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Jennifer Tsuruda, Clemson University Cooperative Extension’s apiculture specialist, is all smiles behind her bee veil when she works with hives of honeybees.
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Pine shavings provide the smoke that keeps the insects calm when beekeepers like Jennifer Tsuruda need to work inside the brood box.
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While many experts are confident enough to forgo the full protective gear, beginners—including the author—prefer the security of a full bee suit.
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The queen is easily spotted among the female worker bees, having been dabbed with a dot of green paint. Males make up just 2 percent of the hive population, and their sole purpose is to mate with the queen.
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A honeycomb dripping with honey is a sweet bonus of beekeeping.
I lumber like a spacewalker in my bulky white suit, lagging behind my teacher. Noticeably behind. She’s striding with casual confidence over to the white boxes beneath the oaks in her T-shirt and jeans, the veil over her head not even tied shut.
I, on the other hand, am sealed in, top to toe, yet anxiously fingering the zipper on the veil for the ninth time to be sure it’s shut. I edge nearer the hive, where about 40,000 stinging insects raise a dim hum. Jennifer Tsuruda, my instructor, puffs smoke over the hive entrance. The air around us is peppered with bees, sisters returning from fields of goldenrod to deliver their goods.
Tsuruda, 35, is Clemson University Cooperative Extension’s apiculture specialist for South Carolina, and we’re here at the hillside of hives where she does her bee research. Just now, she is explaining that the smoke interferes with the bees’ ability to communicate chemically, to warn one another of our approach.
This is all fascinatingly scientific, but I’m finding it hard to focus because it’s taking all my concentration not to wildly swat at the bees landing all over my suit. Slowly, Tsuruda lifts the hive cover and sends smoke inside, and the bees’ hum crescendoes.
Don’t wave your arms, I tell myself. Don’t run.
We are here on this warm afternoon to see if I have what it takes to become a backyard beekeeper. So far, it is not looking too good.
The new chickens
When it comes to urban farming, bees are the new chickens. Once relegated to farm fields, hives are popping up in city lots and suburban yards. Fueled by the DIY and locavore movements and a rising concern about the disappearance of honeybees due to pesticide use and invasive pests, beekeeping is growing rapidly in popularity.
I got curious about beekeeping after hearing so much about crashing honeybee populations. Apparently, so did a lot of other people, because beekeeping classes offered through state and local beekeeping associations are seeing record attendance (see “Join the club,” below).
The S.C. Beekeepers Association’s own membership has doubled in the last five years, now reaching 1,300, says Larry Haigh, association president.
“Most of it is backyard beekeepers and urban beekeepers,” he says. South Carolina has few commercial beekeepers, Haigh says, making the role of the hobbyist that much more important for pollinating both farmers’ fields and backyard gardens.
“Everybody knows we need pollination for fertilization of our crops,” says Abbeville resident Larry Lawson, president of Lakelands Beekeeping Association and himself the owner of 20 hives.
“About 30 percent of our crops need pollination and about 18 percent of that is done by honeybees,” he says. “Honeybees have the distinct advantage [among pollinators] in that we can manage them, take care of them, keep them from getting killed.”
I’ve taken a beginners class, but until this outing with Tsuruda, I’d never moved past that point to handle bees.
But even before such practice, would-be beekeepers should find out if their community allows backyard hives, typically by calling the animal-control office. Some municipalities, such as Columbia, are fine with beekeeping, so long as neighbors don’t deem the hives a nuisance. Many homeowners associations, however, are more restrictive.
You should also make sure you’ve got a bee-friendly yard. Bees like early-morning sunshine—it gets them out foraging early. Surrounding soil that is generally dry will help control populations of insect invaders.
Hives should be sheltered from the wind and located away from areas heavily trafficked by people and pets. Some beekeepers plant shrubs around the hive to force the bees upward in their flight, away from people’s heads. I’ve learned from bee classes that, although my yard is small, shaded and too busy with ball-throwing children to accommodate bees, beekeepers often arrange for their hives to be hosted in a more welcoming yard. If you find a willing neighbor, an offer of honey can sweeten the deal. (Just be sure to ask if they spray their yard for mosquitoes and other insects, because those chemicals can kill bees.)
Once my family and I found a good spot for locating hives, it was time to connect with a pro. Joining a beekeeping association “can be a great way to find mentors and to pick up tips,” Tsuruda says. “Finding a mentor can be a great way to try out beekeeping before financially investing in it.”
It’s not the cheapest hobby. Several backyard beekeepers who sell a little excess honey told me they are happy to cover their annual expenses. To get going the first year, you should expect to spend $400 to $500, according to Tsuruda and the S.C. Beekeepers Association. This budget will provide for classes, a hive, starter bees and basic gear (see “Get the gear”).
That gear includes, in my case, a $130 bee suit with hat and veil, which is tempering my anxiety just enough to edge closer to Tsuruda on our day at the Clemson hives.
She is confident enough to forgo the suit, but she keeps her smoker at the ready, loaded with store bought pine shavings for fuel. “Always have a smoker if you’re opening a hive,” she says.
A smoker and, apparently, plenty of affection for the insect population within: Tsuruda croons to her bees and puts out a bare finger, watching a worker land on it.
“She’s just a baby,” Tsuruda says. “She’s just looking for food. See? Her tongue is out. When you look at them up close, they’re like little teddy bears.”
‘No jerks in the bee yard’
But even fuzzy creatures can turn fierce.
Despite the silvery smoke trail curling over the colony, one angry girl lands on Tsuruda’s thumb and stings. Tsuruda casually scrapes the black stinger out of her skin. The attacking bee is worse off: When she deposited her stinger in Tsuruda’s skin, she left behind part of her digestive tract, dying in defense of her hive.
For some people, stings are a serious matter. It’s possible to develop a life-threatening allergy to bee venom at any time in life, even if you’ve been stung without incident before, says Dr. Richard Herring, an allergist with Carolina Asthma & Allergy Center. Some beekeepers carry injectable epinephrine, which can halt anaphylaxis, the closing of the body’s airways in reaction to an allergen. The medicine can give someone enough time to get to an emergency room.
These are the kinds of facts moving through my mind as I take the next step in my introduction to beekeeping: handling the bees myself.
I remember Tsuruda’s caution to move slowly and deliberately. “No jerks in the bee yard!” she says brightly as she hands me the smoker. I puff smoke over the open hive. The buzz crescendoes to a roil. Instinctively, I flinch.
As I reach into the box to lift a frame heavy with insects, sealed bee babies (called “brood”) and honey, Tsuruda leans in to say, “One of the early things you learn is if you are holding a frame of bees and you get stung, don’t drop that frame of bees.”
Yes, that calms me down. But I hold my breath and lift the rectangular frame, which is surprisingly heavy. Without thinking, I nearly rest it on the hive edge, a move Tsuruda quickly stops, pointing out that I would have squished the mound of bees clinging to the frame’s underside. Instead I raise it to the late-afternoon sun. The light illuminates the golden, hexagonal cells like a stained-glass window.
When we have a couple of frames out of the hive, Tsuruda points out the male drones, which make up just 2 percent of a hive’s population and whose sole purpose in life is to mate with the queen. We spot her, too: a long, cinnamon-colored bee Tsuruda has marked with a dot of green paint.
The bees aren’t the only residents. As we watch, a small hive beetle skitters out of a frame, looking like a tiny black Volkswagen. Hive beetles eat honey and destroy wax comb, and they are one of the main things new beekeepers have to watch for. Prevention makes a difference: Beekeepers should buy their first bees from a supplier that certifies them as beetle-free and shouldn’t allow hives to stand with the excess honey and unguarded comb the beetles find attractive.
An even bigger challenge for beekeepers is the varroa mite, an invader species that entered South Carolina in 1990 and has spread rapidly since. Tsuruda points out the mites, which look like shiny, red brown beads attached to the backs of bees. On several, the mites have already done their damage, a virus they transmit deforming the bees’ wings, leaving them too crippled to fly. As Mark Sweatman, president of the Spartanburg Beekeepers Association, says, the mite isn’t called Varroa destructor for nothing.
A taste of honey
Hearing about all of the pests that seem intent on destroying bees has started to make me wonder if this hobby is really worth it. That’s when Tsuruda says, “Want to taste some honey?”
She cuts a piece of comb from a frame and hands it to me. Now, I like honey on a smoking-hot biscuit as much as the next person, but I’ve never eaten a chunk of honey-filled comb before. Tentatively, I bite. The delicate wax gives way to something clearer, purer—OK, more golden—than anything I’ve ever tasted from a grocery-store jar.
Oh, wow. Just—wow.
I turn to Tsuruda, and even through the veil I know she can probably see my wide eyes.
What these lovely, striped insects have been making in the dark of their hive tastes like pure goodness. And there’s really only one thing to say after that.
“Could I have a little bit more?” I ask.
These bites of liquid summer we are tasting started as nectar from wildflowers. The bees brought the nectar home, stored it in the honeycomb, added enzymes to it, and then fanned the droplets with their wings to evaporate most of the water. Once the ripened nectar was concentrated enough to be called honey, Tsuruda says, the bees capped it with wax to store it away for the time of year when the nectar stopped flowing.
Most of the beekeepers I’ve talked to think of the honey their hives produce as a beautiful bonus to their hobby’s main attraction, the bees themselves. Typically, they don’t take honey—the old-fashioned term is “rob the bees”—in a hive’s first year, because the bees will need that food to see them through winter. But later, a strong hive can produce 60 to 100 pounds of surplus honey, Tsuruda says, and when conditions are very good, as much as 200 pounds.
At the hive we are visiting, the circling girls have scented the honey dripping down my hands. One lands there to investigate. I’m not as brave as Tsuruda yet, so I’m not about to take off my gloves. But now, instead of instinctively flicking the bee off in fear, I hold my hands up near my veil to get a closer look.
She is fur-bodied and shiny-winged, and I can see all the tiny, bristling hairs on her legs as she explores my gloved hand. Her eyes are a metallic brown. I let her crawl between my fingers as her sisters swirl in the air around my head, and then carefully lower my hand like an elevator to let her enter the hive.
I realize that I’m not nervous anymore. I could do this after all.
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Get More
Study up on bees. Clemson University Cooperative Extension’s beekeeping program offers a wealth of resources.
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Join the club
The best way to get started with beekeeping is to take classes offered by bee associations or “bee clubs.” These clubs typically start their beginner beekeeping classes each January, although some start in fall. For a list of the more than 20 local beekeeping associations in South Carolina, go to scstatebeekeepers.org. After the beginner class, you can rise through the educational ranks to journeyman, master beekeeper and master beekeeper craftsman.
If you don’t want to wait until classes begin to get a hive, you can join a bee club, acquire bees in spring (bees purchased later won’t have enough time to build up the colony before winter) and see if the club will pair you with a mentor. You can also get going with the help of some good books, says Allen Johnson, president of the Aiken Beekeepers Association. He recommends four:
- The Backyard Beekeeper by Kim Flottum (the 2014 edition includes information on urban beekeeping)
- Storey’s Guide to Keeping Honey Bees by Malcolm T. Sanford and Richard E. Bonney
- Honey Bee Hobbyist by Norman Gary
- First Lessons in Beekeeping by Keith S. Delaplane. This one is required reading at many of the beekeeping classes.
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Take the Bee Smart Quiz – How much do you know about honeybees and other pollinator insects? Find out with our true/false quiz.
Share your story – Tell us about your beekeeping adventures.
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