Tag Archives: Honeybees

Beetography 2

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Hey folks, Brand Foreman here with a quick apology for being a bit thin on the postings as of late. Work and Summer have been keeping me quite busy. So I thought I’d get back into the swing of things with some solid Beetography! In case you’ve forgotten what Beetography is click here. Enjoy the images! The first two are from my garden, specifically one of my tomato plants.

Thanks to Andy Scheck of the Lamorinda Weekly for use of his images #3 and #4 and always big shout out to JP Lowery for use of his beautiful images #5 and #6.

The Hive Diary / PART 4

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Super Time!!!

Mike, Ranch Foreman, came by the house late last week to do a check-up and determined that it was time to add the next two components to our thriving hive. He placed on the Queen excluder and the first medium super or “honey super” (Anatomy of a Hive). It is the top box and thin metal sheet you see on the pic below.

Up to this point the hive has been primarily working to sustain itself through the development of comb, honey and brood. With the addition of the Queen excluder, the honeybees can now travel up into the “honey super” and begin to build comb and make honey. Excluding the Queen from this area means that no brood or larvae will develop just leaving pure comb and honey! Whoooooo-hoooooooo!!! So excited.

So two important things to think about that are coming up in the not too distant future:

FIRST  > What kind of extraction party do we want to have? After all, this is a very fun and interesting event for those who have never witnessed honey being extracted. Just family? Neighbors? Good friends? Kids from Preschool?

SECOND > What will we call our own honey and what will our label look like? Surely we’ll be passing honey out to friends, family, neighbors, business associates, and we’ll want to come up with our own unique name and label. So far I’m liking the name “PLAFAYEZ GOLD”. More on name and label for a later post.

Lots of exciting and sweet things right around the corner!

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: