Blue Green Horizons

08/30/2026

Weather cooled and something bloomed as nectar and pollen coming in?

08/22/2026

Did you know that the US coin system has a built in measure.

In the U.S. coin system, clad quarters, dimes, and half-dollars are scaled by weight to equal exactly $20 per pound.

However a standard US nickel weighs exactly 5.00 grams.

Modern Zinc Pennies (1982–Present) coins weigh exactly 2.5 grams each.

08/19/2026

Cleaning up under the Hives.....

08/17/2026

Need to Stop Robbing ?

This works great!

08/15/2026

They had had too many swarms. We had removed one from an out building a few years ago and last year 2 swarms landed next to the shed.

So I set up a trap box this year. I told them to call me as soon as they saw bees in the box so I could swap it. I contacted them a couple of times but "nothing" they said.

I am collecting the last few traps now that the season is over so went and got it.

Had to bag it and deal with a major wax moth situation.

A swarm had moved in made 7 frames of comb and failed about a month ago it looks like. Some Drone cells where they shouldn't be.

How could you not notice several months of activity!

Luckily the moths hadn't quite started to emerge in numbers but a total mess inside.

08/11/2026

Californians, honeybees first made it here in 1853. That was thanks to a fellow named C.A. Shelton, who brought 12 hives from Panama to California.

All but one hive died before they reached their destination in the farm fields near San Jose.

So did Shelton, in a ship boiler explosion on the trip's last leg between San Francisco and the bees' final landing in Alviso.

08/08/2026

We are lucky here but many cities south of the Sacramento/Central Valley have need for a Emergency notification system for Africanized Bee Swarms....

08/08/2026

Tropilaelaps mercedesae is an invasive ectoparasitic mite of Apis mellifera (western honey bees) that has rapidly expanded its range to parts of western Asia and Eastern Europe.

An ectoparasitic mite of the giant honey bees throughout southern and eastern Asia, Tropilaelaps mercedesae, has jumped to the western honey bee Apis mellifera and expanded its range, most recently to Eastern Europe. This has rattled an already precarious A. mellifera beekeeping industry, which is g...

08/06/2026

The cats had informed me of an issue bright and early this morning as I was setting sprinklers. Three of them looking into a bush.

When I approached a small Hawk struggled and then took off landing on the patio. Trailing quite of bit of string and having a distinct right hook to the flight that was not going to work very well.

Grabbing my Swarm pole and adding a hook to the end (the one I use to shake limbs) I was able to catch the string and get a hold of the Young bird.

Wearing thick gloves I cut the "strings" and I was able to unwrap the wing and the leg from the one string that limited movement of both.

Gave it some water and placed it in a carrier. Will deliver to the raptor center when they open for a check up.

In a dark room for now.

08/06/2026

Well back in March I put a 5 plus pound swarm into the Open Comb Op Hive. As you can imagine that many Bees got busy.

I have had to split the hive twice and now they are rebuilding getting read for the Fall.