A New BEEginning

It's May in Bemidji. Ice is still on the lakes. Snow mostly gone except in a few sheltered areas in the woods.  Sap season just ended and morels have not started to push their wrinkled heads above the leaf litter. To say the winter of 2013- 2014 was difficult is to pad the blow. Beginning in October and still trying to hang on into May we were savaged by wind and snow and unrelenting cold. We were forced to stay indoors; succumbing one by one to the fever of the cabin fever.

But let's go back to last fall and the end of beekeeping season. We harvested the honey, 120 lbs to be exact, an apparent huge success for first year bee keepers, so we were told, and then we vacuumed the bees out of the hives. This is pretty standard procedure for northern beekeepers. Vacuum out your hives and get new bees the following season. We were told the bees would not survive winter. Heard words like humane and common practice. We were told the bees would die instantly in the vacuum. 

Three hives of bees went into my shop vac. What came out was a pile of sticky, dead and broken bees. Many were dead but just as many were alive but broken or too sticky to fly. They walked away from the pile, crawled up blades of grass, climbed onto my shoes and one made it up Mike's pant leg for one final sting of the season. But it wasn't the last sting. The sorrow I felt, the shame, the complete disbelief and disappointment that this is the best way to "keep" bees carried  a larger sting far into the darkness of winter.

The inclement weather provided ample time for research. I began to explore alternate ways to keep bees. Minimally invasive, natural beekeeping free of antibiotics and miticides. Different breeds of bees and bees called hygienic bees which are stronger and know how to take care of some of the problems like mites; bees that can withstand winter were explored.  And every article about overwintering was read. I vowed I would do my best to get my bees through a winter.

 

Yesterday, my husband, daughter and two young grandchildren helped prep and paint three hives which were gifted to me. They also entered into a silent agreement to swim against the flow; to explore and learn and to succeed and fail in this grand experiment. They have agreed to become bee stewards.

Peace, 

Karen