Long Beach Beekeepers

ALT Long Beach Beekeeper Bill Lewis prepares to pour five gallons of fine honey into the tank. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT Some of us more expendable club members tested the beer recently and are pretty sure it won’t kill you. The finished product will be clear and more carbonated than the beer in this glass, poured straight from the tank a few weeks ago. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT A student dips candle wicks into hot, liquid beeswax repeatedly to build up small birthday candles. Two cans of liquid beeswax sit in a couple of inches of water. A bright red cast iron pot has been pressed into service as a double boiler. The student is dipping both ends of an inverted U of candle wick, to make two candles at once. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT Three students are totally focused on stirring a few drops of essential oils into their lotion, to give it a pleasant scent. The woman on the left looks at the tabletop, out of frame. The man in the middle holds his jar of lotion in one hand while stirring it with the other. His companion watches the process closely. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT Plastic tubes full of lip balm mixture cool and solidify on the table. A couple of empty tubes are visible at the upper left. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT Instructor Jennifer Duke laughs with two Gifts from the Hive students as she fills a jar with lotion. Jennifer, in her trademark blue shirt, stands and the head of the table and the students sit on the right. The table is littered with various supplies and accessories: A couple of mixing bowls full of lotion, completed birthday candles, and tiny bottles of essential oils. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT Two Gifts from the Hive students make a food wrap. Only their hands are visible, on opposite sides of an ironing board. An aluminum foil baking pan holds beeswax shavings which will be melted into fabric squares, impregnating them with wax so that they are flexible and reasonably impermeable. The student behind the ironing board holds a steam iron, which she is sliding across a sheet of paper she holds with her other hand. The other student holds the paper down on her side of the ironing board. The heat of the iron melts beeswax into the fabric piece sandwiched between two sheets of paper. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT A Gifts from the Hive student stirs a large glass mixing bowl full of lotion ingredients using a stirring wand with a wire whisk attachment. Only the student's hand is visible. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT UC Riverside Center for Integrative Bee Research (CIBER) graduate student Emilia Burnham, Nosema ceranae researcher, attends the 2024 CIBER Bee Health conference in pink high heel shoes, pink dress, pink jacket, pink N95 mask, and 2024 California Honey Queen regalia (sash and crown). Don't dream it, be it. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT Jeff Salcido (right, wearing cap) and Marta Vallez (right, on-brand and wearing white Long Beach Beekeepers t-shirt) talk bees with visitors (left) in the Bixby Knolls Expo Arts Center during the 8/2/2024 First Fridays event. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT A European honey bee (Apis mellifera) forages among yellow flowers in a low shrub, between 9,000 and 10,000 feet above sea level. The photograph was taken next to White Mountain Road, on the way to Schulman Grove and the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest Visitor Center, 8/30/2024. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT A European honey bee (Apis mellifera) forages among yellow flowers in a low shrub, between 9,000 and 10,000 feet above sea level. The photograph was taken next to White Mountain Road, on the way to Schulman Grove and the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest Visitor Center, 8/30/2024. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT A European honey bee (Apis mellifera) forages among yellow flowers in a low shrub, between 9,000 and 10,000 feet above sea level. The photograph was taken next to White Mountain Road, on the way to Schulman Grove and the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest Visitor Center, 8/30/2024. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT Un instructor de Apicultura 101 sostiene un marco de colmena cubierto en su mayor parte por abejas. Traducción de Israel Romero. Foto de Jacob Dickinson. Was that difficult to read? Tell your Spanish-speaking friends! They'll see something like this: Take a free beekeeping class in your native language! Sunday, September 29, 2024, 8:00-9:30 a.m. at the Willow Springs Bee Sanctuary. Details and registration at https://longbeachbeekeepers.org/event-5768292

ALT Alchemical apparatus: Black and white photo of a system of stainless steel tanks, electronic controls, metal steps giving access to the controls and the tops of the tanks, and other brewery equipment at Syncopated Brewing Company. This equipment was used to brew the Honey Bee and a Mango Tree honey beer. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT Gabe and Tanis: Sanctuary Manager Gabe Salinas and Treasurer Tanis Sugden pour Long Beach Beekeepers Sanctuary honey into a Syncopated Brewing Company stainless steel tank, to brew Honey Bee and a Mango Tree honey beer. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT Jennifer and Tanis: Past President Jennifer Duke and Treasurer Tanis Sugden pour Long Beach Beekeepers Sanctuary honey into a Syncopated Brewing Company stainless steel tank, to brew Honey Bee and a Mango Tree honey beer. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT Honeycomb in a wooden frame, as pulled from the hive. The translucent white wax shows that this comb is probably brand new, not previously used for honey storage. (As much as we like honey bees, we have to admit they don't wipe their feet when they enter the hive. The passage of many bees and their little bee feet darkens wax over time.) Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT Fort Knox was never like this! Students have carefully cut these blocks of honeycomb to size, to fit clear plastic containers. Smaller containers are more profitable, as they sell for a higher price per unit weight. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT Students cut these blocks of honeycomb to fit 8-fluid ounce canning jars. They will pour liquid honey all around the comb to fill the jar, making "comb-honey." Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT Retired professional beekeeper and avuncular instructor Bill Lewis explains it all, in artistic black and white. Bill wears a stylish full body ventilated bee suit and prepares to open a hive for inspection. (Or has he just closed it back up?) In the background, three students watch closely. In the foreground, a bottle of alcohol for Varroa mite testing and a smoker sit on top of another hive. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT All the activity has stirred up some of instructor Bill Lewis's Italian honey bees, flying around in front of their hive. Although relatively docile, these bees have a lot to think about right now. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT A student explains her innovative bee suit. I couldn't help but ask what the zippered wrist pockets were for. What do I normally have on my wrist? A watch? I wouldn't be able to read it much better if it were inside that pocket than I can right now, through the sleeve. My model explained that the pocket is for a magnet! The magnet, in turn, holds a hive tool where it is easily and instantly available. In the future we will all have these. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT Instructor Liz Kennedy shows a frame full of healthy honey bees to the Long Beach Beekeepers Beekeeping 101 class at the Zaferia Junction Community Garden. The hives are located inside a screened enclosure, forcing the bees to leave and return above people's heads. Students in white protective clothing fill the enclosure. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT A reddening pomegranate glows between the leaves. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT Roses with a light lavender hue cover a nearby rose bush. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT essica Webb discussing her work in the UC Riverside CIBER lab in fashionable CIBER t-shirt, holding a honey bee between left thumb and forefinger, and forceps in her right hand. The bee, if still alive, would rather be somewhere else. The lab tour was part of the 2022 Bee Health conference. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT Your humble narrator(white button-down shirt, waving Nikon around, eyebrows like angry caterpillars) and Raquel Ramirez (red shirt, holding the smartphone used for this selfie) at the 2023 UC Riverside CIBER Bee Health conference. To be clear, I'm the one on the left, Raquel is on the right. Photo by Raquel Ramirez.

ALT David Bowie and fuzzy honey bee friend, Belinda Bee, performing live at the Tower in 1974: Together, for a brief and shining moment, the hardest working pair in show business. Sadly, they only toured for three weeks before Belinda's wings wore out and she died. The few who experienced this part of the tour were fortunate indeed. "The Bs Live at the Tower 1974" created by Jacob Dickinson and licensed by the Long Beach Beekeepers under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/deed.en ). This is a composite of two other images: "David Bowie Live 1974 (cropped).jpg" from Wikimedia Commons, via picryl; Creative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0 Universal license ( https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ ). "IMG 6931 honey bee3" by Deviant Art user GoatDriver; Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ ).

ALT Cup o' Bees, or Some Must Die so Others May Live: Bill Lewis (right) has scooped out an appropriate quantity of bees for a statistically valid Varroa mite sample using the bright yellow mite tester cup in his right hand. He's about to pour the bees into the translucent part of the mite tester, in his left hand. As he swirls the mite tester around, the bees will unfortunately drown in an alcohol solution. However, any mites will also die, let go of the bees, and sink to the bottom of the mite tester. (The quantity of bees used is also a fraction of the number of eggs a healthy queen lays every day.) A student watches closely. Bill and the student both wear full bee suits.

ALT Jennifer Duke explains the skep, an inverted woven basket, sometimes placed on a base, and traditionally used as a beehive. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT George Garcia (left) gets animated as he and Paul Nelson discuss the Flow Hive. A Flow Hive super sits on the table in front of them, containing several precision-molded plastic frames which drain honey into headers beneath. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.

ALT Paul Nelson (left) and Bonnie Rice introduce three Honeys of the Month, from the club's 5/11 Honey Extracting and Bottling Workshop. The different honeys are packed in attractive glass bottles. Meeting attendees will be able to sample each one. Photo by Jacob Dickinson.