I am the World’s Worst Beekeeper, for sure. The only part of “keeper” that I am not so bad about is that I actually do proudly in fact, keep bees (Did, till 2009, Ed.). And that should count for something when the average age of most beekeepers is in the upper 50s and I am still comfortably in my thirties (Was, this was written in 2007. I am now in my fifties!). Never mind that I began to keep bees last millennium when I was still in my 20s and that I have not made much progress in the whole scheme of things.
And unlike many beekeepers, I am not a retired Navy man or engineer, so I do not have the same camaraderie I would, in say, a circle of midwives or herbalists. Oh, well. I love honey with a passion, and as a mother of three, and a Wonder Woman fan, I am ultimately intrigued with the bees’ society of virtually all females.
A bee colony (or hive) is essentially an intentional community that yields a fantastic product, and with little use for males at all. Everyone knows their job from birth on, and barring natural disasters such as insects or weather, they faithfully carry out those jobs unordained. Beekeepers claim to “help,” but mainly their job is observation. Honeybees do not need us but a fraction of how much we need them.
Over three-quarters of the food, we enjoy in America could not be produced without the pollination services of honeybees, and the food that is pollinated by honeybees, it will not produce good flavor or seed unless it is visited several times.
We noticed this in a few of the 15 watermelons we grew this year. Most of it was very sweet and full of flavor, but a cantaloupe and later watermelons produced must have been missed by the bees a few times due to rain or tight schedules, and consequently, the taste was insipid and lacking…it looked like a melon, but did not fully taste like one. A bummer, but it made me thankful for the earlier delicious cantaloupe and other fruit that had been more bzzzy.
If one is lucky enough to be inducted into beekeeping by joining a regional beekeeper group or by reading “the Beekeeper’s Year” by Sue Hubbell, you will inevitably be infected (or seduced) with enthusiasm and share in the fascination with these winged angels.
My personal reasons to begin keeping bees were that I thought local honey would be easier to obtain if it was in my own backyard. And if I had local honey it might serve to reduce the symptoms I’d suffered (like many people I knew) for years with Springtime allergies.
I am not reduced to ingesting drugs every Spring any longer, so I think local honey has helped some, but it could well be that my move slightly to the north reduced the bloom-time of the oak trees, in particular, that cause me such distress, as lovely as they are.
I learned one year that I will have to go to where there are no oaks (such as Belize) if I wish to avoid the annual ritual of alternating stuffy/runny nose, coughing, and total and utter exhaustion for most of the month of May. The one year I played hooky my body’s response was divine. I mean, we are talking 1/12 of my life in which I feel not fully human or alive. So, back to the beekeeping rationale…
Anyway, I have not harvested much more than a gallon for each of the few years I’ve spent building hive bodies, installing package bees, feeding sugar syrup, tending, and moving. I’ve endured swarms and possible absconding by my bees, but I cannot give up this addictive hobby. (On hiatus for now, but NOT giving up! Ed.)
It may be the fun of assembling pine and cypress hives in a slightly chilly barn before the Beekeeper’s year officially begins (here that means Poplar bloom in April) or the mixing of sugar water for bee’s dinner. Maybe its pressing sheets of sweet-smelling beeswax into the hanging frames, choosing unique colors to paint the boxes, or just watching the girls return with balls of pollen on their hind legs after their foraging trips that range from anywhere between feet to five miles for the benefit of the Greater Good, which is their hive.
It is estimated that it takes 3-4 bees’ entire lives to produce just one teaspoon of honey. Even more impressive than that is that to produce their 1/3-1/4 of a teaspoon of that honey, those bees will each travel the equivalent of three round trips from California to New York, a distance of over 6,000 miles. That gives a whole new meaning to “high energy” food!
Watching a skillful beekeeper is more than smoke and mirrors; to avoid getting stung or disrupting the hive, it is best to open things up in the middle of a completely warm and sunny day. On those types of days, bees are happy, many are out foraging so they are generally not defensive. Even if they are irritated, there are fewer in there to make the beekeeper’s job difficult.
Only recently have people become more aware of the humble honeybees’ economic effect on our culture; Colony Collapse Disorder caused senators to take the cause to Capitol Hill earlier this year (2007), and now there is even an animation flick with the voice of Jerry Seinfeld called “Bee Movie.”
I’ve suffered slight self-esteem issues year after year when I declined to harvest honey, but this year, I know more people that are keeping and observing bees and have determined that even if I get no honey, I am providing a civic service and valuable pollination for the flower farm we’ve just started.
We are happy to hear of more people taking interest in this fascinating (and challenging) hobby; now I am in an interesting position of finding homes for a local former beekeeper’s supplies. I am pretty sure that by sharing my stories and donning my hideous makeshift Tyvek bee suit and veil that other curious locals will decide to order packages of bees from Georgia next Spring and that we’ll be able to empty our friends’ shed of the vacant hive, and put them into good service once more.
Who knows, maybe one of the newly-initiated will share their honey with us, and we can all keep buzzing around here.