by Victoria Taylor

Created on: February 24, 2009   Last Updated: February 26, 2009

Last spring we decided to try our hand at establishing a colony of pollinators, namely bees. We spent months researching the subject: hive design and placement, breed characteristics, hive management, etc. Who knew? I'd always innocently assumed that bees were bees were bees (honey bees, we're talking here) and that nature would take its course without human intervention. Boy, was I wrong!

After studying the different bee varieties that are recommended for our region, we settled on Russians. They are a small, dark honey bee with an incredibly docile temperament and are reasonably disease resistant and heat and cold hardy. They manage the size of their hive in response to environmental circumstances (food sources and seasonal temperatures, for example) ensuring that they don't over-populate the hive only to lose critical members during a long, cold, food deficient winter.

Among the other bee varieties that we considered are the highly popular Italians. (These are by far the most commonly managed honey bee colonies in our region of Northern California - unofficially recognized as the nation's Honey Bee Capital.) While Italians are valued for their disease resistance and quick hive building, they regularly over-build their hive and lose copious numbers of their colony during the winter.

The Italian bees also have an interesting habit: they are robber-bees. Rather than put the work into collecting pollen, nectar and water to support the hive and queen, they will seek out other wild or managed hives, gain entry and steal the honey that the workers have so diligently produced and stored. It takes a lot less work to steal and store honey than it does to make it from scratch (comparable to buying a loaf of bread or making it by hand), which contributes to all the free time these bees have to turn their attention to more social matters.

My "tongue in cheek" approach to farming has made this aspect of my environmental education fodder for a lot of chore-time daydreaming: a little "Beeztro" decorated with pictures of the queen above honeycomb stools where warmly frothed honey overflows tiny cups; lounging "beeznessbees" relaxing over "beezness news;" you get the idea. "Eet eezzz so much beiturrr to take zzzen eet ees to maik!" (No offense intended!) Yes, I have too much free time.

In any event, we check our hive each morning to ensure that the neighboring Italians and Italianate wild bees do not gain entry into our hive. Our little Russians set up sentries that stand guard

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