Honor Among Bees

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Though bees themselves aren't demanding critters, occasional visits to the various yards are always necessary to check for damage caused by vandals, varmints, or wind. (High winds can wreak havoc on our insects' modest abodes. And, when this occurs, the bees are usually angry enough to warrant our wearing full-dress uniform ... complete with bee veils, gloves, and smokers.)

These "emergencies" seldom happen, though. Mostly, a visit involves little more than a routine visual check of the landing board while we watch for the indications of a happy, active hive. (We know, for instance, that the queen is there if the workers are busy carrying pollen to feed her brood.)

Of course, there are busy periods, These begin in early January when we check each hive's food stores. Sometimes a colony runs low and must be fed. We always check them a few weeks after that initial "inventory", too, and place antibiotic patties between each hive's two bodies ... to lessen the chances of disease.

And, by the first of May, when our new "mail-ordered" queen bees arrive, our labors begin in earnest. It's then that in order to increase our colonies—we have to separate the old hives and take a few frames of brood and honey from them to start new ones. We place a new queen in with each nucleus ... and hope all goes well.

Stings? Sure, we almost always get a few, and sometimes we even wonder if beekeeping is really a magic formula for the "good life". But, after the rush of spring chores, it's time to prepare for the honey flow that will begin once our bees have used the early production to feed their increasing numbers ... and we always become re-convinced that we've chosen our occupation well.

Then, come autumn, we spend several weeks extracting the honey from our hives. The nectar is carefully stored in 60-pound capacity buckets ... which only cost us about a dollar apiece at the local quick-food restaurants and can be used over and over again.

All of these chores—plus bottling and labeling— make up the bulk of our duties.

We figure that—between us—Hank and I spend an average of eight hours a day on one phase or another of bee craft. But Hank says (and I agree) that one good man could do what we both do in about half the time.

However, now that our equipment is about at the level we want—and the hive population is large enough to supply our highway stand's demands—we don't plan to increase any further. Consequently, our business will require less time and money in the future.

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