Guest: Anna Mudd
I met Anna Mudd via Instagram and forged a friendship before I realized she was grafting the very queens that end up in my hive. Eventually, I got to meet her in real life at the apiary where she works, from where I bought my hive. 

Anna Mudd is a queen bee grafter. 

The queen bee of a hive is essentially the mother. And there can only be one mother. If two queen bees hatch simultaneously, they will fight to the death until one remains. 

Every bee colony is as dependent on the queen as much as the queen is dependent on the colony. But if she fails, the colony becomes fragile. And sometimes, a beekeeper finds themselves needing a new queen. Or not able to wait until the colony raises a new one.

And here is where people like Anna Mudd step in–people whose job it is to raise queen bees. Multiple queen bees. Hundreds of queen bees, in a process that manipulates the colony into raising more queen bees than they would otherwise make. 

Using special frames–and I’ll segue here. A frame is a reproduction of a natural bee colony structure where under natural circumstances they draw out honeycomb and beekeepers use this natural process and map it onto a structural element made out of wood or plastic that can can fit into a man-made hive box. This is called a frame and bees draw out honeycomb on it. The frame can then be removed for inspection or honey extraction. 

These special frames have multiple pre-manufactured cells that resemble the shape of a queen cell. When they are filled with young larvae and moved into a hive, the shape of the cells signal to the worker bees that the larvae within are meant to be queens. And the workers, in turn, will feed the larvae royal jelly throughout development so that they mature into queen bees instead of worker bees. And then they cap the cells with beeswax. About one week later, the queen bees will emerge. 

Raising queen bees requires not only a steady hand but an acute awareness of time, making sure to remove the frame of multiple queen cells before hatching so that they can then be nurtured separately for sale. 

Anna works for Golden West Bees, run by Eric Oliver. Their queen bees are sold all over California and beyond.

Her work is, to say the least, detailed. She identifies and then moves tiny 3-day old larvae, smaller than a grain of rice by hand and, as you’ll learn, by mouth, into these manufactured queen cups. Her job too, is seasonal–queen bees are not raised year-round, they’re raised mostly during Spring due to the limits of what constitutes good mating weather: temperatures in the 70s and 80s. And we talk a little about what it means to be a seasonal worker and why Anna chooses to do what she calls “gig work.”

You’ll also hear Anna mention Randy Oliver–Eric’s father, who founded the business and now does full-time bee research. Randy Oliver is a respected bee researcher who publishes monthly articles in American Bee Journal and is a popular speaker when it comes to bee biology and how to help bee colonies fight varroa mites. 

The varroa mite–incidentally, is an external parasitic mite that attacks and feeds on bees and weakens them, leaving them vulnerable to multiple viruses. Varroa mites are seen as a vector, and many posit that they are the root cause of what has been called Colony Collapse Disorder. In 1993, they arrived in California, and have been the bane of beekeepers and bee colonies since. Because of varroa’s dangers, mite management is of utmost importance–and they’ve made keeping a hive alive for more than a year, or through the winter, a sad bragging point. They’re about the size of fleas and they are deadly if left to increase in population within a hive. 

The queens Anna Mudd helps raise are also bred for varroa mite resistance, a focus of Randy Oliver’s work, and one of the things for which he’s most well known. Anna’s work has a huge impact, even if it’s seasonal and largely invisible to the world.

Which leads us to the topic of the invisible work done by so many in the world. Who are the people behind the scenes? Anna’s other job experiences include underwater barnacle remover for boats. A truly invisible job in which something unseen is removed while unseen. Why do she and others choose this work? And what are their dreams? What are Anna’s dreams? Let’s take a listen.

Bio:
Anna Mudd (she/her) lives on unceded Nisenan land, known as Grass Valley, CA. She is pursuing licensure as an electrician and filling her pantry with local and foraged home-canned foods, herbs, and spices. Find her art and anti-capitalist living on Instagram @muddhands.


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Anna Mudd’s Instagram