Brackney - Plan Bee: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Hardest-Working Creatures on the Planet

2009 by Susan Brackney

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or otherwise be copied for public or private use, other than for fair use as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews, without prior written permission of the publisher.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual wellbeing. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781848504035 in Mobipocket format

ISBN 9781848504042 in Epub format

The happiness of the bee and the dolphin is to exist.
For man it is to know that and to wonder at it.

Jacques Cousteau

This very nearly couldve been a book about chickens. See, Im big on self-reliance, and I also happen to have a soft spot for soft creatures. So, after countless trips to the Rabbit and Poultry building at the county fair, I was set on having my own flock of hens. And not just any hens. I would have absurdly fancy ones like the Polish silver lace. Its bouffant of black-and-silver feathers looks like a ladys expensive, overwrought hat. Or I might choose those rather overdressed, buff-colored Cochins wearing their unruly, feathered pants and matching, feathery shoes. Not only would I collect their eggs, but I planned to sneak out to pet them from time to time as well.

To realize my dream, I bought a tiny house on a half-acre lot just outside of town, but the ink was hardly dry on the paperwork when the city annexed my little patch of paradise. Id never paid much attention to the goings-on of local That was the start of a series of events that, once set into motion, would turn my chickens into honeybees.

* * *

Eventually, I adjusted to life without chickens. Having an enormous garden helped. I sought out the old-timey vegetable varieties that my great-grandmother and her mother and even her mothers mother mightve grown. I grew scads of snap beans, black raspberries, and greens. There were zinnias as tall as Danny DeVito and, enormous and purple, the heirloom tomatoes, which, when sliced, looked a lot like raw beef. (Fortuitously, they were as off-putting as they were delicious, meaning I wouldnt have to share.)

It used to be that most peopleat least in Indiana, where Im fromkept hives of honeybees right alongside the vegetable patch or the home orchard. My grandfather and great-grandfather did. I have a 1930s snapshot of the pair of them leaning over a small hive amid tall grass. Wearing straw hats, long sleeves, and overalls, theyre poised to grab out one of the honey-filled frames. When he was just a boy, my own father, some fifty feet away, would watch as they cut out sections of comb, dripping with honey, to bring inside. Fresh honey was a given then, and beekeeping wasnt yet a dying art.

Howard Goodin Sr. and son check their bees. Authors family photo

Partly to pay homage to that more self-sufficient time, I thought I might try beekeeping myself someday. A hive of bees would likely pollinate the heck out of my fruits and vegetables, I reasoned. Besides that, Id heard that honeybees were running out of natural habitat and that managed honeybees were losing their graying keepers, who were passing away before passing on their specialized knowledge. I took a short night class on beekeeping to see what it was all about. Thats when I realized Id need quite a lot of expensive equipment to get started. Between the citys red tape and my modest means, it looked like Id have neither chickens nor bees.

* * *

We never really know what impression our words have on others, but apparently, something I said about wanting to keep bees really stuck with my friend Michael. Lucky for me, he is both very generous and compulsively drawn to yard sales. Luckier still, a beekeeper Id never met fell deeply in love with a lady who was allergic to bees. The pair got married, and not long after, he held a yard sale that included his hives, honey extractor, smoker, veils, gloves, and back issues of Bee Culture magazine. It was all easily worth thousands of dollars, but he sold the whole lot to Michaelwho happened by at just the right timefor a song. I was puttering out in my garden when Michael called me with the exciting news:

MICHAEL: Hey, do you still want to have honeybees?

ME: Yeah... Why?

MICHAEL: Because youre a beekeeper now!

Set aside the infinite spoonfuls of honey, the batches of homemade mead, and so many sweet-smelling beeswax candles and soaps, and I can still say the honeybees have brought an extraordinary sweetness to my life. As I idly watch them fly from flower to flower and from flower to hive, I realize theyve managed to slow my previously frenetic pace, to make me more appreciative of the workings of the universe, and to return me, at least a little bit, to simpler times. As you get to know the fascinating, persevering, life-affirming honeybee, I hope all these things for you, too.

Ah, but no longer. I am proud to say that our city fathers eventually agreed to allow residents to have up to five hens, as long as ones surrounding property owners approve.

I am, at a moments notice, ready to remove the odd swarm of wild honeybees dripping from some old ladys porch light. As such, the local animal control department has me on speed dial, and each time Im called, I happily pile my bee veil, spare hive boxes, and bee smoker in the trunk of my car and get going. But I cant tell you how many times Ive arrived at someones house expecting a bounty of bees clinging to that porch light or some high tree branch, only to find a stream of yellow jackets pouring out of a shiny hole in the ground. Each occurrence is bitterly disappointing. Fortunately, Ive wised up. Now I ask a few key questions before I bother to come out. Among them: Do the insects you have look really shiny with bright yellow and black? Are they nesting in the ground? Do they seem rather aggressive? And when people answer, Yes, yes, and yes! I give them the bad news. Probably just yellow jackets. But theyre stripey! they often protest. Um. It takes more than stripes to make a honeybee, honey.