On Sunday afternoon, I had the great pleasure of speaking about honeybees and native plants at one of Women Helping Women‘s Sunday Salons. Great hosts, great crowd, great weather, great condo overlooking the city, great cause.
Thanks for inviting me to join you. :)
My friend Sarah Brown interviewed me for her “Failing Forward” podcast which resulted in this mini episode about beekeeping…the “failing” parts aren’t explicit here, but believe me, failure undergirds it all.
Very listenable at 6ish-minutes long.
Also, in this image you can see my favorite Quoddy Ringboots (they don’t touch the floor because at 5’3″, I’m shorter than I sound). They are the most comfortable shoes you can imagine. Ever. In the world.
There’s something wonderfully interesting about people who have heard the voice of intuition (or the voice of the universe or God…you know, the voice of something larger than we are) and who have then acted upon that calling by becoming beekeepers.
Beekeeping isn’t a hobby that we simply pick up. I’ve come to think of it as a calling…a calling that requires a commitment we might not initially have anticipated but a commitment that we don’t shy from, and I love that quality in people. But that’s not the point of this post.
Here’s my point: I visit many colonies with numerous beekeepers, and long ago I realized that the most often-spoken word in the bee yard is “Sorry.” After all these years and all these bees, I still find myself saying “I’m sorry” all the time. I say it without speaking, and I say it aloud. Everyone I work with says it. A lot. And we don’t wait to express ourselves…we say it right away as we make our many mistakes.
We screw up. We hurt others. We squish bees or unsettle them or drop things or fumble. We’re sorry for that. And expressing that apology for being imperfect, clumsy human beings is a high quality to me…it requires humility, and I will follow humble-yet-confident people to the ends of this earth. It is my favorite quality combination. Pompousness can go jump in a lake.
As beekeepers work to become more confident stewards of our colonies, we’ll make our mistakes. To hear “I’m sorry” mumbled as the bees teach us to become better beekeepers and better people, though, is a sweet experience.
Reader, on Monday, November 7th, two of my friends and I spoke about beekeeping on WVXU, Cincinnati’s NPR station. And I have to tell you that someone over at ‘VXU is really good at editing. :) I know a thing or two about editing, and it’s not easy to do smoothly, but someone over there is first rate at it. Because there was one instance when I stumbled around a bit and went on a bit too long, and it’s not in the tape. THANK YOU, editor.
(That’s me on the left in the blue shirt and the round glasses; Melanie Evans of the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden’s Pollen Nation is in the center; and Carlier Smyth of Queen City Bee Co is closest. I love those big headphones and fuzzy mics.)
Here’s the way it goes, Reader: I taught my friend; she taught her son. She just sent me this image saying, “My son is teaching his friend.”
The wonderful people from CET’s Our Ohio spent a day visiting with me in my home and filming my backyard bee yard. They were a great pleasure to have around, and to my delight, each one of the crew donned a hat and a veil and handled the bees with their bare hands. I’m really proud of them.
Reader, yesterday I spent some time with two other very wonderful beekeepers. On a cold, snowy day in February, we dreamed of spring. We all sat in the fine studios of WVXU (Cincinnati’s NPR station) wearing our very cool headphones and talking into big fuzzy microphones. For about 25 minutes, we talked about the joys of beekeeping. It wasn’t nearly enough time.
Perhaps I talked a bit too much. Perhaps I sounded overly enthusiastic. Perhaps I should tone it down sometimes. But if you’ve been wondering all this time what Ray Babcock (President of Southwestern Ohio Beekeepers Association, known affectionately as SWOBA by the locals), Sandra Murphy (educator at Gorman Heritage Farms) and I sound like, here you go (once you arrive at this WVXU location, click “Listen”):
I like both Ray and Sandra a lot.
And here’s the picture the nice people at WVXU took of us. They took three images. The minute they took the last one—the one that caught me sort switching between smiles—I knew that’s the one they’d use. Sure enough.
Happy New Year, Reader, and what a perfect time for our thoughts to turn to the bees. :)
These past weeks, I’ve received a surprising number of emails and phone calls from those lucky people who received beehives for Christmas. And I must say, what a terrific gift idea! And for this very reason, next Christmas I plan to offer TwoHoneys gift certificates.
So, here are my January and February suggestions for those of you looking forward to your first season with bees:
There. That should get us all started into the new year, yes?
Yesterday I learned that not all the women in the garden club are actually gardeners. And I learned that perhaps not everyone in the world will love Eli’s BBQ and the wildish community gardens behind it.
You see, I’ve lately been invited to give a few talks about bees. It’s inevitable that this should happen. And, as you know, Reader, I am trying my darndest to answer “yes” to the universe—which means that I’ve now accepted the invitations to speak.
To scout a suitable venue for an upcoming garden-club talk, I invited some of my garden-club friends to join me at Eli’s and then to see the bees at the community gardens. We were sort of testing it out for a larger crowd. And I had a very nice afternoon sharing a meal and some sunshine and a walk around the block with a few wonderful people with whom I’ve not previously shared much time.
But then I learned that some of the women in the club may not thoroughly enjoy the combination of Eli’s and the community gardens…which are sort of rough. You know, Eastern Avenue (now renamed Riverside Drive…as if that’s gonna stick. Not.) is a tad rough around the edges. Apparently some of these garden club memebers like to stay clean and above. You know what I mean when I say “above,” don’t you, Reader? Let’s just say that this is not a neighborhood with which they are familiar.
This blew my socks off. Seriously. I simply assumed the women with whom I’d be lunching and speaking and to whom I would be showing the bees would be adventurous and embracing. I thought they were the dig-in-the-garden type of garden-club women. Apparently they really really need to meet me. :)
Doug will arrive any minute now to pick up a swarm I captured hanging from a loading dock two days ago. I brought the swarm home in a cardboard box (my preferred method these days) and immediately hived the swarm in two medium-depth supers and on foundationless frames. Doug will want a crash course in top-entrances, bottom-board feeders, foundationless frames, medium-depth supers, and all the other quirky things I’ve incorporated into my apiary.
Here’s the reason for this post: A number of wonderful people want to keep bees, and they want to start right this minute. And I’m more than happy to accommodate. However, I don’t have the time right now to teach all these nice people how to keep bees. It’s a process that takes many years to learn (though everyone has to begin…so it’s fine that folks want to start right off…I did too. But then I had to begin reading my crazy brains out to figure out what to do with all those bees in the box. And I encourage all beekeepers to likewise read their brains out).
I’ve compiled the following list of resources that I found invaluable as I began keeping bees. So, Doug, welcome to the first of your many many future hives. Now, start learning from the world-wide community of awesome beekeepers:
Below is a list of beekeeping suppliers I use and like. You can find equipment and order online, but upon request, each of these companies will also send a paper catalog, and I find I learn a lot by thumbing through those. I like the pictures. But, let me say this when it comes to beekeeping equipment: Less is best. I ordered a lot of little things I thought I’d need and will never ever use. I’ve since simplified (and I usually keep on hand the few pieces of equipment I use in my own apiary. So, if you need something immediately, I’ve probably got it, and I’m happy to sell it to you):