This weekend we welcomed a new colony of Honey Bees to our little apiary. We get our bees delivered to us thanks to a beekeeper who drives all the way to Georgia to purchase them, and then delivers them to families in New Hampshire and Maine. It’s easy. The Honey Bees are safely transported in travel crates. All we need to do is install the new Bees into our hives. But it hasn’t always been so easy. Recently a friend told us about how he and his mother had to hunt Honey Bees 60 years ago.
Back when he was young, harvesting wild Honey Bees was the way many people use to get honey and new colonies of Bees. So each spring he and his mother would gather a few supplies and head out in search of a hive to bring home. His Bee trapping kit included a “bee box,” sugar water, different color nail polish, a watch, a container for the Bees, and a whole lot of patience!
As he explained, he and his mother would head to a field or other area conducive to foraging Honey Bees. They would use the sugar water to attract them, and then wait for a hungry Worker Bee to come along. Then he would carefully trap the Bee into a small bee box. Once the Bee settled down a bit, his mother would gently slide open a lid on the box, and quickly put a dot of nail polish on it’s back to mark it. After that the Honey Bee would be released, and the fun began!
The Honey Bee would fly off, and they would have to carefully watch which direction she went to get a general idea of where her hive was located. Worker Bees have a habit of returning in a straight line to the hive from a foraging area, hence the term “bee line.” While watching the Bee, they also had to make a note of the time. Because as long as there was sugar water available, the Bee usually would return for more. If it took under a few minutes for the Bee to make the round trip to the hive and back, then they were probably close. The longer it took, the farther away the hive. The Honey Bee would also recruit her friends to help, or additional Bees from other hives could arrive. Therefore they would mark in different colors a few more Bees, and watch and wait. As they waited though, he and his mother would chat and enjoy their time together. A memory that brought a huge smile to his face.
After awhile the Bees’ route would become more obvious, and they would begin searching for the colony. Wild Honey Bees like to build their hives in the cavity of dead or damaged trees. So our friend and his mother would slowly walk along checking all possible trees, as well as listening for the telltale buzzing of an active hive. They could be located high overhead or simply a few feet off the ground. He laughed remembering the time he had to climb high up a tree to get his coveted Honey Bees.
Now remember, wild Bees do not have the luxury of building their hive on pre-made frames that were easy to remove. So the next step was safely collecting the Honey Bees to take home. The Queen Bee tends to lay her eggs toward the bottom of the hive, which meant comb in the upper areas was usually full of pure honey and no bee larvae. Sometimes he and his mother would simply retrieve some of the honeycomb without disturbing the rest of the hive. Other times though, they would return in the evening when the Bees were more docile, and the Worker Bees had returned from a day of foraging. Then they would carefully gather the hive, making sure to get the Queen, and bring it back to their apiary.
Listening to his story of hunting Honey Bees made me appreciate how easy it is for me to be a beekeeper today. It also made me smile as our friend shared his memories of that special time spent with his mother. Thank you Precious’ Dad for sharing your beekeeping story with us.
