Let me start this blog off by tipping my hat, or should I say bonnet, to all the beekeepers out there. This job is not for the faint of heart. I respect you all a great deal and want to say a big thank you for risking the sting to get the rest of us common folk our honey. Seriously, you are my honey heroes.
With that being said, the question is posed. To bee or not to bee? When I started out exploring this possible venture, I felt I would 100% start The Cheeky Peony Wellness Farm with these beautiful fascinating creatures. Having them there from the get-go seems ideal, right? They go hand in hand with the garden and you get your own fresh honey. Sure, all of that is true. But don’t let these cute little honey making pollinators fool you. They are an elaborate community of wonder and aww, which only makes beekeeping that much more complex. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t walk into this thinking it was going to be super simple and a hands-off operation, but the intricacies involved are downright overwhelming and possibly too much for the initial stages of the wellness farm.
Let me take you on the adventure with me. I met a friend of a friend, who I would like to claim as my friend now. With that being said. After bombarding my new friend, Nancy, with a million messages, she kindly facilitated a visit to see the bees. As any good beekeeping student would do. I reached out on Bee Eve (sounds so ominous, I could’ve just said the night before, but Bee Eve has such a good sound to it, doesn’t it?) and inquired as to what I should wear. I was given my dress code and also a warm inviting message from Nancy’s husband, Jason, whom I’d be working with. “Tell her she’d better bring her brass balls, if she comes tomorrow”! Sounds like an adventure to me!
The next morning, I pulled out my tallest boots. Logic tells me tall boots tucked into jeans make it more difficult for sneaky bees to infiltrate. My tall boots happen to be my cowboy boots which then require the ole steadfast “sturdy” Wranglers (which at this point have only been worn a total of 2 times). This all probably seems like useless information to you at this point, and you are probably wondering what random road of irrelevant details has she wondered down now. All I can say is just file it away and enjoy the ride.
Once I arrived with my brass balls in tow. I am given a fun little beekeeping suit to wear in order to protect myself and my metallic companions. I am zipped up, hooded up with a mesh face shield, gloved up and then finally duct taped in at the wrists to prevent the bees from finding a hide-e-hole and climbing into my fortress. Let’s get this party started!
Fun Fact: After mating, male drones die. They have at that point, served their purpose.
I began watching in astonishment as Jason handled the bees. They had just brought back bees from Texas and were splitting the hives. This sounds simple in theory, right. Just grab half from one hive box and move it to a new one. Bam you now have two. Well, there were many, many, many things he was looking at to make sure he was moving the right ones, and I would absolutely LOVE to regurgitate all that information for you. But I am telling you right now it was downright a LOT of information for this newbie.
As he moved through the motions I got to jump in and help handle some of the bees, I learned they very much dislike their hive to be rattled, pounded on or tapped on. They get all sorts of riled up. It’s insanely disturbing feeling them ram into the mesh face shield. All the while I’m telling myself, you’re protected, you’re ok. But little by little I can feel the brass shrinking.
Fun Fact: Skunks are honey bandits, and they will knock on the hives to get the bees to fly out and away from the honey and then reach in for a tasty handful of sweetness.
The more we worked with them, the more they got fired up, and then all of a sudden. What the hell? Ouch! I got stung on the side of my face! Oh no! I began to run down the hill to get away from the bees, when again another sting to the other side of my face. I started to panic as I’m trying to free myself from my fortress that no longer offered me safety. But what fresh hell is this? I can’t get my hands out, they’re duct taped in! Crap, crap, crap! I’m now stuck with my sleeves half inside out and my hands trapped. When seriously?!?! Sting number three lands upon my neck. I eventually calm myself and free my hands. I climb out of the get up and shake everything out the best I can. While shaking the suit I may have seen a couple small metallic marbles, drop to the ground and roll away.
Fun Fact: The Queen Bee gets busy and mates with several males at the beginning of her life collecting and storing all the sperm she will need over her lifetime, over 5 million sperm. Once she runs out of sperm, she is killed and replaced.
I gather what dignity I have left and climb back into the suit. I don’t quit that easily. I head back up the hill and jump in again to help. I was able to continue to assist for a while, though I could feel the burning of the bites and could feel the timidness taking over. As I was gathering a box from the flatbed, I bent over and here’s the part where that useless information from earlier comes in. Those so-called sturdy Wranglers, not so sturdy. This just became the cheekiest of my blog journeys yet.
On a little more serious side. I was able to meet up with this amazing beekeeping duo and hear so many stories and learn so much more information. Though I still hold the dream of having bees on the wellness farm at some point. Realistically, I feel like it will make the most sense to get some of the more basic items established first. I am over the moon to know these two and grateful for their patience with me and their generosity in teaching me and allowing me to take part. As well as tending to my stings with the tried-and-true baking soda pack. Please take some time to check out their website, www.missdshoneybees.com. Keep tabs on them, they have some new exciting things in store that you won’t want to miss out on.
