the link) but I really had no idea exactly where it was. Wandering the main drag of Yountville found me walking right past it.

No I did not drop in for a bite to eat, but I did wander across the street to take a look at their organic gardens. What struck me as most interesting about them is that these are not gated or barb wired off to the public. They are actually set up as if to invite you to walk amongst them – and I did! So inspiring to check out and to think that the fruits and vegetables from these gardens go directly onto the plates of a 3 Star Michelin rated restaurant.

And who do we owe a great deal of thanks and respect to for this wonderful organic produce? Sure Tucker Taylor and Aaron Keefer (< whom I chatted with while there – a friendly lad) are the gardeners responsible for taking care of this wonderful plot of productive soil. Sure the chickens are cool, they “cluck” and probably supply some good fertilizer. What caught my eye and that I think deserve a lot of the culinary accolades are the Honeybees from their onsite bee hives.

Just think, no honeybees, no organic produce! What a bland tasting world would that be like? I think Thomas Keller just got chills up his spine! Honeybees clearly play a critical role in what makes French Laundry, French Laundry.

Have you dined at French Laundry or seen their gardens? Tells us about it, Foie Gras and all!

Humboldt Honeybee Heroes

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Marla Spivak and Brian Gross doing their part for honeybees.

Hey folks, Brand Foreman here. In the spirit of full disclosure, I must state that I am a graduate of Humboldt State University (’89 – ’94 / Art Major w/Speech Comm Minor) and proud of it. And yes if you do your math right, I was on the (5) year plan. I received my Alumni Magazine recently and was pleased to find Marla (Class of ’78) and Brian (Instructor of Economics) written up.

Humboldt State is a fantastic Liberal Arts school located in Northern California that churns out very passionate students and retains phenomenal instructors. I thought it might be nice to share their honeybee focused write-ups with you all. Enjoy.

These are obviously courtesy of HUMBOLDT, THE MAGAZINE OF HUMBOLDT STATE UNIVERSITY / SPRING 2012

Click on images to enlarge.

An additional link to information on Marla Spivak can be found here:

The Hive Diary / PART 3

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Our Bees have been busy!

Mike came over to our house in the East Bay last week to check in on the hive. I made sure that I was there to capture the moment. I wasn’t sure what kind of lens I should shoot with thinking my telephoto might be good from a distance. Mike cautiously assured me that I would not need that. I’m happy to report that he was right. His observation of many of his hives have been that the bees have pretty mellow so far (you’ll note he is not wearing gloves during this check).

Mike took off the lid of the hive which show cased some “burr comb”. This is comb the honeybees have made between or on top of the frames. In order to maintain the hive properly this “burr comb” needs to be removed – typically scraped off with a special tool. If you are lucky, there will be some honey in it to taste.

Mike checked the frames and said the hive was very healthy and looked to be productive. He added a second Brood Chamber on top and went on his way. If all goes according to plan, Mike thinks we may extract some honey in August.

I really enjoyed seeing the inner workings of an active hive first hand.

Bees “Across the Pond”

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The Honey Club is a great organization located in the UK.

When first getting involved with The Bee Ranchers I did a lot of research on other companies and organizations that were similarly looking to help the honeybee population. Of course I started really looking locally/regionally. In doing so, it was not too difficult to stumble upon other organizations outside our region, across the United States and even within other countries and different continents.

One in particular that caught my eye was The Honey Club. An organization that summarizes it’s agenda as follows:

The Honey Club is a social enterprise that aims to create the biggest bee-friendly network in the world, starting with our local community in Kings Cross, London. Our mission is to save bees, learn more and give back.

We like the sound of that and based upon their blog, looks like they are up to some interesting things over there – plus they are based out of a kick-arse design firm Wolff Olins. Give them 5 minutes of your time and learn how they are making a sincere effort to better support honeybees “across the pond”.

http://honeyclub.org/about

We’ll be sending them a hello and thanks for their efforts which in turn, will hopefully show them that their message and network is growing globally!

A great event!

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Mike Vigo, Ranch Foreman, gives a few observations on the recent showing of “Queen of the Sun, What are the Bees Telling us?” in Alameda last week.

It was a great turnout! Judging by the amount of movie goers who showed up, the plight of the honeybee is important to many people throughout Alameda and the East Bay.

A lot of people asked how they could support honeybees? You can help out the honeybee in many ways; by planting “bee friendly” vegetation, supporting your local beekeeper by buying local honey and having a backyard hive! Here is a great resource for identifying the right plants for a bee friendly garden:

Urban Bee Gardens

There is always a “silver lining, in every dark cloud”. The recent malaise of the honeybee has energized a ton of research and worked to help better understand why the bees are disappearing and that is a positive step forward.

Thanks to all who turned out to support this event sponsored by Alameda Marketplace. It was a pleasure to meet all the folks I spoke with that night and it was great to see Alameda’s supportive, honeybee loving Community!

Did you make the movie night? Did you enjoy the event? Tell us what you thought!

For more information on the movie, click HERE!

The Queen

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A recent repost from our Facebook page.

Ranch Foreman snapped this shot while checking one of our client’s new hives. There are a lot of bees in this shot but one is not quite like the others! Can you find her – the Queen? Drop us a line with your guess. We might even give something away to the first person who guesses correctly! Who is it gonna bee?

This Thursday evening the 26th!

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A special screening of “Queen of the Sun, What are the Bees Telling us?” a film by Taggart Siegel. The Bee Ranchers is proud to support Alameda Marketplace and the special screening they have set up for Bay Area honeybee lovers. The showing will take place at Rhythmix Cultural Works in Alameda. Click HERE to learn more about this important film.

Image from film and courtesy of film makers.

The Hive Diary / PART 2

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The Bees have arrived!

Our family has been waiting for this day for a couple of weeks and it did not disappoint. There was the nagging question that went through my mind several times, “What does a package of bees look like?”. The pics below answer my question.

An interesting little wire encased, cage-type box with a canned food-like lid is the answer. Supposedly there are roughly 6000-8000 honeybees in a package. This was the first package that Mike dropped off. The pic above shows his truck with the back full of 47 packages of bees! Lets do the math on that…

…282,000 – 376,000 honeybees, destined for good homes and the great honeybee habitat of various locales of the Bay Area! Many are headed to Alameda, while others have further to travel throughout the Bay Area.

For now, the package of our bees have been placed in the hive as you see in the picture below. The reason being, Mike will come back later this evening to “hive” the bees. Evenings tend to be a good time to “hive” bees as they are not prone to immediately leave the hive to forage and disrupt the colony’s new home.

If you are curious what they sound like packaged the way they are (I was), I describe it in this way, take a ice cold coke, pour it into a glass with ice and listen to it bubbling. Kinda sounds like that!

We’ll report back to you all on our new colony once they have been hived.

Custom Hive Stands

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If you did not know it, we at The Bee Ranchers handcraft our own hive stands. Learn more about it HERE.

Every once in awhile we’ll be approached by someone to make a custom hive stand. These are fun projects for us as it allows us to be a little more creative and a lot more collaborative with our clients.

Recently friends of ours inquired about developing a custom hive stand. They had an old sewing machine stand they wanted to utilize and we worked with them to make it a reality. Very creative idea and one we are proud to have assisted to make a reality! A real piece of garden art!

Do you have an idea for a custom hive stand? Contact us and perhaps we can help develop it with you.