Funny thing happened on a way to a fishing hole the other day with a
co-worker whom I helped start a few hives this year. He asked me how long I
had bees and how I got started. Well It got me to pondering, and I told him
as a kid I had always been interested in bees, so my grandparents took me to
the county extension office and I got a few pamphlets on bees and went to the
library and checked out a few books. Studied, and worked all fall and winter
long saving enough money to buy a starter hive kit thru the Sears Farm and
Ranch Catalog. Yes thats right Sears Farm and Ranch (giving away my age
here). My dad and a local beekeeper were friends and when he heard that I had
ordered the kit, he said "You just can't have one", and within a couple of
days I had 2 complete hives plus the kit that I had from Sears. Ordered my
first 3 packages from York Bee, and never looked back from the ripe old age
of 10 LOL. Another beekeeping friend of mine asked me the other day, what
drives a person to want to keep bees. We mused about how maybe it was that we
derived some form of pleasure being able to produce something from nature.
How many of us on this forum have tapped a stand of maples and fired up a
wood burning evaporator, ran a trapline, chased coonhounds at 3 in the
morning thru a woods that you thought had no end, raised your own livestock,
enjoy sitting in a duckblind or a deer blind on opening day with your kids,
plant a garden and then realize you planted enough for you the 6 neighbors
across the road and your dentist's, garbageman's sister, thrown up a
greenhouse, enjoy sittin and watchin the sun slowly ebb from the sky at dusk,
or sit and watch the meteor showers when the thermometer says get back
inside? Maybe some of you havent done these things and maybe some of you are
repulsed by the notion of a few of them, but there is a common thread that we
share, maybe the marvel of how diverse and complicated a swarm of bees can
be. Something drives us to do what we do, just looking for what is that keeps
you going to the hive, dancing a jig when a bee gets up your pantleg. 30
years and 250 swarms later, it would be interesting to know what got you
started and what it is that keeps your beekeeping fire lit?

Bill
Ithaca, MI

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