John Horton writes: I might as well say it, I got started in beekeeping because I was walking across my yard and God said "Call _ _ (my neighbor) and get some honeybees."
Well, I got started in honeybees because I needed an easy "A" to raise my grade-point average in college.
While visiting with my advisor, looking over electives, I could have taken the geology course ("Rocks for Jocks" - a favorite of the football team) or the "Underwater Basket-Weaving" (supposedly a favorite of the chemistry students). There were some others I don't recall, but I declined to sign up for any of them. All of them were good candidates for easy grades.
Then my advisor sighed and lamented, "Well, you could take Entomoly 222, "Beekeeping." He described it as the course for the "organic fruits and nuts." You also have to remember this was 1978 and Iowa State University in Ames, IA was a leading promoter of the chemical revolution in agriculture. I didn't even know the University offered such a course.
I was neither a fruit or a nut, but having been raised by two parents with humble, old-fashioned farming backgrounds, my mother a tremendous gardener, I had since my birth an appreciation for the bees and a respect for the balance of nature since I was old enough to scratch in the dirt alongside my mother shoot pigeons off the top of the silo.
The course was taught by Richard Trump who frequently brought in John Jesup and the Stanley brothers to lead discussions. We took lectures on Tuesdays, and then on the next Thursday we went into the University bee yard to find what we had been talking about on Tuesday. We worked in groups of three students and one had to write a report on what we observed.
The only problem was if you didn't get stung, you failed the course. Mr. Trump believed if you were not contributing to the work in the bee yard, you weren't learning. If you got stung, you got an "A" (No "B's" were given, and no pun is intended). Needless to say, I got that "A."
For me, the transcendence of this perfect society, all ruled by females, was most intriguing. Then I found you could actually make a decent income with a little diligence and a ton of hard work. I was hooked, and continue to this day.
Grant
Jackson, MO
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