Why keep bees?

You may be wondering why someone would want to keep bees.  Anson and I asked ourselves that question during the bee-filled van ride home to Raleigh.  Comedian Eddie Izzard has some funny things to say about keeping bees:

Well, there are many reasons one would want to keep bees.  Here are the top reasons Anson and I are interested, listed in order of importance to us:

1. Honey -- The benefits of honey are plentiful and there's even a website dedicated to the benefits-of-honey.com but to name a few:
• Immune system booster; Antioxidant; Probiotic
• Potential allergy immunity 
• Sore throat relief
• Good for your skin: heals wounds and burns, moisturizes 
• Delicious
2. Connect with nature
• I've read that beekeeping reduces stress (but I have no stress!)
• Anson and I saw a new bee emerging from its cell today.  They have to chew their way through their wax cell to get out as adults.  It was almost emotional to watch.
3. Education
• Bees are fascinating! I'll make a blog post on why later.  I've been making a list of cool facts to share.  I'll also try to take pictures of bees doing bee things.
4. Easy and rewarding hobby
• Bees are low maintenance and require minimal effort and time to keep
• Honey is a great gifts for loved ones
• Beeswax can be used to make candles, lip balm, hand salve, and more.  I think we'll likely make candles and not the latter two but we could if we were so inclined! 
5. Pollination
• I heard in a documentary that 40% of our food is dependent on bees in some capacity.  75% of the US's fruits, nuts and vegetables are pollinated by bees.  Pollination is so critical to our food supply that bees are shipped all over the US to crops as they come into season.  This has become a $15B industry.  If you think about the need for pollination for our food sources, you'll see that bees are critical to our world.  For example, without bees to pollinate alfalfa we would have no hay to feed cattle.  Circle of life stuff.  But Anson and I are just happy that our gardening neighbors will benefit.  We also want to plant blueberries next year.
6. Bees are in trouble and need our help! 
• In 1940 there were more than 5 million managed bee colonies.  Today there are less than 2.5 million. The following things are putting bees at risk 
• Colony Collapse Disorder
• Increased use of pesticides 
• Invasive parasitic mites and beetles
• Other theories abound for the vanishing bees (such as cell phones) but I won't name them all

Citation 

Citation II

And of course lots of wikipedia

Are you going to make honey?

Telling people we are going to be beekeepers prompts some interesting questions.  My favorites so far are, "Are you going to make honey?"  (alternative includes "Did you make honey?"), "Does wearing yellow make them want to attack you?", and "Are you going to name them?".  I'm 90% sure the last one was a joke, especially considering that one came from a very fun friend.  So, if these are the types of questions you might have, don't feel bad, you're not alone.  I also am learning.  And Anson learned the hard way that the color of your clothing does matter but that it's dark colors, not yellow, that seems to anger bees.  Also, polarized lenses in sunglasses or scented deodorant or shampoo are no-nos in beekeeping.  We did name our hives: we have the White one and the Green one.

The question "Are you going to make honey?" seems the most common of the questions and I've been asked it several times.  It's similar to asking someone with chickens if they are going to make eggs.  Bees make the honey and essentially we take some once (in some cases twice) in the summer in exchange for a well-kept place to live.  This also gives the bees more opportunity to work and pollinate more plants instead of ending the season early with enough honey reserves to last the winter season.

While I am learning, these things I already knew.  This weekend was filled with new learnings though as my Poppop gave us some hands-on training.  He showed us how to check for a queen, which seems to be a beekeepers main task throughout the year.  One way is of course to find her.  She is longer and has a different shaped body than the rest of the bees.  Another way is to spot her eggs or larva.  If you can spot eggs or larva you know that she is laying and therefore exists.  Our hives both have queens, however the laying pattern of the green hive is scattered and weak so we will have to feed them in an effort to increase the strength of the hive.  I'll do this tomorrow.  The food will be a sugar water solution 1:1.  Or was it 2:1?...  I'm still learning!

Poppop teaching us about the laying pattern

Anson and I are having a lot of fun already!  We've gone outside just to look at the hives about 6 times in the last 24 hours.  This has also increased the cat's interest in the area.  She may have to learn the hard way not to sniff around there!