I'd heard a lot of good things about Corky and the Ballard Bee Company, an urban beekeeper who was doing a lot of education as well as maintaining some 150 hives through Seattle. They allow people to "host" a hive, as well as sell most anything you'll need to create your own. Corky even talked about driving down to California in April to get the queen and worker boxes this spring.
We went there. Obviously. *laughs* I needed some supers that weren't just the deeps because I don't think I could lift a deep if it were completely filled with honey, like those frames from the last inspection were like. And Mann Lake sells the unassembled boxes and frames for an eight-frame medium super, and after a flurry of exchanged phone calls, I found out that the Ballard Bee Company stocked those and could sell them to me! Since we were driving, it would be no shipping for me, even with the Washington sales tax, I'd save a good deal of money.
So we made it over there yesterday, and it's just out in a neighborhood, and when we were close, I saw the enclosed truck with bee boxes inside and said, "That's it!"
And it was. He was in the garage putting together 150 deeps for an order, and running around while it was still sunny working his hives. The weather's been phenomenal while we've been here, clear, sunny, and in the mid-80's, unusually good weather without a cloud in the sky. Corky was in the garage on a phone call, so we looked around in the front yard, and there was a handcrank extractor that he lends out to people.
When he was done, he was great, friendly and really informative. He got all my pieces together, lamented having broken down all his boxes the day before or else he'd be able to give me one. He gave Jet a honey stick, and showed Isabel a capped frame of honey that they were going to extract later. There was a tall stack of supers that they'd taken off hives already in preparation for extraction. He asked some about how the Colorado keepers had been doing, and was happy to hear that both the Southern Colorado Association and the Boulder County one was doing quite well with lots of members, though he was interested in the fact that both associations seem to be picking up a lot of people like me, just hobbiests trying their hand at it for the first time.
He said that the beekeeping there is very different than here, as in Washington a lot of the problems just come from the constant rain and damp. That the wood just rots away if it's not painted, and Nosema is a much much bigger problem around the Pacific Northwest. I'd have to suspect a fungus would be far more of a problem in the constant damp.
This year's been good so far, but they're just out of their swarm season, so things have slowed a little, but that stack of supers was good news so far for the summer. It was great to get to just talk with him for a bit, and I'd highly recommend him for mentoring, his classes, and his equipment to anyone in the Seattle area looking to start with this beekeeping thing. He seems super experienced, and really cares about his hives, which was really cool to talk with him about. I never knew what 50 pounds of sugar went for before.
We now have a nice cardboard box that John found in the recycle here and all my parts are neatly packed to come home. They're beautiful, fragrant cut pine, with handles on all four sides, and look like they'll do just fine on my eight-frame setups. Jet, John, and I will have a fun puzzle to put together when we get back.
