The first sting is undoubtedly the worst; a screaming fire spreading under your skin, multiplied immediately as the dying bee releases pheromones signaling her comrades to join in the instinctual suicide that has protected countless hives for millions of years. Two more infernos begin blazing across your bare hand and you are gripped by the natural urge to freak out and exercise the vilest vocabulary at your disposal. You want to run, to scratch, to pull the pulsating stingers from your flesh and curse yourself for being so brutally stupid as to voluntarily inflict this pain upon yourself simply because you wanted to learn about beekeeping.
But that’s not an option.
You realize you’re holding a beehive, and dropping it so close to a bustling high school is not the best way to build effective relationships. Besides, you’ve got to think of your colleague who is holding the other side of the humming white box, also with his bare hands, since gloves are known to spread diseases. Right now the bees are spreading histamines through your fingers, so you delicately set the box down and calmly push out the stingers as your hand takes on the warm color and puffs up to the size of a ripe Ayers mango.
Say Bees!
This was my introduction to apiculture, the rearing of bees and harvesting of honey. Getting stung is mandatory, since it builds up your resistance to the venom. Mr. P, my agency’s chief apiculturist for St. Catherine, hardly registers the stings anymore. He is focused on the terrible condition of the hive, neglected by the school’s administration for a range of reasons. Many boxes lay vacant and rotting while duck ants, hive beetles, snails and other destructive pests plague those few with functioning colonies. Mr. P balked at the neglect, showing me the honeycombs hanging haphazardly in a box without the necessary removable frames and taking pictures of what he called, “A perfect example of how a hive should not look.”
“What a waste,” he mutters, looking out from behind the meshed veil protecting his face and neck. We cleaned it best we could and moved on to search for more survivors. The task of resurrecting this place was too big for one day, and we had a couple thousand more clients to visit. One of them gave me a farewell kiss on the back of my neck after I had removed the veil. It had followed me to the parking lot.
“You’ll see some healthy hives soon.” Mr. P says as we drive through the citrus groves of Orangefield. “Bee dem lively! You’ll see the difference.” I could hardly wait.
Despite the throbbing pain in my left hand, I still held a very high opinion of apiculture as being one of the most lucrative agricultural enterprises available. Honey goes for $2500J a gallon, and with the bees doing most of the work, all the successful apiculturist needs is to keep the hives clean and reap the sweet rewards. My guys and the Ministry of Agriculture recognize the tremendous potential and make it a major part of their program for small farmers.
Paydirt
You just have to get stung.
Mr. P could care less about the stings as he opens the gleaming white box before him to reveal a vibrant, buzzing colony working amid rows of honeycombed wire frames. These frames come out like a filing cabinet. You then slip them into a hand-cranked centrifuge, which spins out the honey and leaves the empty comb that is reinserted and reused by the bees. It’s a surprisingly efficient process. The tricky part is keeping the bees calm as you disassemble their world.
We stand in an orange grove in front of a table stacked with hives, and the bees here are noticeably feistier than those at the high school. Scout units buzz and bump against my veil while others brush my fingers and spelunk through my pockets. I hold the bizarre smoke contraption that looks like something out of the Inquisition and shoot puffs of burning newspaper and orange peel between the frames, keeping the bees blissfully disoriented. Understandably, the trees around the hives are heavy with fruit, while most of the others are picked clean. Pinnuck called it “Natural Security.”
Poorly-kept hive. Note the wacky honeycomb formations on the lid.
It’s a fascinating experience to peer into a living colony and see the myriad tasks implemented with a programmed perfection that would make the Swiss jealous. Worker bees arrive laden with pollen, which is then removed by their fellows and packed into storage cells. Other workers are busy moving eggs about and tending to the larvae. The massive queen crawls slowly through the honeycomb hideout, attended by a retinue of workers and near-useless drones. Still more workers just sit and fan their wings, providing natural air-conditioning. I was envious of such organization.
By the fourth box I had worked up the courage to handle the frames myself, and was doing a good job until the bees decided they’d had enough and the painful burning flowed up through my previously untouched right hand. Still, I did not drop the frame, but bit my tongue and set it down gently before wandering away a little bit and suffering in silence. On the plus side, the next few stings hardly registered, because both hands were now swollen abominations of their former selves and it was as if I were wearing gloves.
“Pain is just the feeling of weakness leaving the body,” Jokes my colleague as we trudge back through the grove and settle under a tangerine tree. I nod in agreement and we wait for the attack bees that have followed us to lose interest and return home. It is true that apiculture is painful and slightly weird, but there’s money to be made here and an opportunity waiting for those who can step above their fears. We wait till the last fanatical bee gives up and then remove our gear and head back to the car.
He hands me a sticky bottle full of indisputably fresh honey at the end of the day. Apiculture is a tough sell, but it’s a fair one. Discipline and self-control bring sweet returns. Like life, you take the pain, and you come back for more.
You just can’t be afraid to get stung.
I wrote that a while ago, just wanted to publish it here. I’ll date it later.
