What's All The Buzz?

Another of my all-consuming interests is honeybees. I am completely fascinated by these amazing and productive creatures, and if you have ever studied the inner workings of a hive, you know what a perfect system of operation it is, and where the phrases “worker bee,” “busy as a bee,” “she’s a Queen bee,” and many other such idioms, quotes and proverbs, all bee related, come from. So, you can imagine how excited I was when we finally had the opportunity to attend an all-day meeting of the Midwestern Beekeeper’s Association recently, something I had longed to do from halfway across our country, for several years now. We arrived at 7:30 a.m. sharp for Registration and prepared ourselves for an all-day immersion into the local bee world!

As I had expected, the meeting was chock-full of information on topics such as biology, acquiring your bees, placement of hives, colony management, diseases and pests, extracting the honey, and many more. I felt like I was in college again and loved every minute of it! As I looked around the sold-out room, it was interesting to note the many people in attendance, ranging from children of around ten or eleven years of age with “bee scholarships” from the Association, to grandparents and everyone in between, all sharing a distinct passion for the honeybee. It made me feel good inside, and it made me feel happy for the future of honeybees, to see so many people in attendance, eager to assist them in multiplying and navigating modern day challenges.

A day or two after attending the meeting, I was reaching out to local beekeepers in order to obtain our first packages of bees when, as luck would have it, a local farmer friend mentioned that a neighboring beekeeper would be relocating to Seattle later this Spring and will need to rehome her hives. We readily agreed to help out and will be acquiring our first two established hives in the next couple of weeks. In preparing a place for them in a bright, sunny spot near one of our flower gardens, we will try to do our best at being good landlords for our new, hardworking tenants. Hopefully, if we do our job well, we will have our first small honey harvest sometime later this year. There is a lot of time in between then and now though, but in the meantime, we will make sure we take you along on the journey. Until next time.

K.