by Ryan Parker
Special to The Weekly
Things are really buzzing here at the farm. I feel like I can really bee myself. Life is sweet. The puns really just write themselves on this one.
The day for which I’ve been waiting several months (plus some years before that) has finally arrived. This morning I took a short drive up to Hampden to the home of The Bee Whisperer (Pete Cowin) and picked up my honey bees.
Not until I met The Bee Whisperer and took his beekeeping for beginners class did I get a clear understanding of why my top bar hive failed me. Bees need to move too far from their cluster (heat source) to get food (stored honey) in a top bar hive in the winter. In a Langstroth hive their food is above them and the heat of the colony rises.
I loved having bees the summer they thrived in my top bar hive and was pretty devastated when they died that winter. So I spent part of this past winter building my own Langstroth hive.
Then I got busy with gardening stuff and before I knew it last week rolled around and I learned my bees would be available for pick up today. Over the past week I’ve spent every spare minute painting and putting foundation into frames. I’m not very good at that yet so it takes me a while to get them lined up and seated properly.
A few last-minute purchases such as a veil, gloves, helmet, smoker, hive tool and foundation, all of which arrived in the nick of time, followed by a couple days of frantic bee video searches all led me to this morning. I discovered online that the cheapest fuel for a smoker is punky wood and pine needles. Works great! However, as I experienced when I had bees in a top bar hive, the smoker ended up not being necessary.
As long as you don’t move too quickly and don’t do anything stupid like start squashing bees or swatting at things, they really don’t care too much that you’re in there. I had my veil and gloves to be sure but really they seemed pretty indifferent.
I dug through my old bee stuff and found the feeder I had made to fit in the top bar hive and set it by the entrance with some sugar syrup which the kids help me make.
Even if we don’t consume a scrap of honey from this hive it will be worth every penny spent and every second of work I put into this effort. Why? Well, for one thing, bees are entertaining. More importantly, the pollination in my garden this year is going to be spectacular. That was something I was able to perceive when I had bees before. The summer squash and zucchini in particular seemed to thrive the year I had bees and fell flat the next season when they were gone.
Eat well — bee well. (Last pun, I swear.)
Ryan Parker is a farmer, writer, artist and musician. He lives in Central Maine with his wife, two children, a golden retriever, some pigs and chickens. Read more of Parker’s blog “Eat Real” at bangordailynews.com.