Confessions of an Impractical Beekeeper

I believe that “Crush and Strain” is a method of harvesting honey, not a model for a relationship with your bees.  I believe that there’s more to harvest from a hive than honey.  I value pleasure over profit.  I’m an impractical beekeeper, and proud of it.  I’ve always been attached to my bees in a personal way.  I’ve helped my daughters carry back worn out foragers, smiled with pride at a wave of soon to hatch brood, and waged a private war with the wasps.  My investment has always been more than the dollar value of the wood and the wax.  My hives are bound together with emotion as much as propolis.  I don’t bother with standard equipment or keep standard bees.  They might be Italians or maybe Ethiopians.  I treat them with the same care.

I know professional beekeepers, good folks.  They work hard at the business and work their bees hard too.  They combine hives without mercy while I feed and plea.  While I plot vengeance against each mite in the hive the big guys note their levels and plan to replace the colony when it dies.  I asked a pro once how the queen in a particular hive was doing.  He smiled at me and said “Well, the bees aren’t dead yet so she’s probably fine.”  I know my queens well enough to recognize when they’ve been superseded.  Pros split their hives like cutting a deck of cards and I count out brood cells, they screen the bees in and leave, I usher in the stragglers and drive in the dark.  I asked the pro if he missed the chance to watch his bees, to know what was going on in each hive. He shook his head.  It’s not practical to worry about a single hive when you’ve got a thousand, he said.  So I don’t want to be practical.  I won’t be practical.

I’m a hobbyist beekeeper and that is ok.  I don’t want to grow to the point where I can’t stop to ponder. I’ll never harvest a thousand pounds of honey but I’ll bottle a hundred with pleasure.  You won’t find me in the almonds but my apples and cherries will flourish.  Did you say there is foulbrood in one of my hives? I think you meant “mildly offensive brood,” and they’re just brood, I can still train them.  Ok, so foulbrood has to be dealt with. I’ll do it but I’ll do it with sadness and regret the loss of a colony that’s somewhere between a possession and a pet.  Every once in a while the voice in my head says they’re just insects.  Then I beat it into submission and go back to watching the bees.  I’ll invest my time and energy, materials and emotion as I see fit, without worrying about dollars and sense.  Let others collect the problems and prizes of going big.  I’m harvesting wonder, and it looks like this year will be a bumper crop.