For the love of bees continued….

I was telling about how I got into beekeeping in the post titled “for the love of bees”, and this is the continuation of that.

So here we where in this nice large house with an equally impressive backyard.  At some point early in our first few months of just moving in, my wife says, “lets plant a garden, with vegetables and fruits”.  I thought that was the coolest idea, I lived at a boarding school from when I was in the 5th grade until I graduated .  The school was called Thornwell, and it was in South Carolina.  The school was established in 1875 and was originally an orphanage, for Civil war orphans.  While living at this boarding school, I learned some farming skills.  The school had a milking barn with at least 100 or more cows, that we milked.  We also had beef cattle we raised, and an extensive Farming operation.  The Farm, along with a large endowment, kept the school opened and running for many years.  I have kept in contact with some of the Alumni from that school, and from what they tell me, the school has gone down hill.  The farm has since closed and the farming equipment sold off.  Those in charge of the  endowment, invested the money  poorly, and totally mismanaged it, and the endowment is gone.  I guess, like they say, “that is another story”, but I learned the love for the land, farming, and caring for livestock, at an early stage, because of this school.

That brings me back to the garden in our back yard, in our new home that my aunt had bought….and who we paid rent to.  Angela and myself set out and planted a huge garden, we had corn, tomatoes, bell peppers, cow peas, green beans, sweet peas, cantaloupe, honey dew, pumpkin, cucumbers, and lots of spices. Most everything turned out wonderful and we tended the garden daily. I watched the tomatoes plants grow and produce lots of tomatoes.  The bell pepper plants did well, with a variety of colors.  The corn grew tall and I found those to be wonderful to watch grow.  I built my own trellis for the cow peas, and sweet peas and they also did well.  The cucurbits: the pumpkins, cantaloupe, honey dew, and cucumbers also took off, with beautiful foliage, followed by female and male blossoms.  I had planted a large pumpkin variety and I couldn’t wait to see big fat pumpkins in the garden.  The fruit of the cucurbits, would start and look promising, but the fruit would always abort.  ”Why wouldn’t the cantaloupe and pumpkins and cucumbers do well”, I would ask myself.  Not being one to give up easily, I asked around and researched.

Garden as the sun is going down

Pollination in the way of bees, was the reason, we didn’t have enough feral bees, bumble bees and the like, visit them.  So, I set out to see how I could bring the pollinators to our garden.  I discovered that I could buy orchard bees, bumble bee, and that I could make artificial homes that would attract solitary bees.  Then I came across honey bees, Apis melifera, wow what an extraordinary bug.  I knew that honey bees existed, but somehow I never knew about beekeeping and beekeepers; How could I have missed that.  The more I read about honey bees, beekeeping, and a strange word apiary, the more I got hooked.  Every night I would gather the children around the computer, and tell them about bees, and hobby beekeepers, and about package bees, and nucs.  The children asked lots of questions, and we dreamed of honey bees, and becoming beekeepers……just one small problem, my wife thought that she was allergic to honey bees.Here are some photos of my then garden:

Isla and Avery collecting veggies

cow peas

So, if Angela did have an allergy to honey bees, then that meant I had to dream and enjoy photos of beekeeping online.  I did not give up hope on my dream, I read that honey bees can be very gentle, and that having honey bees in the yard doesn’t spell trouble.  So, I kept reading, kept researching and kept learning.  Finally I was getting my wife on board, besides she wasn’t absolutely sure she was allergic to honey bees.  Then one day, a honey bee somehow got into the house…really….and it stung my wife, and she didn’t have a true anaphylaxis reaction (she did however have a local reaction).  That was when she conceded, and allowed me to have a single colony of honey bees.

It’s time for a break, and this is where I’m going to end, for this post.  I’m going to write some more later.  Happy beekeeping!