The Reluctant Beekeeper

Twenty years ago, (I can’t believe it’s been that long) I set my daughter up with a bee hive for her sixteenth birthday.  We were living in Wisconsin at the time and the “Bee Man’s” name was Mr. Combs.  He and his wife were known as the Honey Combs.  He was an enthusiastic teacher and my daughter did well with her bees.  She loved her bees and they knew it.  She was confident in handling them.  In those early years she didn’t even have a complete bee suit.  

Our first efforts at harvesting honey were pretty messy.  She would bring the boxes near the house and I would hesitatingly carry them inside.  Megan would uncap the honeycomb and scrape it into a pot.  Then we would gently heat the honey to melt the wax and eventually be able to skim off the wax and bottle the honey.  

We soon learned to cover the kitchen floor with plastic.  No, don’t use newspapers! The paper and honey mix is hard to clean up.  

One year we had the sad harvest of less than a quart.  I can tell you it’s a lot of work and mess for a single quart of honey.  Other years we had gallons of honey from the same two or three hives.  Weather has a lot to do with honey production.  If the summer is too dry there are fewer flowers and the bees are stressed for pollen and for water so they produce less.  Megan kept up with the process and I loved having an abundance of good raw honey to use in the kitchen.  

When I decided to move to Maine we sold the bees.  Initially, Megan wanted me to move with the bees in the van.  Just picture that.  There I would be driving down the interstate in a bee suit.  No thank you.  I was most relieved to find out that there were heavy regulations about moving bees across state lines.  Phew! That was probably the only time I’ve been so grateful for state regulation.  

Megan has kept bees most of the twelve years we have now lived in Maine.  I got a little more involved in the years she was in college but not much.  I remember the first spring, still in Wisconsin, when I had to buy new bees because ours had not survived the winter.  Now, I am convinced that fear of anything other than displeasing God most high is just sin.  So there I was with a wooden and screen box about the size of a shoe box and filled with agitated bees.  My job was to open it up and take the little central cage with the queen out, remove the cork holding her in and replace it with a small marshmallow.  Then I was to place her little cage in the center of the brood box.  Nothing to it I suppose unless, like me, you have a real “sin problem” with fear of bees.  I stood there hyperventilating, sweating in the cool March air with snow patches still on the ground.  I wondered if I would be found later having fainted and then killed by honey bees.  Crazy thoughts I know.  I wanted to be a good mom and get Megan’s bees going for her.  I also wanted to be anywhere but where I was and the bees surely knew I was not the beekeeper.  It all worked out in the end and I gladly welcomed her home for the summer  

So now we are living in Central Maine.  A few years ago we took a break from the little homestead in order to give more time and attention to my parents.  We covered the garden with black plastic and culled out the old hens.  The bees either left of died.  I was pretty quick to go back to the garden and the flock but Megan announced she was done with bees.  I gave it another year thinking surely it just needed time.  No change.  Another year and another.  I wanted honey and I didn’t want to pay the price in dollars.  I finally came around to the understanding I would either have to pay in dollars or in changing my thinking.  The latter won out.  

Megan did agree to mentor me and she has been patient and helpful.  I learned to really appreciate the little bees and their ways.  I no longer hyperventilate at the thought of opening the hive.  So I am on my way.  

This has been a very unusual year with a severe drought, but what hasn’t been unusual in 2020?  I’m letting the girls keep all their hard earned honey.  I will have to feed them this winter as well.  I am now the not so reluctant bee keeper.