This is a highly personal story about the interaction of my experiences as a money manager, hobby beekeeper and the discovery that I suffer from Parkinson’s disease.
Please bear (more on bears later) with me while I set the stage. In financial markets analysis there are many theories, but three main ones. The “fundamentalist” believes true value can be discovered by looking at the fundamentals of the business. The “technician” believes that he can discern the nature of the “true” fundamentals by observing the activity of the market price. The third theory, dubbed “efficient market,” essentially argues that, on average, all new information is reflected in the price and that neither fundamental analysis nor watching the activity of market prices contains forecasting insights. I have oversimplified these theories but this is the essence of it.
So what does this have to do with honey bees? A bee is not human. But this beekeeper is and I have found similarities in both callings. There is the old observation that to a carpenter with a hammer, everything appears to be a nail. Please keep this in mind when you read my beginning approach to beekeeping. These are, after all, the memoirs of a money manager. Let me take you back to the very beginning in 1988; it all started in beekeeping school where my buddy Bill and I first got the beekeeping “bug.”
“Not me!” shrieked the man to the left of me.
“Me neither.” said the woman to my right.
When all the scrambling and gasping was done, Bill and I were standing in the front row, having started in the back row. All that had happened was that Elmer, a 70-something beekeeper, had lifted a frame of bee comb from the top of a very active bee hive and was slowly passing it around as an offering for someone in the group to hold. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of bees crawling all over his bare arms, hands and, most significantly, the frame of comb honey he was presenting.
It was late May of 1988 and I was living in the Berkshires, MA. My good friend Bill and I had decided to take a beekeeping course in nearby New York State. Bill’s interest was recent but mine dated back to when I was eight or nine years old and was fascinated by a neighbor who kept bees. His house was along the bike route I took to one of my favorite places to fish in the summer. I would stop and watch, transfixed by his slow movements and apparent lack of fear as thousands of bees buzzed all around and over him. He smiled and I watched; I never talked with him or met him. But, I thought, someday I will keep bees.
That “someday” was now, so both Bill and I bravely reached out for a frame of bees; we were both captivated. Elmer moved very slowly as he showed us how to hold the frame. Then, ever so quietly, he pointed out the worker bees (females) from the drones (males).
“Now,” he said, “very gently slip the frames back into the hive and let’s see if we can find the queen.”
“Louder, speak louder,” someone yelled from the safe distance of about 20 feet.
Elmer chuckled, “if you wish to be part of this class, you have to learn how to handle the bees.”
Two more brave souls came forward but by the end of the morning, half the class had dropped out. After the class, Bill and I left with two “nucs” a piece. A nuc is a small hive box containing one queen (the nucleus of the bee colony) and about four or five pounds of bees on four frames.
Our frames contained uncapped and capped brood and a lot of honey. There are tricks to moving and relocating bees which, over the years, Bill and I learned the hard way, but our trip home that day was uneventful. Bill and I had a few stings; not too bad all things considered. We were finally on our way to beekeeping.
By the way, I should say right up front, forget about this hobby if you are afraid of being stung. Just so you know, bees do not want to sting you. They die soon after their stinger leaves their body and enters your skin. But if you do get stung, you should act fast and, with your fingernail, scrape the stinger out quickly, otherwise it will pump fluid into your skin and the sting will be much more painful. Some people are highly allergic to bee stings, while others are not. Bill and I once had a large number of stings apiece and, while sore, were fine the next day. This was much later in our “careers” so we were probably somewhat immune. I will tell you about that crazy adventure shortly.
Over time, I tried all three approaches. I started my beekeeping hobby with two nuc hives which quickly became normal large “supers” with thousands of bees (the term supers is explained below).
I was petrified every time I smoked the hive and inspected the frames. I mostly just checked for evidence that the queen was laying eggs, that the brood chamber had sufficient room and that there was still room for more honey. I was in and out but never lingered. Then one day I decided to take a different approach. It was a sunny warm late August afternoon when I made a discovery that I later found was basic knowledge to seasoned beekeepers. I spread a blanket to lie upon about ten feet from the hive and took up a pair of binoculars. If you do this, do not position yourself directly in front of the hive because it interferes with the arrival and departure of the honey bees. What I saw astonished me. First the activity in the hive was phenomenal. Bees were coming and going in a steady stream. Then a bumble bee approached the hive entrance and was immediately attacked by many bees; it was then I noticed that some bees guarded the entrance and seemed to act as gatekeepers. Even though the bumble bee was quickly repulsed, an interesting chain of events took place. Bees with pollen were held up outside the entrance and seemed to just be hanging around while other bees flew up and walked right in. I did not know it at the time, but the hive needed to be cooled and the bees permitted immediate access were carrying water. Also hundreds of bees were resting on the hive while others seemed to be flapping their wings at the entrance; later I read that the flapping was, with the water, cooling the hive just like air conditioning.
A few weeks later in September, I once again took up blanket and binoculars. This time I had done some reading and was looking for specific behavior; I was not disappointed. The female, or worker bees, were committing mass murder! They were physically carrying the larger male or drone bees out of the hive and dumping them on the grass. When the drones recovered from this insult, they flew back up to the hive entrance where they were met by an enormous army of guard bees prohibiting their re-entry into the hive. The drones were systematically removed from the hive and left to starve to death, be eaten by birds or whatever. The next day, this “fundamentalist” beekeeper donned the suit, hefted the smoker and went looking for drones; they were still there but in far fewer numbers than I had observed earlier in the season. Question: Why do the women treat their men so shabbily? Answer: because they do not wish to feed them through the winter and, besides, they can make more drones in the spring. Indeed the winter survival of the hive depends on reducing the population to 15,000 or 20,000 bees; this greatly reduced number of worker bees will feed the queen and feast on the hoard of honey collected by as many as 80,000 or more bees during the peak season. It is, I thought, somewhat like an annuity where those that die early provide food for those that live long. When the hive is out of balance and too many bees go into the winter relative to the stored honey supply, the hive may die altogether unless the beekeeper feeds it. Perhaps our politicians should study the bee hive when revamping social security.
Where does this leave our efficient market beekeeper? I decided to try this approach, but not until I was into my third year of keeping bees and had six surviving hives in early May. My test was to take the strongest hive and the weakest hive, set them up with two large supers and two medium supers and not open or touch them until harvest time in the last week of August. Since these two efficient market hives were in the same bee yard, I did not exactly neglect them, but I did not open them until the end of August. Here is what happened. The weak hive thrived and produced about 110 pounds of honey of which I left them 90 pounds for the winter and stored the rest. The strong hive should have been split early on into two hives, but I did not do it. As a result, the hive swarmed and I had to wait for a new queen. By mid-July the new queen was laying and the bees starting working hard. How did I know all this without going into the hive? One day in late May the strong hive had very few bees flying when compared to its history and the other hives. Because the bees were pretty listless I concluded the queen was gone. I hoped they were making a new queen but instead of opening up the hive, I patiently waited. The average time for making a new queen is 16 days but she needs to take her maiden flight and become fertile. Including fertility it may take a total of 23 days or more before she is laying eggs. Finally a few weeks later the activity picked up and the bees started bringing in pollen, a sure sign that I might have a laying queen. Nevertheless, they only produced about 50 pounds of honey by late August and I knew that if I did not give them more honey for the winter they might not make it.
So here is where I finally came out. First, in early spring, you must open the hive, clean out the debris and check for disease; you should reverse the two main hive bodies and, if appropriate split the hive and either re-queen one or both of them. I never purchased single queens, counting on the bees to do it; I found they almost always did (by my count, 4 out of 5 times). Second, after the first opening, you should observe the hive but try to avoid entering unless you think you have lost a queen or need to add honey supers. Third, you should at harvest time try to determine the health and strength of your hives. I generally combined weak hives and tried to keep what I thought was the young queen (I also did this in the spring). This is also the time to check that you have provided for the bees by making sure they have enough honey to survive a long cold winter. Because I was always generous I rarely ever lost bees to starvation and did not have to feed them sugar water. Lastly, in the fall I narrowed the hive entrance and put mouse protectors on the hive entrance. It is important to keep the hive well ventilated and mouse free.
Thus, I concluded that it is not necessary to enter the hive very often because careful observation of the hive entrance will usually tell you what you need to know. Alternatively, you cannot neglect the hive either. Remember, bees are wild creatures and live in the home you provide for them only as long as you give them what they want.
Beekeeping is like every hobby; there is a nearly endless variety of ways of spending your money on “stuff” and gadgets. I break the basics down into the “hardware” and “software” of what is in my view the minimum necessary stuff you need.
Of course, to keep bees you must provide them with a nice comfortable home and, in keeping with Chinese tradition, the home must have good “Feng shui.” While I say this somewhat with tongue-in-cheek, the fact is that I found very quickly that if I did not provide the right home for my bees, they left; better known as absconding. The location must be warm in the winter, cool in the summer, near to water, and safe from predators. Bees have many predators from mice, to wasps, ants, raccoons, possums, and, of course, bears. They can also be threatened by much smaller predators such as mites (notice the white bugs on the bee’s body).
In the early years, I found good results from setting my bee hives on concrete blocks, facing south or east in such a way that the deciduous trees shaded them from the late afternoon sun in the summer but with the leaves gone in the winter, the hive was warmed by direct sunlight all day. If there was a nice breeze, that was a plus. The basic home consists of a hive box, sometimes called a “super” in which typically rests 8 to 10 frames that when filled with honey or brood are exactly 3/8 of an inch apart. This space is referred to as “bee space” being the amount of space required for two bees to pass each other.
Exhibit 3 – Large, medium and small supers side by side
The width (16 1/4") and depth (19 7/8") will be the same for all boxes, including the honey super. The difference with the super is the height. There are three sizes used for honey supers. Beekeepers with strong backs sometimes use the deep size, 9 5/8" in height. A very common size is 6 5/8" in height. This is also called the Illinois super or a medium super. Then there is the small super. It is 5 5/8" tall.
As you can see, the only difference is the height, which is very critical, because the greater the height, the larger the frame in height, and the larger the frame, the more honey it can hold. Therefore, a deep super full of honey can weight close to 90 pounds, a medium close to 60 pounds and a small 30-40 pounds. http://basicbeekeeping.blogspot.com/2007/09/basic-beekeeping-lesson-three-supers.html
This specific bee hive design was reportedly perfected by a Reverend L. L. Langstroth around 1851. Most beekeepers use this type of hive. The great advantage of the Langstroth bee hive is that the frames are movable, permitting the inspection of the hive and the harvesting of honey. There are also specialized supers that exist for making comb honey in circles or squares. Supers can be stacked on each other according to need.
In addition to the super, the standard bee hive home will have a roof consisting of an “inner cover” that rests on the top super and an “outer cover” telescoping over the hive body. When I first started beekeeping, these parts were made of wood and I either assembled them from kits or made them from scrap. Today they are also made of plastic or polystyrene. The basic floor of the hive body is called a “bottom board” which collects all the debris of the hive. The entrance to the bee hive is the space between the bottom of the bottom super and the bottom board, usually about an inch or so. This space provides the ventilation for the hive and must also be guarded against predators. In the winter, or if the hive is weak, beekeepers will block off part of the entrance with a piece of wood called an “entrance reducer” which greatly limits the traffic and makes it easier for the guard bees to defend the hive entrance.
Exhibit 4 – Schematic of a Langstroth hive
Other pieces of equipment for the hive sometimes include a “feeder” to feed a weak hive sugar water; a “queen excluder” which is typically placed above the brood hive and below the honey in order to keep the queen from laying eggs in the honey combs; and an “escape board” which is used at harvest time to get the bees out of the honey comb. As my experience grew, I rarely used feeders, preferring to store excess combs of honey and provide the hungry bees with their best food. I initially used queen excluders, but found that as long as I provided room for the brood, the queen rarely moved into the honey supers. In addition, I determined that queen excluders slowed down the worker bees from the honey supers. By not using queen excluders and providing a second entrance directly into the honey supers I greatly improved the productivity of the bees. I closed this second entrance in the fall.
The “software” I referred to earlier is really some of the stuff that beekeepers use in tending to the bees. The most required item of software for all beginning beekeepers is the “bee suit.” Highly experienced beekeepers may only add a broad-brimmed hat but I do not recommend beginners ever open a hive without a full beekeeping suit that includes built-in protection for the face, and elbow length gloves; pants should be tucked into your socks, as bees crawl upwards. It is much easier to move slowly and gently if you know you cannot be stung.
Exhibit 5 – Bill (left) and I inspecting a hive
A minimum of two additional pieces of equipment are necessary before you start: a “smoker” and a “hive tool.” A smoker is a can with a snout and bellows in which you place combustible material that produces smoke. The beekeeper uses gentle puffs of smoke at the hive entrance and under the inner cover to calm the bees and make them gentler. The theory is that the bees, sensing the smoke, gorge themselves on honey preparing to flee the hive and thereby become sluggish.
I personally found that when you opened the hive was more important. My practice was to only open my hives on sunny days when most of the bees were absent from the hive, out collecting whatever was needed. I always smoked the hive, but as little as possible. The hive tool is used for many things in the hive, most importantly to pry the frames loose to inspect the condition of the hive. So, this is what I believe is the minimum needed for the beginner hobbyist beekeeper.
THIS OLD HOUSE
One summer Sunday in 1992 or 1993, I bumped into an acquaintance at the town dump. My town did not have garbage pickup, still does not, and most people do not wish it. The town dump is a social meeting place. He inquired if I still kept bees.
“Yes,” I responded.
It seems he owned an old house that had been vacant for 30 or 40 years and they were thinking of renovating it. They had maintained the roof and windows so the house was sound. There was only one problem: the house was infested with bees and he wanted to know if I could remove them. My compensation would be the honey. I made no commitment for I had no experience in such matters.
“I will take a look,” I volunteered.
He told me where the house was and I promised to get back to him.
That afternoon Bill and I went to take a look. We first went to the east and south sides of the building. Sure enough, on the south side of the building, about 15 feet in the air, there was a steady stream of honey bees coming and going. We went inside the building and could smell the honey; there had to be hundreds of pounds of honey . . . and probably a couple hundred thousand bees. The “hive” was so big that there might even have been more than one queen. We really had no use for the honey except to feed it to our hives in the winter. The bees, however—those we could use.
After much study and debate we concluded the only way to rid the building of the bees was to kill them and remove all the honey or a new swarm would simply take over the empty “hive.” We told the building owner that we loved bees so much we were unable to do it, but if he had no intention of starting the renovation that summer, we would like to experiment with humane bee removal; he gave his permission.
So the adventure began. One night, for bees do not fly at night, bee suits donned and smokers in hand, we mounted ladders and carefully stapled black plastic garbage bags over as many holes into the “hive” as we could find. Early the next morning, we continued sealing openings until there were only four holes from which the bees could come and go. Then, over these holes, we carefully nailed boards with small metal one-way escape doors from which the bees could leave the hive, but not return. We then mounted to the wall two sturdy racks on which we set a super with our frames containing capped and uncapped brood, honey, queen cells and pollen. Our hope was that the returning bees would take up residence in our supers. We checked our handiwork every sunny day to observe our progress.
At first it was very discouraging; the bees kept finding or making new ways into the “hive.” Perhaps seven or eight days into the project, and many more garbage bags later, I noticed a steady stream of bees on the back side of the house coming and going through a very narrow opening around a window frame. I entered the building to see thousands of bees clustered on the wall waiting patiently to enter the “hive.” Now we had a real problem! We could not very well cover up this hole with all the bees there.
We came back about 9 p. m. that night . . . more bees than ever. Meanwhile, there were only a few hundred bees that seemed to be in residence in our hive boxes mounted on the side of the building. Our solution was to open up the original bee entrances by temporarily removing the escape boards. It was nearly a week before the bees inside the house were diminished enough for us to seal the window and staple the garbage bags over the inside wall. We then once again put the escape boards back on the outside wall and waited. Two days later, the outside wall was covered with thousands of bees. Their queen was inside and they could not return; we had them.
After a few rainy days, the sun came out and Bill and I, like two eager teenagers, drove down to take a look. There were a few hundred bees on the wall and hanging around our hive boxes, but that was it. Thus, we concluded, the bees must have found a new way back in the building hive. We were totally beaten. In resignation, we leaned our ladders to the wall and climbed up to remove our hive boxes from the racks. So convinced were we that we had failed, we did not even carry a smoker or don our bee suits. I arrived at my hive box about 10 seconds before Bill. I carelessly lifted off the outer and inner covers to take a peek. I was met with a swarm of angry bees that immediately went for my arms and face. I yelled as I dropped the hive covers and hot-footed it down the ladder and ran into the woods. Bees prefer the sun, so fleeing into the relative darkness of the woods was my best chance. Even so, I was covered with angry stinging bees and only after killing many and fleeing more than 100 feet from the building could I start to flick out the stingers. Later I would count a large number of stings mostly on my arms and neck. Somewhat long hair and a heavy beard protected me.
Bill, however, decided to make a run for his car. It was parked in the sun on the side of the road about fifty feet away. He later described his experience like this.
“I heard you yell, saw you drop the hive covers and fall from the ladder. This happened just as I had lifted my hive box off the rack to carry down. Then, seeing the bees swarming all over you, in sheer terror I dropped my hive to the ground and descended the ladder. As I descended, I was met by hundreds of angry bees too; I decided to head for my car. As I reached the road I slowed down to swipe off the bees on my pants and shirt was horrified to see a swarm of bees heading for me. I jumped in the car, killed many bees and set to flicking out the stingers.”
Bill also had many stings.
After a while, I worked my way back to the road and joined Bill in his car. Believe it or not we were thrilled. We had two new hives, but we needed to act fast. We put on our bee suits, fired up our smokers, and headed back to the old house. The bees were everywhere. Working slowly we reassembled Bill’s hive, put it back on the rack and strapped it up in preparation to move to his bee yard. We did the same for mine.
Two nights later we returned, closed the hive entrances and proudly took our new hives back to our bee yards. Bill’s hive made a queen, but mine did not, so I combined it with a weak hive. Even thought I had to feed it honey that first winter; it survived for many years.
We learned many lessons from our experience. Of course, although we got bees, we did not get the wild queen. Thus, discovering that the building owner decided not to renovate the building after all, I set upon a plan to capture a queen from the old house the next year. This is what I did. We had removed the escape boards right after we took our hives and the building hive had remained strong well into the fall. The following March, I removed all the black plastic from the building. Early in April, I placed a hive box on the rack and two small nuc hives in trees opposite the south side of the building. My hope was that the building hive would swarm and I would get a queen that had some survivorship genes. I was not rewarded that year but was the following year. Afterwards, I did the same thing in my bee yard and was very often rewarded with a new hive for free.
MOVING BEES
Commercial beekeepers move thousands of bee hives around the country in order to get paid for pollinating crops. Hobbyist beekeepers quickly learn that moving hives around the bee yard must be done with caution. I discovered an amazing thing about bee’s sense of direction. They could leave the hive and return back exactly to the same hive even if there were several hives just like it right next door. However, if during the day, when most of the worker bees are out gathering whatever the hive needs, the beekeeper moves a hive four or five feet to the right or left, the returning bees are lost upon return and in a complete quandary. They are unable to locate their home. Being curious, I decided to experiment. I painted one hive green, another brown and left all the others white. These colors did not help the bees find home upon returning; it was the location of the hive that mattered. Thus, if I wished to move a hive, I always moved them at night after all the bees had returned home.
One sunny day, in early summer, Bill called me up and invited me to go for a drive to visit a beekeeper in a nearby town.
“Jake says he only has two hives left and he cannot move them around anymore. He wants to give them away along with a bunch of large and medium supers. It is no wonder; Jake has to be in his late 80’s. No harm, we can look.”
“Great,” I said. “Let’s do it.”
On inspection, we learned that Jake had two very strong hives, each one consisting of two large supers; the honey flow was on and strong. As promised, he also had several large and medium empty supers he offered to give us. We agreed to take the bees and supers, but in exchange, we each gave him twenty dollars.
A couple nights later we returned to transport the hives home. After closing off the hive entrances with screen, we set about strapping the hive boxes together and stapling the bottom board to the bottom hive. Finally we were ready to move the hives into the back area of Bill’s station wagon. They barely fit and it was all we could do to lift the hive boxes into the wagon, for they were very heavy. We surrounded them with the extra supers to make sure they were stable and secure.
As we started our drive, Bill stated that since we needed to drive very slowly we should probably take the back roads home. Since I did not think it wise to go slow on the highway route, I concurred.
Normally the trip would have taken about 30 or 40 minutes, but because we were on the back roads, it took nearly twice as long. In order to appreciate what happened next, you have to understand that neither Bill nor I went over to Jake’s house with our usual bee “software.” We went armed with screen, hive straps and staples, hammers and one smoker that we did not even have to use. It was, after all, nighttime and the bees were not flying. We were both wearing long pants, long sleeve shirts and did have beekeeper hats with veils and gloves; however, both the hats and gloves were behind our seats in a duffle bag.
The next thing we knew, we hit a bump, a very big hole in the road. One of the hives twisted, fell and the bees swarmed out. The noise of angry bees was unbelievable.
“Turn on the dome light and pull over—I’m getting stung,” I yelled.
Bill turned on the dome light, but there was light for only a brief moment, followed by darkness as the bees swarmed over the light. I knew we were in real trouble; the car was filled with thousands of bees. As the car came to a jolting stop, I reached behind me and grabbed the duffel bag containing our beekeeping stuff then leaped out and slammed the door. I was covered with bees; I could feel them crawling up my legs, my arms and, of course, all over my neck and face. I tried to remain calm. What to do? We had to get our hats, veils and gloves on as soon as possible.
Bill had jumped out and headed for the back end of the car fleeing the bees; purely by accident, I had gone the other way. Getting to the front of the car I bent down, and with the help of the car headlights, I unzipped the duffel and pulled out our beekeeping hats, veils and gloves. As I did this, I realized the bees were leaving my face and going for the car lights.
“Bill, Bill, over here. I have your hat, veil and gloves.”
As he came around to the front of the car, I told him to put his face close to the headlight; I then gave him his stuff and we ran off about 20 feet in front of the car. We put on our hats and gloves and set about trying gently to brush the bees away. The bees crawling up our legs inside our pants were driving us crazy. If this had happened before the incident at “This Old House,” I do not think we would have remained as calm as we did.
“Off with your pants, young man.” Bill said. “Either we kill them inside our pants, or we brush them away and then put our pants back on and tuck in our socks for the ride home.”
“Ok,” I said, knowing full well that the fewer smells of dead bees on our clothes and bodies, the less trouble we would have once we got back in the car.
Just as we got our pants down and started brushing off the bees, two cars came by. The first one slowed to stare; but the second one stopped and rolled down the window to laugh—teenagers. Interestingly there were still so many bees around us that their headlights were quickly covered with bees. When they realized what was going on, they rolled up their windows and sped off. We said nothing, finished brushing off the bees, pulled up our pants, tucked in our socks and headed back for the car. The headlights were still dimmed by bees, as was the dome light.
We decided that despite the likely loss, we would open up all the windows and drive fast enough to get rid of some of the bees; it did not work very well but made us feel better. On arriving at Bill’s house, we opened up the back of the station wagon and, with the help of a flashlight, inspected the damage. One hive was fine, still enclosed and upright. The other hive had come apart between the two supers and bees were spilling out everywhere. We backed away and decided to get together the next morning to see what could be done.
I went home to lick (or should I say flick) my wounds; I stripped naked and slowly began to removing stingers with my finger nail and tweezers. It was too late to really minimize the problem. I counted multiple stings. I took a cold shower and got some ice and started applying it to the sore spots; I downed two Benadryl. I did not sleep well but I was much better in the morning. I found out later that Bill went to the emergency room just to be on the safe side.
The afternoon of the next day, fully suited and smokers in hand, we peered into the back end of Bill’s station wagon. The bees from the damaged hive were flying as if nothing had happened; they were out collecting nectar and pollen. This meant the queen was alive. We did, however, have a problem; we could not move the hive during daylight hours. I began to laugh.
“Well, Bill,” I said. “Looks like you have an expensive new hive stand. That old wagon does not have any trade-in value anyway. Shall we open up the other hive and you can have both hives on one stand? You could even squeeze a couple more hives in from the back doors.”
In the end, we reassembled the damaged hive, re-stapled it and left it for the night move. That night we moved it out of the wagon and into Bill’s bee yard. We also moved the other hive to my bee yard. The bees were small black bees, much different from my yellow Italian bees, but they proved very hardy and lasted many years. Although Jake’s black bees ultimately succumbed to whatever killed all my bees, I still have much of his wooden ware.
BEARS AND BEES
One afternoon in late August of 1997, I was in my bee yard, fully suited because I was starting to harvest some honey. I had twelve hives and some were “supered” four high. The honey flow had been strong and I had more honey than I knew what to do with. It was very warm, not too humid, and the smell of honey was strong in the air. Smoker in hand, I methodically checked the condition of each hive and then placed an escape board just under each top super. Overnight most of the bees would leave the top hive and rejoin the company of the queen down below. The following day, I would remove the top honey-filled hive and repeat the steps. It was a slow process, but one I enjoyed. Many beekeepers use chemicals and/or blowers to drive the bees out of the honey supers but I enjoyed the slow peaceful process I used.
Exhibit 6 – Here, I am getting ready to move some hives.
Occasionally I would look up from my work, as I was expecting Bill to come and join me in the fun; we had started the same process with his bees the previous day. He was a little late and I kept having the feeling he was somewhere about looking on. As I slowly lifted off a top honey super, weighing about 80 to 90 pounds fully loaded, I caught movement on my right, at the edge of the woods.
“Hey Bill,” I yelled, “I need some help with these supers.”
No answer. I turned around, and not more than 75 feet away, standing on his hind legs with nose in the air, stood a huge black bear. The first name that popped into my head was “Winnie the Pooh,” even though that was an understatement. Clearly not thinking straight, I set down the super, grasped the smoker, and with both hands high in the air, smoker puffing I advanced on the bear.
“Yo bear,” I shouted. “Hey, Winnie, find your own bees.”
I am sure the bear thought I was berserk, because he dropped to all fours and high-tailed it into the woods. Just then I heard Bill, laughing hysterically. He had arrived just as I started my “smoker” attack.
“Are you crazy? That bear had to weigh at least 350 pounds. Who did you think it was, Smokey the Bear?” he said.
Over the next hour we finished the checking out of the hives and placing the escape boards; then we moved to his bee yard and started the process of removing the honey supers that were now largely free of bees. All the time we worked, we talked about “Winnie.”
That night Winnie returned and tipped over three hives and carried one 90-pound super full of honey over 100 feet into the woods where he proceeded to gorge himself on honey and honey comb. I can only imagine the bee stings he sustained as the hive and ground were littered with dead bees. The next morning, I called Bill and told him about the Winnie attack; he jokingly commented that it was in retaliation after my smoker attack. I was fortunate that Winnie took a top honey-filled super and not a brood chamber where he might have killed the queen. I reassembled the strewn hives, confirmed the existence of the queens and got out my bee books.
What to do about bears? Bottom line, there were three solutions, none promising. Shoot the bear, not a good long-term solution because there are lots of bears. Second, give up hobby beekeeping; I wasn’t about to do that either. The third solution was to set up an electric fence; this solution tended to work only if the bear had never tasted the honey. Otherwise they just ripped the fence down, ignored the electric shock and went for the honey. But in desperation, that week Bill and I set up an electric fence around my hives. A few nights later Winnie came back, destroyed both the fence and a few more hives; I lost two queens. I tried motion sensors, sirens, flashing lights and electronic barking dogs; nothing stopped Winnie. I went into the fall with only four hives but, fortunately, all four survived the winter.
That winter was an especially sad one for me. My beekeeping buddy Bill died on January 8, 1998. I had lost a good friend. For years afterword, I would look around my bee yard expecting him to trundle over, fully suited with smoker and hive tool in hand.
THE END OF BEEKEEPING . . . FOR A WHILE
The following spring Winnie came back and, hungry after hibernation, destroyed three of my four hives. Without Bill, beekeeping was not as much fun. I did, however, manage to have two swarms take up residence in my bait hives, bringing my number of hives back up to three. Unfortunately, my hives became infested with mites. Over the next couple of years my bee hives struggled with disease and barely produced enough honey for their own winter use. Winnie stayed away. I guess he figured out there was not much to eat.
During the late 1990s my investment management business (i.e., my day job) was going well and the technology segment of the stock market went parabolic (straight up in price). But to me, the U.S. equity market seemed overvalued and I had not participated in the technology market and therefore had underperformed. I decided it was time to do an asset sale of the advisory contracts of my institutional separate accounts and mutual funds. Fortunately there were bidders and I sold that portion of my business in early 2000 and closed in December of 2000. I was left with a small California-based investment advisory/financial planning firm and the obligation to work part-time for a few years. The purchaser required me to resign from all board of director positions except as a Public Governor of the Pacific Coast Options Exchange. My former employees had jobs and I shared a substantial portion of the sale with them and the tax man.
Life was supposed to be good. But life was not good; I was not well even though I had always gotten the obligatory annual physical exams. Such exams notwithstanding, I had for most of my adult life suffered from gastrointestinal pain. The doctors had told me it was due to the stress associated with my career. In 2002, I was diagnosed with an inherited autoimmune condition known as celiac disease. Thinking back to many years earlier, my mother had told me that bread gave her a stomach ache; I had replied that Wheaties gave me stomach pain. In an instant I knew why in my early 20s, I thought beer and scotch made me sick. My pain had been hiding in plain sight in my diet all these years. Within six months of going off gluten, I felt better gastrointestinally than I had in years.
Alas, my health continued to deteriorate in small incremental ways. My body seemed to be shutting down. I found it increasingly difficult to walk long distances; my voice became gravelly and soft; I coughed a lot and swallowing was sometimes difficult; food did not taste the same and I found that even my favorite spicy Asian food did not have the same kick. Lastly, I felt as though I was losing my sense of smell. To determine if it was my imagination or if I really could not smell as well as before, I would order my favorite foods and sniff. The mind is quite amazing, and although I thought I could remember what something smelled like, I was not sure.
The coup de grace of smell tests occurred one sunny Saturday morning on a country road in Connecticut. I noticed what seemed like a recently killed skunk by the side of the road; I quickly pulled over, put on my flashers and went back to take a sniff. I had smelled many a dead skunk growing up in Michigan and it was an unforgettable stench. I was just about at the skunk when a state trooper, seeing my flashing rear lights, pulled up just behind me and the skunk.
As he got out of the car he said, “Are you having car problems or did you hit the skunk?”
Gosh, I thought, a killer of wild life; I will probably get a fine.
“No sir,” I explained. “I just wanted to see if the skunk smelled. You see, I am afraid I am losing my sense of smell and thought this would be a good way to find out for sure.”
“So, does it smell?” asked the trooper, barely concealing a grin.
“No sir,” I responded. “It must not be a fresh kill.”
The trooper broke into roaring laughter. “You, sir, can tell your doctor you have lost all sense of smell. That skunk REALLY stinks.”
As I continued on my journey I thought how fortunate that the state trooper had come along; I might have concluded the skunk kill was old and did not have an odor at all. If you cannot smell, how do you know you cannot? A few years later I took a doctor-administered “smell test.” They determined that I had, by that time, lost over 90% of my olfactory sense. The mind is amazing; even now I sometimes think I can smell good coffee, but of course I cannot.
The years went by until, finally, I could not have picked up a 90-pound super even if I had wanted to; I was losing strength. In 2005, I decided that I had to give up beekeeping; I did not like medicating bees and they died every winter anyway. I rarely caught wild swarms in my bait hives and I never saw honey bees in my flower gardens or fruit trees anymore; I concluded that the wild bees were also dying. I resolved to stop buying bee packages; I would put my bait hives out in case a swarm decided it wished a new home, but none did. Honey bees were dying everywhere, not just around me.
The year 2005 was important in other respects. I had all these seemingly unrelated problems; was I just getting old? I might have accepted that except I never believed stress was the cause of my gastrointestinal problems. So, maybe there was a common reason for all of these problems. I started aggressively researching and reading about my symptoms. Totally by accident, I went to a neurologist due to numbness in my left hand. I had fallen on my left elbow and hand and three of my fingers had gone numb. After extensive testing he determined the numbness was due to the injury and, eventually it would probably heal itself (six years later it is nearly normal.)
He then said, “ . . . although it is not my area of expertise, I think your real problem is that you have Parkinson’s disease and you have had it for a while.” I asked him why he thought that. He said, “Your eyes smile, but your face does not.” I had the Parkinson’s face mask. I found old photos of myself and he was right. My face had changed.
I was stunned. Although it turns out he was ultimately proven correct, it is, as I discovered, a devilishly difficult disease to diagnose. I struggled with what to do next. I was afraid that describing my symptoms to a Parkinson’s disease doctor was like going to a surgeon who would wish to cut something. Eventually, after much personal reading and discussion with more doctors, I landed in the neurology/movement centers of two teaching hospitals. It was at that time that I learned I have Parkinson’s disease.
Looking back at it now, I realize I probably had Parkinson’s symptoms as early as 1998. That summer I was returning to my office after lunch when a coworker poked fun at the way I walked. He said, “ . . . you walk like a stiff soldier, but you do not swing your arms.” For most of my adult life I had spent my free time during the summer backpacking and hiking in the White Mountains; after 1998 I started hiking in the French Alps around Chamonix-Mt. Blanc. The year 2004 was the last year I felt good enough to even hike down the mountain after taking the train up. In 2003 I had my vocal cords examined because my voice had slowly become “soft and gravelly.” It was determined that my vocal cords look “normal.” Later in the decade I found I needed more sleep to feel good, but that sleep did not come easily. While I had no trouble getting to sleep, I frequently found myself wide awake at 2 a. m. and then sometime later would sleep well until about 7 a. m. While in bed, moving was increasingly difficult and I would often be awakened with either awful dreams or terrible leg and foot cramps or both. I still have all these problems.
Initially upon receiving my diagnosis, I was depressed. However within a few months I was a renewed man, I really was. I now had an explanation for my physical problems. I started yoga to try to keep my muscles limber. I read voraciously. I took voice lessons and learned how to speak louder so people could hear me. Fortunately, I do not have much of a shaking hand. Nevertheless, I decided to tell my friends, employees and clients as I did not wish to hide anything. My doctors encouraged openness but warned that there might be adverse reactions from some people. There was very little fallout.
One of my doctors, in his 80s, seemed to be willing to discuss my morbid concerns.
“How long can I reasonably expect to live? How will I most likely die? How long will I be able to walk? Am I doomed to walk bent over? How important is sleep? Is exercise important? Does diet matter? What is the chance I will develop dementia? What can I do to improve the quality of my life?”
He gave me some answers and a lot of advice, but one thing seemed to make a big difference to how long I might continue to enjoy a functioning, productive life.
“When you were young and active in your career,” he opined. “You were, from what you tell me, most likely a workaholic. You lived to work. Now, you must work to live. Go back to work, rejoin boards, get active and stay engaged in life. Continue with your yoga, try tai chi, walk every day, join groups, reactivate your connections and acquaintances. Read, think, argue, discuss.”
He believes that exercise and active social engagement will defer, or perhaps stop the onset of depression and dementia. I have tried to take his advice. I cannot walk very far or very well; but I walk, albeit not totally erect. By a combination of yoga, massage and exercise I have remained remarkably limber with little of the muscle stiffness that frequently accompanies PD. I cannot talk very well; sometimes my voice is soft, but friends are quick to tell me to speak up. I have no sense of smell and probably only half my sense of taste but here again the memory and the brain are amazing; I still love spicy Asian food, good wine, good coffee and, most of all, ice cream. My face is somewhat of a mask, and, try as I may, my smiles are not very big. My body is slowly shutting down in many other ways, but I try to figure out ways of compensating. I remain optimistic not about a cure for Parkinson’s, but rather in my ability to cope.
THE BEES COME BACK
Even though I gave up beekeeping in 2006, I did not give up hope that one day I could return to my favorite hobby. I maintained my subscriptions to bee magazines and longingly perused the beekeeping catalogs and websites. I made certain decisions. First, I would eventually get rid of my large supers and only use medium supers; I could still lift 40 to 50 pound boxes. Second, even though I was not purchasing bees, I would continue to put out my bait hives on the off-chance I could catch a swarm. Third, I decided to obtain a Warre hive.
Exhibit 7 – Example of a Warre Hive
Unlike Langstroth hives, Warre hives have no frames for the bees to build on. The bees build a comb similar to one in the wild as they would in a tree. In a Langstroth hive, you add supers to the top, and the bees must move up in the new empty hive to add honey. In a Warre hive, you add boxes to the bottom, and the comb is hanging down from the ceiling rafters in each new box. The bees have less distance to travel. In addition, the Warre is smaller in volume and there is some evidence that the bees are able to control the humidity and temperature better and that there is less disease. The roof of the Warre hive consists of a burlap type material that the bees are able to open and close to control ventilation. Above the burlap, are straw or wood chips that absorb moisture and provide insulation.
Lastly, I was determined to solve the bear problem—no more Winnie the Pooh for me. The ultimate solution came from an off-the-cuff conversation I had about bears with a beekeeper from Maine. This gentleman had been a commercial beekeeper and pollinated blueberry bogs with his bees. After he retired, he kept 15 or 20 hives for fun and to make comb honey to sell on a small scale. He soon had bear problems which he solved by building a platform 12 feet off the ground. He kept his hives on pallets and would lift them up and down with a forklift. The bears would come around, but try as they might, they could not climb his steel poles to get to the bee platform. This gave me an idea. I needed a small shed for both wood and equipment storage; why not build a second floor for bees? And so it came to be that I have a cantilevered four-foot by twelve-foot “bee patio” jutting out from the second floor of my shed. Inside on the second floor, I have room for equipment and hive box storage. I was ready for the bees, but the bees were not ready for me. My bait hives have remained empty for several years.
Exhibit 8 – A photo of the “Bee Patio”
A few weeks ago, during one of my inspections of my flower garden and fruit trees, I could not believe my ears. Was that the sound of honey bees I heard? It was a warm sunny early afternoon and the fruit trees were in bloom. I walked closer, searching the blossoms. Plenty of bumble bees; they had never disappeared. And, yes, there were honey bees. They had to be from a wild hive in my woods because I was pretty sure there were no beekeepers close by. I studied them carefully and then watched their direction of flight upon leaving my apple tree. They all headed for my woods, so I put out two more bait hives on my bee patio. A week later I was rewarded by observing several scout bees inspecting my bait hives; no swarm yet, but I am optimistic.
Now the best news, I have purchased two nucs this spring. I was traveling out of the country when they arrived and they were installed on my bee patio by another beekeeper friend. He installed one nuc, a normal two medium super Langstroth and a Warre hive that he built himself.
His name is Jeff, and Jeff is my old bee buddy Bill’s son-in-law. He inherited Bill’s bees and has become as fond of beekeeping as Bill was and I am. I feel life has come full circle. The bees are back. How bad can the future be?
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Many beekeepers would take issue with my laissez-faire methods and views on how to keep bees. Many inspect, manipulate, medicate and re-queen with much greater frequency than I ever did or wish to. But I have a very special place for my bees; I own 150 acres of woods, meadows and a pond so the bees do not have to travel far for pollen, nectar or water. After a few years, Bill and I found that if we were gentle with the bees, they were gentle with us. Except for harvest time, we rarely wore gloves or a veil when we inspected the hives.
In managing money, and beekeeping, I believe a little in the three approaches: fundamentalist (business statistics), technical (market activity) and the efficient market (buy and hold). In the spring and fall I am a fundamentalist. I open the hive, clean the debris so I can see the true condition of the business and make my decisions based on the facts. I look carefully to make sure I have a healthy CEO, my queen. I also look for queen cells (management succession), a sign the hive may be getting ready to swarm (a spin off) and that I should split the hive. During the summer honey flow, I am in both the technician and the efficient market camp. I watch the hive activity closely to make sure the queen is active. I can tell by what is brought into the hive. Finally, as the summer comes to a close, I become the fundamentalist again. I open the hive, remove the excess honey, clear out any debris on the bottom board and check for the queen. If the hive is weak, I may combine (a merger) with another weak hive. Note - Do not try to combine hives without reading about how to do it; unless done right the bees will fight. As late fall arrives, I again check the condition of the hives and add extra honey where necessary. I narrow the hive entrance and put on a mouse guard. I wrap the hive and place an empty hive box on top of the inner cover where I lay in some insulation. From then until mid-March I am back in the efficient market and technician camp. On sunny winter days, I have observed the bees leaving the hive to defecate. This being their final act, many die outside the hive entrance. I put my stethoscope to the side of the hive body; I should hear a loud buzz as the bees cluster in a tight ball around the queen. There is no need to open the hive if I left the hive with an abundance of honey.
One final word of caution: I am an amateur hobbyist beekeeper; I am not an expert. Anyone reading this should take my comments and opinions as those of someone who loves honey bees and hopes by sharing his views will give the reader a new or different perspective on these wonderful creatures. I am also not a doctor, despite my Ph.D., and therefore you should treat my life struggles with celiac disease and Parkinson’s disease as just that: my observations, experiences and remedies.
If you enjoyed this memoir you might also enjoy the following:
ENDNOTES
A list of suppliers:
My favorite sources for beekeeping equipment within that list are:
1.
My favorite beekeeping magazines:
American Bee Journal – ISSN 0002-7627
Bee Culture – ISSN 1071-3190
The Beekeepers Quarterly – ISSN 0268-4780
