Visit to an Apiary

Of course, books couldn’t tell me everything I needed to know about bees; I needed to visit an apiary, which is the formal name given to a group of hives. I found two wonderful South Carolina beekeepers who took me under their wing. Inside their honey house, I sketched and labeled all the honey-making machines and equipment, trying to get a handle on how they worked. There seemed to be a thin veneer of honey everywhere, and my shoes stuck slightly to the floor when I walked, something I could never have learned from a book. And where else, but from an actual beekeeper, was I going to learn that if you put bee pollen in olive oil, you had a decent “bee salve” for stings.

They suited me up in the beekeeper outfit– gloves to veiled pitch helmet– and out we went to inspect the hives. I was unprepared for the rush of fear and relish I experienced when the lid on the first hive was lifted and thousands of bees poured out. It was eery and magical at the same time– standing in the center of a whirling cloud of bees while the pungent scent of honey drifted up, bee hum swelled to unbelievable levels and the smoke meant to calm the bees rose in sharp plumes all around us. Beekeeping, I discovered, is a thoroughly sensual and courageous business.

At one point I was surrounded with so many bees, I could hardly see; they covered my bee veil and sat all along my shoulders and arms. But not once did I have to test out the “bee salve.” No “life-loving honeybee” wants to sting you, I was told. Doing so, requires that she give up her life.