Bzzzz!

On Spoonflower, I have group of designs in a collection called Bzzzzz!  These designs are dedicated to the honeybee although you will not see the actual bee!

Carl in his outfit with his smoker.

Out by the bee hives.

I think in this picture he is adding a super to the top of the hive.

Coming back from the hive.  Our son  Jacob didn't like the bees much.

Long ago -- back in the late 1980s -- my husband, who is a patient man, decided to try his hand at keeping honey bees.  He chose the Italian strain because they were the most gentle.  He purchased two hives from a man who lived 20 miles south of us in Lawton OK.  He had a friend with a truck -- thank goodness for friends with trucks -- and they went to pick up the hives.  They had to cover the hives to transport them back.  That was the beginning.

The idea was to harvest enough honey to use and give to friends and family.  Our little sideline wasn't named Broken Foot Honey Farm until during our first harvest.

It was a cool foggy day in November.  Weather affects bees.  On cool, foggy wet days most bees like to stay indoors like people do.  But since my husband had the day off from work, he figured he might as well try to harvest the honey.  My children and I watched at a distance as Carl approached the hives looking like a white bear.  After he put some dry tinder in his smoker and started a fire, he looked like a smoky white bear.  The top was lifted off the first hive and smoke sent down into the hive. Bees began flying out but they weren't too upset because of the smoke. Suddenly the smoker went out, leaving the hive exposed and Carl standing there with no smoke to lull the bees into submission.

The bees went on the attack.  Carl yelled for me to bring him some tinder and matches.  So here are two things to NOT do if you are around angry bees: wear wool and have on a fragrance. (I had been at a parent-teacher conference at my children's school earlier in the day.)   As I got closer to the hives, the honey bees greeted me by going for my eyes.   The first thing honey bees go for are eyes. After all, what will you be able to do once you can't see?  Bees are so smart.

So, not being a calm person like my husband, I panicked, threw the tinder and matches in the general direction of my husband and started running.  The children enjoyed the show from the safety of the house.  My hair was long and the bees got tangled in with my hair which really enraged them.  In my running, I fell and broke my left foot.

Carl continued to work with the honey bees as I entertained the children.  I crawled toward the house.  Looking back, we laugh, but at the time, it wasn't funny.  The honey was delicious, and with each additional harvest, things went more smoothly.  Then we lost the hives to mites.  Nothing was done for a few years, then Carl got the urge to try beekeeping one more time.

It was 2005.  We drove to Tipton, OK, and purchased a hive from a beekeeper.  We still didn't have a truck that go that distance safely, and once you ask a friend with a truck to help transport honey bees, that's the only time you can ask that friend!  No, this time, the covered hive was placed in the trunk of our Ford Taurus sedan.  We made it home safely although we wondered for a time if this was another dumb thing that years later would give us a funny story.  We could hear the bees buzzing in the trunk.

We lost that hive.  Even the gentleman from whom we purchased the hive is having trouble keeping his bees now and his operation is big.  He transports hives all over the country -- California, Texas -- to pollinate the orchards.  His wife runs the tag agency in Elgin OK and we purchase honey from her.  This past year, though, the honey ran out in the spring.

I'm not sure what will happen if the honey bee population does not increase.  There are other insects that pollinate, but none so industrious as the honey bee.

The original is faded now so the scan didn't come through too well.  We used this logo on  our honey
and also on the greeting cards I sold in a florist's shop in Fletcher.


Here's a link to a brief video I posted 4 years ago on YouTube.  If you can listen closely -- once I quit yapping -- you can hear all the bees pollinating the corn.  Carl planted corn this year but there are no honey bees.

YouTube video I posted about honey bees