Honeybees Creating Buzz At Peninsula Library, Beyond

REDWOOD CITY, CA -- Emerson Nygaard, 4, peered into the cabinet in the Redwood City Library as though he had just hit the motherlode of all discoveries. Or rather, maybe it was the queen bee of all finds.

"He loves honey," his mother Cari Nygaard said, adding "bees" in general.

When the Redwood City resident explained bees wax to her son at the second-floor display, Library Director Derek Wolfgram pulled out a tube of Burt's Bees chapstick to demonstrate one end result of honeybees' hard work.

It's all in the territory for Wolfgram. The library had not only erected a thorough display to illustrate the importance of honeybees, it has taken the extra step out on its rooftop where hives are kept in boxes for a regional beekeeper to manage.

"There's quite a fascination here with people who use the library," Wolfgram said of the 152-year establishment in the converted, old fire station on Middlefield Road since 1988. Before that, the library was located where City Hall now stands.

"We thought this was a great opportunity for the library to make it educational and teach kids about bees," Wolfgram said of the display. The rooftop is off limits to visitors, with access to the stairs for library staff and Kendal Sager, the beekeeper. She processes the honey, takes half and gives the remainder to the library, which sold 35 jars on the first night of a fundraising drive.

Providing a place for bees started with the San Mateo Beekeepers Guild approaching the city a few years ago in its quest to find appropriate spots for hives to sit. The library complied and built special bee boxes Sager services from her Alameda home, where she hosts classes on the basics of beekeeping, what plants attract bees and how they collect food. See https://www.sagerfamilyfarm.

Sager lights up while talking about honeybees and endorses any plan to avert their demise.

Honeybee lifecycles swing with the seasons, in particular in respect to winter.

"We think we're raising people's awareness," the 32-year-old Los Altos native told Patch.

Sager knew as early as first grade that she wanted a farm, reinforcing that notion upon an elementary school field trip to Hidden Villa farm.

"I love all the little critters," she said.

Between Sager's efforts combined with the Peninsula beekeeper's guild, there's much to learn about the tiny, hardworking creatures. On the first Thursday of the month, the area build hosts a mini symposium of sorts. April's is titled "Honeybee Democracy," named after a book by bee researcher Tom Seeley. It's slated for 6:30 p.m. Trinity Presbyterian Church on Alameda de las Pulgas in San Carlos.

Sager expressed a lot of optimism about this spring's amount of nectar, the sugar-rich liquid produced by plants attracting pollinating animals. The resurgence of it represents a telling sign of how well the honeybee population will do come summer. And any uptick is welcome news for bee lovers who have endured years of declines.

For a few decades as early as 1987, honeybees have been threatened, with the average number of hives surviving the winter months dropping to under a quarter of them. In some locales, 40 percent of honeybee hives have been lost from "colony collapse," a trend scientists have studied for years. Two types of parasites share the blame, among other factors reviewed.

Desperate times brought reports of criminals stealing bee hives and ag growers arranging for bees to be shipped to their areas in order for farmers to maintain their crops.

But there's better news on the horizon.

According to a 2017 report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, an estimated 2.89 million bee colonies exist in the nation, a 3 percent increase from the prior year.

The jury may still be out on whether the honeybees are making a full-fledged recovery, but this year looks good to those who study them for a living.

With a reputation for its contributions to animal science, University of California, Davis has established a bee lab to monitor the honeybees year after year.

"It's been a really wet winter. We're seeing more bloom and hives on almonds. The bees are also making urban movement, driven by the rainfall. And yes, we're seeing more nectar," U.C. Davis bee researcher Bernardo Nino said.