Here is a story that I have recently come across on cnn.com: http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2011/11/09/most-honey-sold-in-u-s-grocery-stores-not-worthy-of-its-name/?hpt=hp_c3
     
      The basic synopsis is this:  as with most things, you get what you pay for when it comes to honey. Walking in sueprmarkets and seeing some of the insanely low prices for their honey has always made me suspect that something was probably amiss.  I was especially suspicious at how the labels for this honey seemed to consistently lack listing a place of origin.  Now researchers have proven what American beekeepers have always suspected: this cheap honey is most likely adulterated, foreign, and possibly even dangerously high in toxins since it is not scrutinized by our FDA. 

      Conversely, the researchers also proved that honey obtained from co-ops and farmers' markets is indeed genuine. So, it would appear there is yet another advantage for supporting the local markets in your town.  There is probably a beekeepeer selling honey that is actually honey, free of metal, sugar, toxins, or anything else that doesn't belong in it.

    What a concept.

A good friend of mine called me the other day from the parking structure of her place of work. She was very excited about this massive swarm of bees that was gathering on the back of a Ford Explorer, and she wanted to know if I could come out and pick them up.

     I was surprised to hear about a swarm occurring this late in the year, since, even though it isn’t unheard of, it is rather late for colonies to be throwing any more swarms. There really isn’t enough time for a new swarm to collect enough nectar to last thru the approaching winter, and there is even a classic beekeeping poem that illustrates this quite well.

A swarm in May
Is worth a horse and some hay
A swarm in June
Is worth a silver spoon
A swarm in July
Isn’t worth a fly

      
I wondered what the next line to the poem should be.  I took a try as I listened to my friend talk about this swarm.

A swarm in August?

I haven’t the foggiest…

     Still, I have nursed late startup colonies thru the winter by providing syrup for them, and I told my friend I was going to gather my equipment while she spoke to the building manager to arrange a proper call out to me. I also informed her that there must be a colony relatively close to this swarm gathering on the vehicle, and to keep a lookout. Ten minutes later, my friend called me back and informed me that there was, indeed, a rather large colony that had set up shop inside a wall on the property.

     I also learned that this hive was sprayed with pesticide on Saturday.

     My heart sank. This wasn’t a proper swarm after all, but a desperate escape attempt from a large colony that had been poisoned and knew that their home was now toxic. I had seen this behavior before, and have hived these swarms only to watch them succumb over the course of two to three days, as the poison slowly knocks them down. I was also furious, because such a thing isn’t necessary and can easily be prevented. While I am solely dedicated to removing bees alive, I am also a realist and understand that sometimes, bees can get themselves in places that simply cannot be broken apart in order to facilitate a live removal. Extermination, sadly, can be the only responsible action, but what had occurred was a travesty similar in nature and scope to a hunter who doesn’t practice his shot before going out for a hunt and ends up wounding the animal in the leg as opposed to hitting in the proper kill area.  Prolonged suffering is immoral and unethical in my view, and the more I learned about the situation, the more frustrated I became.

      Apparently, the company had called out exterminators to knock down colonies in this same location repeatedly. In fact, they had been out three times in the past two weeks. Something is very wrong with this picture. There are compounds that knock down the bees very, very quickly, and placement of this chemical is key to success. She also informed me that the same thing happened in the same place last year. The exterminator obviously didn’t inform the business owner as to how to properly seal the point of entrance to prevent the bees from coming back, nor was there any attempt made to remove the comb which provided a fully furnished apartment for any exploring swarms. It takes roughly seven pounds of honey to produce one pound of comb, so swarms are all too happy to move in to an old home already made and ready.

    It was a classic case of error upon error, and I asked my friend to give the company all my contact info, and I will be awaiting their call. I would appreciate the chance to at least give them a consultation to prevent such a thing from ever happening again. Let me be clear: if you do hire an exterminator to kill bees in your home or business, and they are back in the same location, you have been ripped off. This should never, ever happen. Steps were not taken to properly remove the comb that will attract another swarm, and/or the point of entrance was not sealed. Remember, all it takes is an opening 3/8th of an inch in a wall or a roof for a swarm to set up their new home. Even if it is impossible to remove the comb due to its location in a structure, everything should be done to ensure that nothing is able to gain access to it from the outside.

     It is my opinion that live bee removal should always be considered for any honeybee infestation, but I understand that there are a myriad of situations that may make this option impossible. I won’t deal with pesticides, but a reputable exterminator will utilize them like a skilled marksman and put the bees down quickly and mercifully, while doing what needs to be done to ensure the bees never come back to that same area. If at all possible, the comb should be removed as well. Untended honey comb has been known to create nightmares of its own as it drips or falls off the comb and soaks thru walls or ceilings, attracting rats, mice, ants and all other kinds of undesirables. 

    Hopefully, my friend’s employer will do what needs to be done to ensure that their bee issues are a thing of the past.

London isn’t the only place that has been subjected to looting and pillaging lately.  It’s going on right here in California as well, and a form of scarcity is to blame.  

     In any apiary in Southern California, leaving exposed honey comb available to the outside world at this time of year comes with a price; hundreds, possibly thousands of hungry foragers zooming in on your location, desperate for anything they can get.  After breaking open the lid to a hive and scraping some comb off one of the frames, some nectar got on my hive tool. I set it down on the hive next to the one I was working on, and in the 10 seconds it took for me to look back to it, I found it literally covered with bees.

    I thought that maybe the bees had finally wizened up and knew that I couldn’t open their hives without my hive tool. Perhaps they were all going to flap their wings at the same time and take off with it, dropping it into a big tree somewhere a mile down the road.

     But no, they were just acutely aware that there was nothing in blossom for a five mile radius, and desperate times call for desperate measures. If they can’t find nectar in flowers, they have no problem taking honey from their neighbors if they get the chance. Beekeepers call this “robbing”, and it is exactly like it sounds. The colonies shift their general isolationist policies into opportunistic looting and pillaging, and will suddenly bully weaker hives if they sense they are able to get past their defenses and get at the honey.

   This accumulates into a chain reaction, which multiplies in intensity with relation to how many hives are in a given apiary. In my case, I had ten in this particular apiary, and even though I worked quickly and kept a wet rag to wipe away any honey that came exposed, it wasn’t long until all the hives were engaged in battle. Foragers from each hive were busy trying to rob another, and each hive was desperately trying to protect their hard earned bounty from intruders.

    As one can imagine, this dampens the mood of even the most well behaved hive, and I found myself squarely in the crossfire. The bees seemed to say “HEY! Get him too!  Yeah, the really big white bee with the stupid hat. He’s most DEFINITELY a robber!”  Smoke only went so far, and I just did what was absolutely necessary with the bees and got myself out of there.

    Robber bees are not delicate in their approach either. They subscribe to the method of “smash and grab”, completely ripping away the cappings on honeycomb, leaving behind a scraggly mess in their wake as they take off with a stomach full of honey. Normally, each cell is opened with utmost care to its craftsmanship, but the robbers couldn’t care less. It’s not their home, after all. So beekeepers always know what is going on if they come to a colony with bits of wax cappings on the porch of the hive, and, perhaps, several dozen dead bees on the ground from bee to bee combat.

    So, it isn’t just humans that have the capability of being savages when times are tough. Bees are just as capable.  

      What can be exciting and thrilling is often times the same thing that is unpredictable and infinitely variable. In essence, that is beekeeping.  The joy of working with these insects is often rooted in a sense of surprise and wonderment.  Very little can be taken for granted, and they don’t read the books. They don’t know how they are supposed to behave at any given time or truly understand the rate of productivity they are expected to achieve by renowned scientists.  Quick case in point; I was told not to expect any honey harvest the first year of hiving a colony, since it takes so much energy for the colony to draw out the foundation into comb that will store honey.  My first hive never got the memo:  it produced more than 80 pounds of honey in a season, despite being told by everyone it couldn’t. I was scrambling to make enough boxes for that one colony.

      But there is also the dark side to this, especially when it comes to removing feral colonies from inside structures or high above in trees.  I have determined it is impossible to ascertain the extent of any colony until the material blocking its view is removed and the entire hive is exposed.  After analyzing data gathered from ambient heat readings, entrance activity, probes inserted to determine presence of comb, and, as always, an acute knowledge of how the books say the bees should build comb in a given situation, I have proceeded with a job only to discover just how much the bees refuse to comply with human logic.

  And then there is a chance this could happen:  http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktxl-bees-swarm-fair-oaks-neighborhood-tv-reporter-attacked-20110729,0,4290267.story

   Admittedly, the above is a constant nightmare I have, and I lose a lot of sleep from anticipating its possibility.  One of the first things I do when I assess a bee removal job is to determine the colony’s demeanor and temperament. I ask the customer questions concerning if anyone has been stung, and if so, how many times and how far away was the person from the hive.   Then, after I take the time to determine that there isn’t anyone within eyesight of the colony, I tap around the entrance in order to see if there is any reaction.  Still, tapping on a wall is decidedly different than taking a damn air chisel to it in order to break way the stucco and one never knows just how they may respond.  And no one is a bee charmer. Once an Africanized colony has decided to wage an all-out war, nothing can be done to calm them down.  What then transpires belongs in a Stephen King novel:  my colleagues have described horses next door to their job site getting stung to death, the bees cloaking their veils in such numbers and ferocity that they struggled to breathe. I have seen bees chase birds out of the sky, send dogs and cats sprinting and yelping away, attack my gloved hand with such timed precision and accuracy that there wasn’t a square centimeter in the leather that didn’t have a stinger protruding from it; all in a matter of seconds.

    No amount of smoke will make a difference at this point. The only thing that can be done is to walk away, just as the beekeeper in the news story did, and make sure everyone in the vicinity knows to keep their distance as well. Only time, sometimes as long as two days, will calm them down.

      Colonies like this are unmanageable, and extremely dangerous. It pains me to see any colony exterminated, but extremely defensive colonies must be put down in order to maintain public safety. I anticipate that is what the beekeeper in the story will do.  Since I do not deal with pesticides, I would turn the job over to a licensed exterminator.   The whole process of this is extremely stressful, dangerous, and horrifying, and I would not wish the experience on anybody.

     All of this is why I take my time in assessing a colony, and I sometimes have to stress patience from the customer who wants the hive out yesterday despite its continued presence for months or even years. Maintaining safety is absolutely paramount and is my number one priority, and no one, besides yours truly, has yet to be stung from a job of mine. I am humble enough, however, to understand it could happen at any time.

    Variables upon variables: this is beekeeping and why it is so fun, interesting, and addicting. But not all those variables are good ones, and it is always advisable to never take a colony’s demeanor for granted. Honeybees, regardless of how docile they may be, are still wild animals.  Disrespect them at your own risk.    

Dear Canoga Park Bees,

Hi there. You girls and I have had a special relationship over the past couple of years, haven't we? It didn't seem to take long at all for a keen forager or two to plot the location to my apartment for the entire colony, specifically my porch where I store some candle making equipment as well as buckets with comb inside. It seems you are always sending a half dozen bees at any time just to “check” for any careless mistakes I may have made, such as leaving a lid to a bucket slightly ajar, and thus providing you with a delicious and free meal. Remember when I did that two years ago? I came home to find thousands of you girls working my porch, zipping in out of that bucket with such zeal that it looked like you were celebrating Christmas and winning the Mega Millions Lottery at the same time. I could even hear a collective, buzz like snickering from you as you overheard me trying to calm down my neighbor downstairs.

You girls really pushed the envelope last year, however, when you took the relationship a step further and commandeered my candle making equipment. A whole swarm of you loved my porch so much that you literally moved into one of these buckets, which was one hell of a surprise, let me tell you. Nothing gets the adrenaline going quite like having the seemingly innocent desire to pour a few candles, and going outside to grab the stainless steel pots only to discover a full hive has moved inside them. Remember how fast I dove back into my living room? I still have the rug burns on my knees.

You cut that one a little close. The neighbor downstairs (remember her?) had actually called the homeowners association and they had contracted with an exterminator to deal with the problem. You are very fortunate that the association people were friendly and gave me some time to transfer you squatters into a proper hive.

Now, here's the thing. I like you. I really do. But, and I know this comes as a tremendous surprise to you, no one else in my complex really does, and bribes using honey only works for so long. Which makes your recent actions especially disturbing. You should know that I have been very busy with bee removal jobs of late and have a few buckets that I leave in my truck to hold some of the honey comb that I cut out from them. One of the lids fell off last week and I was too much in a rush to notice. As a result, when I came back downstairs to my truck the next morning, I noticed hundreds of you %#$%&!!$% foragers were taking advantage of the situation. I drove off and you bees didn't care for the jostling, so you up and left as I made my way east on Parthenia. We sure did get an interesting look from that police officer didn't we? When I arrived at my location, I assumed things would be fine since none of you were around in the bucket anymore, and I sealed that and everything else.

When I came back home, I noticed a small cloud of you girls hovering around my parking space. As soon as I parked, you rushed to the bed of my truck, and I stared in frustrated disbelief at your general insolence. You actually WAITED for me to come home??? Are you kidding me??? There is a ton of flowers in bloom at the moment. Thousands actually. Just go a few more miles north to the 118 freeway and you'll find a buckwheat bounty, white flowers dripping with nectar for as far as the eye can see.

I can imagine what the “bee dance” back at your colony translated as: “There is a large and strange shaped white flower that can suddenly disappear whose bounty is never ending. Wait between the two white lines for it's glorious arrival.” I am truly not amused.

Please do something novel and forage for some actual flowers. There is plenty of food out there in the natural world right now, and your general pillaging is irritating my neighbors. Thanks, and I'm sure we'll be seeing each other soon.

Sincerely,

Keith

I began keeping bees in 2009. I was warned by the many beekeepers who befriended me that there are many things out in nature as well as man made variables that may conspire against the health of a colony. I appreciated their cautious lectures and respectfully listened to them, though I made it a point to remain optimistic despite their seemingly downtrodden disposition.

Events would, however, make their lessons painfully clear.

Shortly thereafter, I found myself dealing with disaster after disaster. Extreme drought that prohibited nectar flow. Then the wildfires came and though I was lucky enough for my hives to escape the flames, the constant smoke they were exposed to most certainly did harm. An unforeseen pesticide application next door to one of my bee yards lead to my discovering of 20 hives completely decimated. Ants terrorized my colonies last year in Topanga, despite many desperate and often ridiculous methods I employed to safely control them. The beautiful Italian packages of bees I had purchased, 10 in all at $80 a piece, all perished except for one. And that one did not look well at all. Late December found me at my storage facility sadly stacking hive boxes that were once brimming with bees just months before.

I felt awful, but I couldn't complain about it. Other beekeepers had it much, much worse than even I did. One suffered a loss of 185 hives out of 200.

What a difference this year has been.

The bees are doing so well that I find myself needing to perpetually build additional equipment to accommodate them. I can barely keep up. The scent of the bees making honey is overpowering. Each hive has bees stationed on the porch furiously fanning their wings in order to create a current of air so that the hive may lower the water content of the nectar, thus turning it into honey. In the evening, these hives are still roaring with activity as the curing continues after the sun goes down. They are a joy to work with; I can sense their morale and they don't mind my presence in the least.

I also can't keep them away from me. As the bee removal calls began, I returned to my storage facility to take out the hives I stored so I may use them again for the job at hand. Swarms had other plans. Stopping anywhere for an extensive period of time with an empty hive in the bed of my truck became impossible without me blocking the entrance, for I would return to my truck to find a swarm had moved into my hive. I then had to wait until dusk so I could screen it and take it to my yard, forcing me to postpone the bee job I had scheduled and necessitating another trip to storage for another hive box.

I am also not prepared for the massive surplus of honey that awaits me. I will have to purchase many more buckets before I can even think about pulling any more boxes from the field, not to mention hundreds of bottles more of glass jars, lids, labels, and everything else under the sun, it seems.

All of these are wonderful problems to have, and I am delighted to learn about other beekeepers enjoying a good season as well, despite an unusually cold spring. I'm sure that my peers will regard this post as the baseball equivalent of talking about the possibility of a pitcher having a perfect game before the game is over, but I'm confidant this won't jinx it.

  I get asked all the time about why I got into beekeeping. It seems to be an honest question, unless you have the ability to hear what people mean over what people say, which I do. And what people are really asking me is "How could you or anyone else be so crazy/stupid/irrational/suicidal to work with bees?" I get asked this question at least three times a day, and for the first year I laughed it off. However, I am finding myself taking greater offense to this question of late, as I am growing increasingly tired of being treated like a freak for working with a creature that I adore so much. The following is an explanation behind my passion for my trade, and it should effectively lower the chance of you trying my patience, however innocent your intentions may be.

I'm not going to go into detail about the tremendous benefits bees add to our lives and how the work they perform is responsible for many of the food staples you enjoy. If your IQ is above room temperature, you should already know this. Beekeeping is an ancient craft, one that has been around since at least 70 B.C, and there are several references to apiculture in the Bible. It is thought that the ancient Egyptians were the first migratory beekeepers, as they took great pains and effort to relocate hives via the Nile River. They didn't know the mechanism behind the bees' magic, but they understood that where bees went, food grew. So you see, what I'm doing is hardly novel or unique. Humans have been working with bees for thousands of years, and hunting for honey for thousands of years before that. How many industries can boast they still have relevance after 10,000 years of existence?

Bees are extraordinary. Bees are the most researched insect in all of history and the world, and yet we are still discovering more about them. They still amaze and surprise. The wonders are endless, the miracles never ending. I'll mention one of them here. Many of you would be a lost cause without your GPS or Mapquest. Yet, the honeybee, with a brain smaller than the head of a pin, is not only able to navigate to flowers within a five mile radius and find her way back home, but also has the ability to recruit additional foragers and give them precise directions to the patch of flowers she has found. She gives these directions in complete darkness by performing a dance. Bees surround her and "listen" by paying attention to what direction she faces on the comb, how vigorously she waggles, and other subtle variations so they know just how valuable the food supply is, and where, within a square foot, the food can be found. Not impressed? Find a friend, blindfold yourselves, and, without speaking or writing and using only body movement, attempt to tell them where you want them to go,how to get there, and why. You will fail.

Another reason I enjoy working the bees is knowing that if society was more like my hives, this world would be so much kinder. Bees, like us, are social creatures. Yet, unlike us, each individual is completely obsessed with nothing else but the good for the colony. Each bee moves and acts according to what is presumably best for the entire hive. One can argue that the bee intrinsically understands that if the colony doesn't do well, neither will she, and therefore the bee is still acting on selfish principles, but that is a semantic argument. I don't know many people that make their decisions completely and solely based on what is best for the family or community. I don't know many people that will fearlessly take on ANY threat, regardless of how big it is and how hopeless the situation may be, and fight to the death to protect her society. My bees provide an example of how to live a good life. You are not as independent as you think. Act accordingly.

My bees have also replanted the seed of faith in a power greater than myself. I remember the lectures during the decade or so being in parochial school about God's unconditional love, and thinking how ridiculous it sounded. All love is conditional, I told myself. This tenant can not be true, therefore, probably nothing is. People certainly have conditions to their love, and if someone fails to meet expectations or disappoints, that love most certainly dwindles. How can any god continually love a creature like us that is fallible, stupid, ignorant, and constantly sinning? I didn't think this possible until I worked with bees. They are like children sometimes, unaware of the dangers to them. I must give them medicine, or they will succumb to infections in the winter. I must give syrup to the hives that didn't collect enough honey so they don't starve. I have to move them from area to area, so they can continually have food and to remove them out of harms way, such as in the case of pesticide or wildfires. I remove them from structures so the homeowner doesn't hire an exterminator to murder them. The bees don't understand this, and have gone out of their way to physically maim me for loving them. I have been stung all over my body, more than 50 times during one epic disaster. I've returned home, limping, with ankles swollen, testicles burning, neck bristling with pain and stingers. Everything I do, I do for them, and I am often rewarded for my work by being treated like a big pin cushion by a creature that simply does not understand that what I'm doing is for her own good. And yet I love them. Continually. Completely. Totally. I lose sleep if I miss a day from being with them. I can't keep from weeping when I come to a hive that has been lost or a colony that is suffering from an ailment I can't explain and can't fix. Unconditional love does exist, and if there is a God, this must be what He feels like.

This is because of the truth I have learned in regards to the colonies themselves. You can't know this truth until you actually work bees. It's impossible. But once you do, you come to understand that while every bee may seem like just another insect, the colony itself is a powerful entity with a personality, and each colony is different and unique. Tens of thousands of bees together form a spirit that you can feel and recognize. You can sense their contentment, hear their desperation if conditions are miserable,feel their sadness at the injury or loss of their queen, know their rage when the hive literally roars as it mistakenly places the blame of a threat on you. Many in the industry swear that bees know their keeper. Scientifically, I know that is unlikely. Deep down, though, I know they do. I remove a frame covered with bees, and when they don't even act like they notice or mind, and look up at me as if to say, "Good morning, mate! We are all doing fine here, thanks. What is with that strange hat of yours? Not really your style, I'm afraid. Have a good one!"

Until you work with them, you will never understand this paradox.

At the end of the day, when the sun goes down and the bees and myself are back home, relaxing after a day of toil and hardship, I know I have done good. This is one of the few industries that has no losers. Everybody wins in this business with bees. The environment wins by having efficient pollinators to help plants, farmers win by reaping more productive harvests, the bees win by being provided with the most ideal home imaginable and thus are able to hoard more nectar than they could possibly use, thereby providing me with a surplus of honey and a bit of profit. I get to make my customers feel good about hiring me over an exterminator to remove bees from their homes. Educating people about bees can be frustrating and tiresome at times, since I am always having to extract years and years of erroneous information that is usually discriminatory. But when I see the switch flip and the lights turn on behind their eyes, its totally worth it. It's like the stopper of their bathtub of stupidity was finally removed, and I get to watch the ignorance drain away. Nothing thrills me more than someone who was deathly afraid of bees call me a month later after having me remove a hive from their home and sheepishly ask if they could have it back. Perhaps at the side of the house? They would really like their own honey, you see, and the prospect of that vegetable garden doing better is a great bonus.

There is magic here. And that is why I am a beekeeper.