Bee Bandwagon

Honey produced by the bees that live right here on the farm

Bees are, like, so totally in right now.  If you’re an eco-activist 20/30-something, who lives in a soon-to-be-gentrified urban neighborhood, wear skinny jeans and you’re something of a food snob, than you better have a beehive on the rooftop of your apartment building. Although Derek and I actually fit most of those slightly embarrassing qualifications up to last year, we had yet to jump on the bee-bandwagon. So although we're a little late to the party, I'd like to announce that we love bees too!

There are eight beehives scattered around a couple of sites on the farm we live on. A while ago I had the pleasure of observing our bee keeper add a new group of bees to one of our hives that did not survive over the winter. The process was fascinating.

First, we had to do some cleaning.

You can see in the picture above that we have taken a bunch of frames of honeycomb out of the bee box. The bees don’t care that the frames are blackened from use or even that mice may have eaten holes out of the framed honeycomb. They will reconstruct it all like new this year.  We do scrape off areas with chunks of a substance called propolis so that the frames will fit more securely into the hive. Propolis is a secondary product made by the bees. In the photo below you’ll notice that the wood frame looks like it has a golden varnish.  

This varnished look was achieved through the application of propolis by the bees themselves! They manufacture this substance in a process similar to making honey, but instead of using flower nectar, they use sap from trees. (That last part just blew my mind). And then they apply the propolis to any areas of the hive that they want to make more secure. They also use it for its antibacterial properties. If they think a part of the hive is susceptible to disease for some reason, maybe mouse droppings, they will cover that area with the propolis and the hive will remain healthy. 

After the cleaning we put the hives back together, and added the bees to an empty box below so that they could find their own way into their new home.

Another interesting fact I learned is that honey bees are not native to North America. They were brought over by the European settlers. Apparently Native Americans called the honey bee the “white man’s fly” because the honey bee’s movement westward across the continent always preceded the inevitable arrival of Europeans.

Over the course of the afternoon I learned a lot from our enthusiastic bee keeper, but I was also surrounded by flying, buzzing bees the entire time. So, as I was doing my best to concentrate on all the knowledge she was providing, I was also attempting to conjure my absolute most Zen countenance. I thought that, if I was very peaceful and unafraid, the bees wouldn’t bother me. And they didn’t. After it was all done I felt a bit of a rush, as if I had just performed some dangerous act! I suppose hanging out with some bees is as exciting as I need life to get.

I learned so much that afternoon, that I cannot possibly fit it all in tonight. And I also need to save time to put up some more ridiculously cute lamb photos.