It's been probably ten years since I've kept the little buggers, and will probably be a couple more before I can do it again. Today when I walked out the back door by the apple tree in full bloom, I noticed the bumblebees having a field day on the blossoms, flitting from one to another with their loads of pollen and nectar. There was also the occasional yellowjacket, but where there should have been hundreds of honeybees, I could only find one. I am grateful for the yeoman's job the bumblebees were tackling, but they're no match for that tree.
Roy Overturf was a member of the church I pastored over thirty years ago. When I knew him, he was an old man, and from the time he was a boy, he kept bees, but had to give it up when he suddenly developed an allergic reaction to their stings. No matter how well one suits up, stings are a part of the job, and the day he found himself lying on the ground unable to move, was the day he realized his apiary days were numbered. We often talked about it, and one day he showed up at my door with a hive and a swarm. I was hooked, and kept a couple hives for years until one spring the colonies died.
Honeybees are fascinating critters. There is discussion in scientific circles as to whether instead of the individual bee, the colony should be considered a single living organism. Separate a honeybee from the colony, and it dies. I should say "she" dies, since the colonies are almost exclusively female. The males, or drones, serve only to fertilize the queen, and once that job is done, they are driven from the hive. All the workers are female, a fact of which my wife is not surprised. They don't hibernate in the winter; instead, they cluster around the queen, without whom they cannot survive, moving slowly through the hive vibrating their entire bodies to create heat, and eating the stored up honey that enables them to keep the colony warm enough to make it through the winter.
One summer when Nathan and Matt were in their early teens, I decided to check on the colonies out behind the tool shed in the backyard. Nate and Clayton, one of his buddies, decided to watch from the roof of the shed, not exactly the smartest thing they'd ever done. I had decided to see if I could slip what's called a queen excluder in between two of the hive bodies, and had hoped to be able to do it quickly enough that I could manage without the smoker. Smoking the bees settles them down while you're working on the hive. Usually, anyhow. I pried off the lid, and the bees came boiling out. You can't blame them; you'd be mad too, if someone ripped off the roof of your house. Nate and Clayt had the smoker with them on the roof of the tool shed, and when I looked up, they were dancing all over the roof, puffing that smoker till I could barely see them through the fog.
You know how on the old cartoons, Wile Coyote would run off a cliff with his legs pumping the air? I've seen that scene played out in real life, as both boys literally ran off the roof, striding through the air and hitting the ground running. Nate dove into the swimming pool in our backyard, while Clayt headed for the house. Linda was in the kitchen, and turned around just in time to see him frantically stripping off his pants, slapping his legs, and dancing up and down.
I miss the bees. They are fascinating to watch as they fly in and out of the hive, and there is nothing like local honey for taste and nutrition. It's even good to rub on cuts, since the sugar content is so high that bacteria can't grow in it. But honeybees are in trouble. It used to be that the hobby beekeeper could tend the hives in the spring, check them once or twice in the summer, and harvest the honey in the fall. But new diseases have devastated colonies all across the country, putting the industry at risk. So many of our crops depend on the pollination these little gals provide, that the decimation of the honeybee colonies could trigger catastrophic damage to our food supply.
I am grateful for these little creatures whose importance to our economy and very survival is far beyond their size. And I am looking forward to the day when I've got our little portion of God's green earth whipped into shape enough that I can once more enjoy the luxury of working with them. It will be my small contribution to our agricultural well-being, and my large contribution to my own well-being. Until then, the bumblebees will have to suffice.
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