What a year! We’ve been so busy since July that we’ve had little spare time to update the blog.

Here’s a recap of the 2009 beekeeping season at Bee Thinking: In April this year we started 8 horizontal top bar hives and 12 Warre hives throughout the Portland area as well as at three wineries: Cameron, Sokol Blosser and Lachini. 20 packages and numerous swarms populated the hives, ultimately reaching a peak of around 25 hives.

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The past few weeks we've been slaving to finish our 170' fence to enclose the apiary space, as well as create a safe area for our new dog -- an Australian Shepherd we're rescuing from Idaho Falls, Idaho -- to romp about. This week we'll finish the gates and we'll finally have a beautiful space to host bee classes and wonderful parties.

The first sections being built:

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As many of you know, when my wife and I purchased our home it came with an ancient willow tree in the backyard. Shortly after moving in we had an arborist inspect it and learned that it was rotten and required removal. As they were cutting it down they found a honey bee colony inside and I had them leave the remaining phallic tree standing in the yard for months until I had time to deal with it.

A few weeks ago, due to a number of circumstances, we had to get the remaining tree down, hive and all. I piled mulch up at the point where I expected the hive opening to hit the ground. Thankfully, as the tree fell, the hive opening landed directly on the mulch, leaving the bees unable to escape for 20-30 minutes as the rest of the wood was removed.

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