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Reflections of a MAD BEE MAN from the OLd Drone
 
Not so many years ago that I have forgotten my bees were being killed
by some of my good farm neighbors controlling perceived pests in their
cotton fields. They had read about them and the end of the world in the
farm papers and had received a free report on their own fields from the
friendly university trained farm agent and chemical sales person.
 
Beekeepers were going out of business because they could not replace
their bees as fast as the crop dusters could kill them. I was spending
everything I made from my own bees and all I could borrow to replace
them every year. I also was waging my own small political campaign to
protect my honeybees from pesticides at the local and state level. I was
running around like a chicken with his head cut off and going broke
like so many other beekeepers.
 
"Conditions were changing for the better", I was told over and over but
I could not measure the difference in my bee yards, the bees were still
getting killed. I was at the end of my own rope, then I read of some
crazy old Russian beekeeper in a ajoining farm town who had been
arrested on suspicion of torching a plane parked across the road from
his home and honey farm. But he had to be released because anyone could
buy a 5 gallon honey can and fill it with petrol and place it in the
cockpit of the crop dusters aeroplane. He later was again picked up and
released after a good long free rest and medical check up in the local
mental warehouse for shooting at a crop duster that flew over his bees
and home, no holes could be found in the duster or his crop dusting
machine. At another location a tall heavy beehive had also been placed
on a crop dusters air strip in a place that the duster could not miss
hitting it causing damage to his plane, and it did. The hive turned out
to have been stolen from a nearby apiary and no arrests were ever made.
 
This old man whom I did not know was wrong but I could not help but
admire his determination to make a statement as I knew first hand his
disappointment from working with the system as he knew well that the
burned crop duster would be replaced by a bigger and newer one, and that
when a dusty crashes which happens quite regularly around here another
one will take his place and the war to kill all honeybees continues to
this day. I was sad for him but strangely proud to be a beekeeper when
all my farm neighbors would bring his actions up at our local coffee
shop and at farm center meetings. I was at the end of my own rope,
frustrated in my efforts to make a living keeping bees or see changes
made to make others responsibility for their actions that were killing
my bees and tired of the shallow strokes I was getting from those who
could have made a difference at every level of government from the
University President to the Governor himself. I had then the "gonads"
and was naive enough to meet and talk with them all and assumed the
strokes I received meant that change was on the way. I enjoyed the FREE
perks paid for mostly by the big spending chemical industry and other
big tax payers but I still had to return home to the real life silence
of thousands of my own bee hives overflowing my storage barns.
 
And then one day after checking another yard of stinking dieing bees and
with a empty head void of thoughts and without a plan or any idea as to
what I could do next I was driving down one of our back roads and ahead
I could see a crop duster preparing to take off using the black top as
his runway. This was a common practice and saved lots of money in
constructing special landing fields for crop dusters. I knew it violated
many local, state, and federal laws but was overlooked by the same
people who overlooked the honeybees that were being killed.
 
Something snapped in me that day, I was mad as hell and could not take it
anymore, I was defeated and could not see any end to what was happening
to other's and my own bees, my future was dieing with my bees. Instead
of yielding the right of way to the on coming crop duster, loaded down
with another cargo of death for someone's bees, and pulling over into
the brier ditch along the side of the road as all had done before me, I
continued on a course that could have ended in disaster, and was I ever
relieved when to my amazement the massive crop duster at the last moment
beat me to the ditch on the left side of the road and I did not have to
alter my course for the same on the right. I never had realized what a
heavy mass of machinery these old crop dusters were as from the ground
when they are flying over my home and bee yards they don't look so big
as they are from the seat of your pick up looking straight into the
dirty massive engine and spinning propeller all stuck tight in the soft
soil off the black top.
 
The crop duster was not at all damaged although it was a bit unsettling
to see it stuck in such a awkward position, but a very angry owner/pilot
rushed over to me as I stood by the side of my truck and made some
gestures that were not friendly in nature and some very nasty remarks
about my own heritage that includes two presidents on my mother's
side, which I don't remember and won't repeat. But he also said he knew
who I was and that I was a beekeeper and he would get even with me. I
accepted his challenge and I gave him my business card so he would know
how to get in touch with me and left the scene of my madness with a
strange feeling of enlightenment or great relief. Like I had met the
enemy in mortal face to face combat and survived. The experience for me
was like a rebirth or the first night of two innocents on honeymoon. I
will never forget my madness and from that day I became a real BEEMAN
and a better advocate for all beekeepers and believe it or not I
generated more respect from our local dusty's and others on the farm
then all the efforts I put in playing by their bible called the
Agricultural Code in California; dinning with the State Director of
Agriculture, or the president of the University of California, Chemical
Company Presidents, so called beekeeping research scientists or the
would bee next President of the United States, RR, not Abe.
 
I never worried about any crop duster getting me from then on as I had
already been gotten and this one did try to have me cited for blocking
his use of the county road as a runway and the results of his attempts
were that was the last flight of any crop duster from any county road in
my county as from that day to this they were required to use their own
special landing strips that can be monitored for pesticide contamination
and once en a great while they are.
 
Since then the tire marks from the landing planes have worn off the
pavements and the rains have washed away the spills and dumps into
our drinking water that occur everyday when loading a crop duster. I am
a lot older and still not sure about my sanity or beekeeping skills and
I count few crop dusters as my friends. I have seen and learned much on
the law from being on both sides of the table that regulates what I and
they do and have learned how to make part of their life a little less
pleasant but never will come close to what they have done to me and my
bees. Life is not that long, and someday I will be gone but no one will
be able to say I did what I did at the expense of others which can not
be said for those who pride themselves as being part of the agricultural
chemical community who all will find a special warm place waiting for
them on their way to heaven and at least two beekeepers will be waiting
with his 5 gallon honey cans, full of fuel for the fires of hell.
 
                              ttul, OLd Drone
 
 
(c) Permission is granted to freely copy this document
in any form, or to print for any use.
 
(w)Opinions are not necessarily facts. Use at own risk.
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 ~ QMPro 1.53 ~  A beekeeper smells the flowers and looks for the supers.