mostly the bees

A little more about the Bees

 and a few birds

       I went into my plans about what I am going to do with the bees and why I am getting into it and today I will let you know how my bee buying went and the how and why of where I am going to place my hives here on the farm.

     The man I bought the bees off of lives just a few miles away and is president of the Tuscarawas County’s Beekeeping association, I found out after visiting with him at his place. He said he has about fifty hives and he was able to give me some pointers specifically how to introduce your bees to their new home. This I will go into after I get closer to the day when I actually receive the bees, which won’t be until May 9 when the truck arrives from Georgia as I believe is where it is coming from. He will have over 500 bee cages and said he could use some help unloading, if I can. I plan on being here to lend some support to him.

     I ordered enough bees for two hives I bought and that amounts to about 10000 bees / per hive as I understand 1 lb. of bees usually has about 3500 bees in it and timely placement of the bees in your hive is important as the less time you wait to introduce them to the hive, the sooner your bees will settle down and become less stressed resulting in less dead bees. Bee deaths appear to seem inevitable and even in the hive, bees are dying off and others are replacing them constantly. But in a bee box the stress of being moved can result in an abnormal amount of bee deaths quite quickly. I need to have my hives placed in their permanent position and ready to accept bees the day I get them and as soon as I can begin to place them in the hive.

     In the meantime I plan on refreshing myself and trying to remember back to the days when I was able to work with bees. The first encounter I had working with bees was when I was visiting a friend of mine years ago in 1977 when I was going to college at ATI , Agricultural Technical Institute , in Wooster. At the time I was visiting Malabar farms where Louis Bromfield a novelist had this farm where movie stars like Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall would come and visit. And Louis although dead had written of beekeeping and it was a part of his overall agricultural practice to keep and maintain hives. My friend was the care taker there when it first started up and his girlfriend Bonnie was the beekeeper that invited me to check on the hives one day while I was there visiting. She dressed me up with a veil and found some gloves that about half fit and warned me that if a bee lands on you don’t swat it in fact try to remain calm and as she will remove them off when she is done. And if stung try to resist swatting them. I was never stung anytime I ever worked with bees and at times had thousands on me.

      She smoked the hive and it creates a calming effect on the hive, it seems as if it takes longer to get the smoker going than to actually get in the hive and observe. It wasn’t long till she had pried the top of the hive off and was separating and viewing the inside trying to show me the queen. At this point I had accumulated quite a few bees and I was amazed as the shirt I had on was to short and my arms though exposed was vulnerable to bee stings but the bees were not stinging , just curious I guess as they clung to my skin in droves now. In fact my arms and were soon covered in a blanket of bees as she reassured me that it must be something about me that was making them come to me like they were. She told me she always knew I was a sweet guy. After finding the queen and showing me certain things she simply told me to lightly brush the bees back into the hive, and although my arms and upper body was covered in seconds they were back in the hive with a little help from the smoker. We closed the hive and soon opened another with the same response. I always thought what a symbiosis that occurs here with man and a beneficial insect that we have learned from them and gave them a home and in return they pollinate our crops and provide us with the fruits of their labor. They do all the work we are not capable of doing and yet have found a way to get along.

     Again I had a similar experience a couple of years later as I met a girl whose dad was a research engineer with Goodyear Aerospace who just happened to be into bees himself and owned several hives and was willing to show me a few things. We did view the hives and many times without anything but a veil and a hive tool , but he also showed me how to harvest the honey using an extractor and a bee capping knife to remove the top of the comb and then place the comb into the extractor and filter the honey into jars. There is no special processing you have to do and the honey, once processed and placed in clean jars will last for years. My time with Mr. Chisnell was unforgettable as he was quite a brilliant man, and we seemed to hit it off as friends. I guess he figured if I was going to hang with his daughter I might as well know something and he never hesitated to explain the bees and other facets of life including engineering to me.

      Beekeepers are a little more in touch with nature and understand the importance the bees have in our society. To say these people are a little out there is a misconception as in some ways I feel they are more grounded than the most of us. I guess if the bottom drops out of everything it might not be a bad idea to have a beekeeper as friend. We all could all use a little sweetening now and then.

     Although I do have limited experience and you have read the extent of it, I feel with the books I have and a couple of hives I am off into a new adventure that hopefully will yield me honey and a better understanding of life in general. if nothing else will hone my survival skills as if I will ever need them in my lifetime. Who knows?