>His final comment was that he had wasted four hours because of that person - and that was just a couple of weeks before he died.

I visited Aaron on December 15th at his home in Round Lake. He was pale and weakened by the illness he was fighting but I could see in his eyes that he still had hope.. We talked about the 400 packages he had on order for this spring and he mentioned his ambivalence about canceling them. I had no idea how to respond recalling my sister's eight-month struggle with the same disease a few years back. Our conversation turned to his bees and he mentioned how he " vaped the shit out of his bees this year" and they never looked better. Earlier this summer on another visit he asked me to share my experience with OAV treatments in the same way he queried me now. But I just smiled knowing he already knew everything he needed to know and he smiled back. I wondered if he would ever see his bees again and a kind of sadness hung between us for a while which he broke by mentioning Adam, a young guy he hired and was proud of.  Adam, it seemed, was destined to play some role in his bees’ future. He told me he was seeing his oncologist the next day and I wanted to say something like don't let them ruin the final months of your life like they did my sister’s, but I said nothing instead.  The final small talk was about how he had to waste four hours of his life finding the person with the stuffed inbox and I felt the urge to somehow post and say let's lighten up on Aaron for a while until he gets on a treatment path. I expected him to live longer so he could tell everyone and we could offer our support and I encouraged him to do so, but he ran out of time so quickly it has been hard to believe. 

I will cherish the beekeeping stories he told me and the rides around his property in his golf cart. He ran about 200 colonies and his yards were arranged in large circles with the entrances facing inward and he was proud to say how could manage a whole yard by driving around the perimeter - ever the engineer Aaron was one of the brightest guys I ever met.  He made a great crop of honey each year and some of the best I ever tasted.  

Bill Hesbach
Cheshire CT

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