神奈川県内は養蜂家も多数います．そちらであたる方がよろしいかと思います．県の畜産課等に問い合わせて，適当な方を紹介いただくのがよろしいかと思います．
A handful of people know this already, but, in March, for two weeks, I will be in Japan. I am sure my sister will take me to Hello Kitty Land (Sanrio Puroland) in Tokyo, but I am more interested in monasteries, castles and, of course, beekeeping.
With my sister's help, we have been trying to contact various beekeepers in Japan. One problem: language. My sister speaks some Japanese, but does not write kanji. I do neither of those at all. With the help of a friend of my sister's, we have a couple emails into beekeepers around Japan. No luck so far. I have, however, contacted 玉川大学ミツバチ科学研究センター (the Honeybee Science Research Center, Tamagawa University) and they were kind enough to suggest I try contacting the prefecture's livestock department (that is what the introductory paragraph of kanji says to do). That will be next - attempting to contact my sister's prefecture's livestock department (I imagine this is something akin to my county or state's agriculture department or office). The language is just killing me, though.
When I visited Finland a few years ago, the Finns have absorbed so many English words (and put a Finnish twist on them) that it was relatively easy to reabsorb their words and get at least an idea of what hell was going on; plus, everyone expect for the farthest outreaches in Lapland had people who spoke nearly perfect English. My initial dealings with people from Japan (both on this beekeeping project, and with my work life) are proving that there is a much sharper learning curve to get past for both sides of the language equation.
I am getting excited for my trip to the Far East; good food, snow monkeys, shogun castles, shinto monasteries, giant buddha, mountains, and of course Sanrio Puroland. If the beekeeping in Japan project does not pan out, I am sure I will still have more than enough to occupy my two weeks.
We are in Troy, MI, at the moment; attending Michigan Basset Rescue's annual fundraising event. We left Minnesota at 3:30 AM CDT yesterday morning. Across northern Wisconsin and into Michigan's upper peninsula, we rolled across the Mackinac Bridge nine hours later. Upper Michigan has the same look and feel of far-northeastern Minnesota - very rural, paved roads but mostly single lanes, scenic overlooks, and poor cellphone reception. It is very pretty in that rustic, pine-bog way - comfortably familiar to those of us who grew-up and continue to live in the boreal forest region of the upper midwest (see Taiga).
Here, in lower Michigan, it is more low, rolling hills mixed with farmland and deciduous forest. Near the hotel, I spotted a black walnut tree (and empty shells). On the hotel grounds, all the flowering crab trees are in bloom - complete with their wonderful smell.
Before leaving Minnesota, much had to be done with the bees.
During the winter, when planning out this season's bees, I had planned out eight new hives. The two at the house were still doing well, and so, we were not going to have do anything new with them. One of the two at the house failed to make it through winter (as I have mentioned on this blog before). I put in a second order for a package of Italian workers with a Russian queen.
Last week, one of the newly installed packages of eight at the Ahrens' bee-yard, swarmed. This left down one package. However, the second order of a package of bees was arriving on this past Tuesday. That would suffice for the Ahrens' bee-yard, but it still left us short one hive at the house.
As it would have it, Theresa, of Fifth Avenue Farm, in Rice Lake township, in a bit of a panic, ordered a new Italian queen. She was worried that one of her new hives of Carniolans was in the process of beginning to swarm; she could not find the queen. I stopped out at the farm on Tuesday after installing the package at the Ahrens'; The queen was there (see bee photo), and the rest of the hive was working hard to bring in nectar and pollen - not getting ready to swarm.
This left Theresa's Italian queen still arriving on Thursday. We settled on the idea of making a split of the Italians that wintered over successfully and using Theresa's queen.
In between packing for the trip to Michigan, we began to get things ready for the queen's arrival. Mixed a pail of sugar syrup; loaded dog crates into the truck. Cleaned out a hive deep, selected four drawn frames of wax; loaded luggage and miscellaneous hound gear.
We had never made a hive split before. For those unfamiliar with this concept, it is basically take a number of frames with bees, comb, pollen, honey and all that from an existing, strong overwintered hive and putting them into a new hive with a new queen.
With the truck mostly packaged, and the arrival of the Italian queen in its fancy "Beeware!" box from the postoffice, it was time to get a split made and the queen installed. The donor-hive was stronger than I had thought it was be; three hive boxes full of bees, larvae, pollen, and honey. From being a struggling hive last May; needing to be requeened because of no queen and a drone-laying worker. We even combined the hive with a feral hive shortly after last season's requeen.
The split went well, and it is a just a matter of seeing if the queen and workers mesh well once the workers free the queen from her candy-cappedcage. We will have to check once we return to Minnesota.
Back here in Michigan, senior-hound, Gertrude, fell ill. She was lethargic, refused food and was running a fever. Luckily, this being a large gathering of dogs, there was a dog-doctor in the house. A visit from the doc, a few pills, some homeopathic treatment, and Miss Gertrude is doing better. Her fever broke, and she ate dinner; now she rests and sleeps.
Including Jay Cooke State Park in the south, and Grand Portage State Park in the north, there are nine parks along (or very close to) the northern shore of Lake Superior. During the winter months, Lake Superior, the regions up and into its tributaries and its shore all have a certain elegance and harshness about them. While some folks try to escape the ice and snow of the region - heading to places where the sun shines during the month of December - I would rather take advantage of fewer people and a chance to see some of the North Shore's highlights in a different, physical state.
