It’s probably in the top 10 most insane jobs in agriculture. Up there with raising bulls for bull fighting or rodeos. Why put on a bee suit and go play with bees, who regularly find a way to sting you through your gloves and buzz in your ears? Are all bee keepers crazy? Yes and […]
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Why Beecome a Beekeeper?
It’s probably in the top ten most insane jobs in agriculture. Up there with raising bulls for bull fighting or rodeos. Why put on a bee suit and go play with bees, who regularly find a way to sting you through your gloves and buzz in your ears? Are all bee keepers crazy?
Yes and No
Yes they are crazy passionate about bees. A lot of new beekeepers report to the Los Angeles Bee Keepers Club they want to become beekeepers so they can help “save the bees.” They are putting themselves out there to be stung and tortured by bees so that they can make a difference in this world. Some of these people don’t last, by the way. The reactions to having being stung to bees is too much for them. They can’t take being stung and having the reaction of swelling up like a balloon. It’s painful, itchy, and downright embarrassing if the bee stings you on your facial area or on your neck. So it’s like a revolving door for some folks. The problem being that bee equipment and bee suits doesn’t come cheap. Also once you buy a couple of beehives you all of a sudden become responsible for a couple of thousand tiny little animals who are very intelligent insects, who are dependent upon you for their care.
But then there are the hard core beekeepers. The ones who have encyclopedic knowledge about beekeeping, and who brush off getting stung like it’s nothing. Because, well your body will build up a defense against bees stings and get used to them after a while. My husband, Matt doesn’t have much reaction to bee stings because he played with ants so much as a child. He was stung so much by ants that bee stings don’t do anything to him. I notice I am not reacting to bee stings as much as I did when I first started. I have some hilarious photos of when I first got stung by my eyes. My older friends all over reacted and said I should get out of beekeeping. Anyways, these beekeepers are very much passionate about beekeeping because for many of them it’s their livelihood. Some of them have 100+ hives, and they have beekeeping down to a science. They are true artisans at beekeeping, and it is in their blood. They are excellent mentors, and my husband was fortunate to have one of them help him when he first started with way too many hives and not a lot of experience this last March. We are now up to nineteen hives, and we have learned a lot first year bad bee keeper lessons. My best advice for anyone who wants to get into beekeeping is to go and find an experienced beekeeper and work their hives with them for a while. If you still like beekeeping after that, then dive into a wonderful industry. The folks who are beekeepers are honest, have a wonderful sense of humor, and are always willing to lend a helping hand to other beekeepers in need.
The Joys of Beekeeping: Beeing Terrified
Memories of Somis, CA
I stand and watch him, my husband go frame by frame and look for a queen, and silently pray, “please don’t let me be stung today, ” and then after about an hour of handing him a bee tool, trying to not stand in front of the ninja bee guards in the front entrance of a bee hive, and occasionally wandering away to get rid of a swarm, we finally make one last run to the orchard’s trees and we are done. Matt drives the swanky $1,000 bee truck a quarter mile to the edge of the orchard, and we get out. Most of the bees are gone. We each investigate each other for a hidden bee. Then we drive to the best 7-11 in Moorpark for Gatorade laced with caffeine big gulps. This time I was lucky, and I survive the odd looks of the onlookers as struggle out of my sweaty bee suit. This time I was lucky. I was not stung, and Matt wasn’t either. One time a bee was in the cab and it crawled on me. I was terrified, and Matt prayed that it would sting him instead of me. The Lord answered his prayer. Matt doesn’t swell up like me, but I wish the bee would of just flown out of the window. It was too angry.
In contemplation of it all, I don’t spend all my time in a terrified state. Most of the time when Matt and I are working the bees it’s like doing any other chore. Your mind has an inclination to minimize danger in order to cope with the task at hand. Just like when you are driving a vehicle you can’t drive like a crazy scaredy cat or you will get in a wreck. It’s the same when you are working with the bees.
Plus they are so fascinating. They build their homes in geometric shapes. They communicate with each other by doing fun little dances. They make different noises depending upon their mood. For instance, if a hive doesn’t have a queen they roar in displeasure. They have a culture, a lifestyle built around their queen, who has her own retinue of workers who do nothing but keep her fed so she can lay eggs all day long. They have such an amazing structure in their society of bees. Did you know young bees are only nurse bees while the older and more experienced bees are allowed to be the guard bees and forage for food. There is so much I have to learn about them. One time I was standing watching the bees, and I realized the bees were watching me. It was the first time I realized an insect, an animal I usually chase and squish (i.e. spiders and flies) was looking at me. It was a surreal moment. By the way, you don’t want guard bees to look at you, because then they will start to swarm around you head and annoy you. That is the worst!
The Spectaculor Bee Blog by DA Brown
Da is the name my two year old son gave me, and it has stuck with me. He couldn’t say Linda. I blog because I like to talk to random strangers at the grocery store. I blog because I am obssessed with bees. This is my collection of blogs. I am not a perfect writer. I make tons of errors. Please ignore the fact that I majored in English. I am the worst at grammar and punctuation. Maybe that is why I never had a big desire to teach English; plus I made fun of English teachers with spectacles and hair buns all of the time I was going through college.
Beekeepers are cool because we look like hazmat guys and we play with bees. Bees are amazing because they are collectively intelligent. They work like a well organized, live computer. Plus you always know how they feel. They know how to display their anger really well. l like everything about bees except their stingers.
Have fun reading my blog. If you don’t have fun it’s not my fault. Just don’t get too annoyed by my bad writing. I will gladly (or not) fix my errors. If you want to send them to me in an email with them in all red font; go on ahead. Go for it! I’m used to it. I’m a passionate reader and writer of all things literature. Who really cares about the grammar and punctuation these days? Not me! LOL
SIMI VALLEY BEES 