Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Why bees?

I've heard this question a lot from folks - what got you interested in Beekeeping? I had never thought too much about bees (except when I was a kid and enjoyed flicking Bumblebees off of flowers with my thumb and forefinger - great fun when you are a 6 year old), until I was living in an apartment that was the second floor of an old farmhouse. My roommate and me would hear things in the wall and assumed we had a chipmonk or maybe a family of field mice. Then one day I came home to find my bedroom door closed (something I never did) - I opened the door and it was quite dark in the room - again bizarre since it was daytime - a nice bright sunny day - and I wasn't in the habit of closing the curtain. I started to walk over to the window to open the shade and realized that it wasn't the shade blocking the light - it was thousands of bees. I figured they wanted to get out (and I have to add that I wouldn't mind them being on the other side of the window as well) so I walked over and opened the window. They didn't seem to mind that at all!

So, I called the landlord, he called an exterminator (who was quite sad to kill them but the landlord wanted the cheapest way out). Apparently the bees had taken up residence in the wall of the house and had eventually opened a small hole in the ceiling of my bedroom - they came pouring in - my roommate saw this happening and closed the door to at least keep the bees isolated in that room and then couldn't get out since the window was closed. The exterminator mentioned he didn't want to be there come summertime (it was spring) because without the bees to keep the honey cool he was envisioning a big mess. I moved out shortly after so don't know what ever happened, but that's when I first started thinking about honey bees.

So I kept saying, when I get a house I'm going to get a hive. Well, my first house would have been good, but I spent 3 years renovating it (after evicting the family of Raccoons - another story) and I soon sold after the renovations were over. My second house was in a city on a 6,000 sq ft lot - I know - you can have bees anywhere, but I tend to be an introvert and hate conflict so I didn't want to deal wth neighbors complaining. So, last fall I moved into my third house - on 2 1/2 acres abutting a state park - perfect! So, about 12 years after my first "unofficial" hive I now have my first "official" one.

Bee Dummy Kevin

5 comments:

Mark said...

Kevin:

It's nice to see more people getting involved in beekeeping. I will be interested to see how your adventure unfolds. I am in Eastern Ma. You can see my blog at www.capebeekeeping.blogspot.com


Mark

Seth Anderson said...

There's book for dummies who love to keep bees that takes on an easy step-by-step approach to beekeeping. Detailed photographs illustrate how you can install the bees into your hive, how to assemble the hive, how to harvest honey, and many more. Though the book explains beekeeping in a very basic manner, as expected from a Dummies guidebook, it covers a very wide range of topics that also include information about the bees from their biological structure to their behavior as a society. Visit this http://www.safebeekeeping.com/beekeeping-for-dummies for more info.:)

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

That was an interesting story. Most people who would be faced with swarming bees would be terrified and panic.
It's great that you made your dream come true and become a beekeeper.
Not only does it make you happy but at the same time you are helping combat the decline of bees.

http://www.beekeepingguidelines.com/beekeeping-clothing/ said...

That was an interesting story. Most people who would be faced with swarming bees would be terrified and panic.
It's great that you made your dream come true and become a beekeeper.
Not only does it make you happy but at the same time you are helping combat the decline of bees.