Local Honey

yellow jacket: Any of 35–40 species (genus Dolichovespula or Vespula) of social wasps, principally of the Northern Hemisphere, named for the black bands on its yellow abdomen. Vespula species build concealed nests underground or in protected cavities; when a nest is stepped on, the colony may erupt in an angry, stinging swarm. (Encyclopedia Brittanica, www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/652626/yellow-jacket)

Back in July of 2009, Jenny and her kids were visiting. I was sitting in the kitchen when Kyle and Tyson came in from the deck crying. Not only were they crying, they were yelping because they were being repeatedly stung. They ended up with three or four stings each. While Judy tended to their stings, I was sent out to locate the bees nest and take care of the threat. I scouted out the back yard and finally located a bee. I followed it across the yard until it headed over the fence. I’m not good at going over fences, so it was fortunate that I had been fixing it (in other words, had torn it down and left the remnants on the ground until I could work up the motivation to put it back up semi-straight).

bee: (tribe Apini), any of a group of insects in the family Apidae (order Hymenoptera) that in a broad sense includes all bees that make honey. In a stricter sense, honeybee applies to any one of four members of the genus Apis—and usually only the single species, Apis mellifera, the domestic honeybee. This species is also called the European domestic bee or the western honeybee.(Encyclopedia Brittanica, www.britannica.com/bps/search?query=european+honey+bee)

As I approached the fence, I noticed that there were more bees buzzing around. Across the fence, they were crawling up into the eaves of our neighbors’ empty house. They didn’t seem that upset, however, and they were all the way on the other end of the deck. Besides, these looked a lot like honeybees, not hornets (which we all erroneously refer to as “bees” because . . . I don’t know why we do that).

Anyway, I kept searching until I found a hornets nest under our deck. Feeling brave, I went to the store and bought a can of industrial strength insecticide and emptied its contents on the 2-inch nest. Mission accomplished. However, there was still that bee hive next door.

Agriculture depends greatly on the honeybee for pollination. Honeybees account for 80% of all insect pollination. Without such pollination, we would see a significant decrease in the yield of fruits and vegetables. (Back Yard Beekeepers Association, www.backyardbeekeepers.com/facts.html)

“If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live." ~ Albert Einstein

You’ve heard, of course, about the colony-collapse syndrome that has been plaguing honeybees lately. I had, so Judy and I decided to call our neighbor and suggest he call a beekeeper to relocate the hive. He agreed with us but didn’t know any, so he asked Judy if she could locate one. Of course she could, so she scheduled with a 12-year-old in our area who had recently bought a beekeeping business from an imminently-leaving missionary.

Because this was the 12-year-old’s first attempt to relocate a hive, the soon-to-be missionary came along as well. They took a look at the house brought out their equipment, and donned their traditional protective suits. Our neighbors had moved from their house a couple of months previous to this incident, so we were the contacts to the beekeepers. Fortunately, I hadn’t decided yet to rebuild my fence, so there was easy access to our yard and any equipment they might need from us. We quickly established an observation point about 15 yards.

They borrowed a couple of crowbars and pulled down the soffit to locate the hive. 

Now that they could see what they were up against, they had to decide on a plan of action. To move a hive, all you really have to do is move the queen. So locate the queen, move her to a box, and the rest of the bees will follow.

The queen bee can live up to 5 years and is the only bee that lays eggs. She is the busiest in the summer months, when the hive needs to be at its maximum strength, and lays up to 2500 eggs per day. (Back Yard Beekeepers Association, www.backyardbeekeepers.com/facts.html)

The process took a long time and gathered quite an audience. The beekeepers had limited space to work in where the hive was, so it took them quite a while. In the mean time, we peppered them with questions and learned a few things about bees. At one point, the younger beekeeper came by and put this bee on my hand.

Larger than the worker bees, the male honey bees (also called drones), have no stinger and do no work at all. All they do is mating.

Only worker bees sting, and only if they feel threatened and they die once they sting. Queens have a stinger, but they don’t leave the hive to help defend it. (Back Yard Beekeepers Association, www.backyardbeekeepers.com/facts.html)

This was obviously a drone. We were bonding. There was also plenty of honeycomb to go around.

Soon, however, the sun started going down and the audience dispersed. We hung around because we don’t have anything better to do and helped out. It started getting dark, so I went and grabbed my shop light from the garage and held it up for the beekeeper as he scraped out the honeycomb.

It didn’t take long till I felt something on my arm. Being the he-man that I described earlier, I shook violently. The bee flew away and the bulb went out. It took two more incandescent bulbs and a bee sting before I resorted to a compact fluorescent bulb and rolled up my sleeves.

Work was going slowly, so the beekeeper finally decided to vacuum out the bees. He borrowed our carpet cleaner that has the clear bucket. I was hoping that some of the bees might be saved that way, but it didn’t look very promising.

He finally finished and we washed wax and honey from all of our stuff. He gave us a few combs and instructed us how to extract and filter the honey.

We boiled it, and strained it, and boiled it, and strained it, and put it in bottles. You can come over and try it if you’d like. The one thing we didn’t do is centrifuge it (couldn’t find our centrifuge) so there are a few bee parts in it. But it tastes really good.