Lamorinda Bee Project

Written by Rhys and Sloan Pullen

Hello Lamorinda! We are very excited to be launching our Lamorinda Bee Project thanks to Sustainable Lafayette and their LEAF grant. My name is Rhys Pullen and I am a Junior at Campolindo High School. This is also Sloan Pullen, an eight grader at JM in Moraga. We have been backyard beekeepers for the past five years and can’t wait to share what we have learned about bees.

Our project goals are to show how easy it is to have a beehive, inspire others, and help save the bees. We will be hosting a public hive that we will manage and use as a tool to educate the public. Throughout the seasons we will demonstrate the different steps to having a successful beehive and at the end of the year we will harvest honey.

At our first meeting, we will open up our hive and explore the different components that make up the hive: brood chamber, honey super, telescopic cover, and queen excluder. We will give the community a chance to see the different tools, gear, and other supplies we use. From veils to hive tools, we will go over what you need to support a beehive. We will cover how bees are struggling and how the bees are at risk right now. Everyone is welcome to come explore the hive as we open it to give the hive check ups throughout the year.

In the fall we will inspect our hive to see if we can harvest the honey. During years when there is a drought, there is not as much foraging for the bees, this results in a less successful honey harvest. We always leave a few frames of honey for the bees to survive during the cold and hopefully wet winter months. If we have a honey harvest, we will invite the public to come watch how honey is processed. It is a magical experience seeing it for the first time. We plan to sell jars of the honey to continue to fund the project for ongoing costs in the future.

The community can check our progress via our instagram account @lamorinda_bees as well as see how the journey is going with our public beehive. We are so grateful for the grant we received and can not wait to get started on educating and involving our community on how to run a beehive!