The Bees and Me

Enlarge Image Image Gallery This 14-year-old raises honeybees in downtown Baltimore!  © STEPHEN MCDANIEL

This 14-year-old raises honeybees in downtown Baltimore!

I've shared half my life with honeybees. For seven years, my family has kept bees on the back porch of our second-floor city apartment. Even though we live in the city and may have as many as half a million bees busily flying in and out of our 12 hives, the peaceful insects seldom bother us or our neighbors.

Beginnings

The love of beekeeping is contagious: You get it from other beekeepers. In our case, it was my grandfather who first caught "bee fever" and then spread it to the rest of our family. Grandpa learned the skill in order to increase the production of his country orchard and garden. (Bees pollinate many fruit and vegetable crops. Indeed, the pollination services of honeybees are so valuable that many farmers rent bee colonies to fertilize their crops.)

Many people don't want to deal with honeybees because they're afraid of getting stung. Honeybees are really quite gentle. They sting to protect their home or to retaliate when someone swats at them, but, usually, if you don't bother them, they won't bother you. When a bee starts flying around you, just stand still, and nothing will happen.

Honeybees get their bad reputation because people often confuse them with yellow jackets, members of the wasp family. Yellow jackets are nasty! They can sting repeatedly, so they feel free to attack any innocent bystander. Honeybees can sting only once, so they restrain their tempers. In fact, yellow jackets eat honeybees! What did I tell you? Nasty!