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On a sunny fall morning, Uhler is working with one of his clients
in Carpinteria, Sue Dumm. Uhler installed two hives in Dumm’s yard in
April. Dumm has strawberries, raspberries, hops, and peach, apricot and
apple trees. Hives create a healthy and productive garden by pollinating
vegetables and fruit trees. Since she’s started the beekeeping program,
Dumm, 55, says she’s gained satisfaction from something new. She
benefits by connecting with nature and working with Uhler.
“It’s easy and fun; I like his approach,” she said. “He’s good at
teaching you how to work with them, like, don’t stand by their entrance,
they get agitated, stand off to the side…”
Uhler and Dumm first don beekeeper hats and gloves. They blow
smoke around the entrance and the top of the hives which breaks down
bees’ communication systems and pacifies them so they’re less aggressive.
They pry the top of the box open and look at each frame to see
how healthy the hive is. Healthy comb is light in color and uniformly
shaped. Then they take a sifter and sprinkle powdered sugar over each
frame. The sugar encourages the bees to clean themselves and remove
mites from their bodies.
bees make honey, while the bottom super is the reproductive zone.
Bee season is February through August, when the honey is
harvested. Dane meets with his clients twice a month during the season,
and then about once a month September through November to maintain
the hive.
In commercial orange blossom honey, bees only feed on one nectar.
If humans only ate oranges, they wouldn’t be very healthy, and neither
are the bees, said Uhler.
“The healthiest honey you can get is when one bee is pollinating an
entire ecosystem,” Uhler said. “This kind of honey contains thousands of
different nectars. It’s healthier for the bees and the people who eat it.”
Most commercial beekeepers have 5,000 to 10,000 hives, with
40,000 to 50,000 bees each. In addition to producing honey, farms also
pay beekeepers for their hives to pollinate almonds and citrus groves in
California.
Uhler worked for a commercial beekeeper before starting his own
business. He didn’t like the impersonal nature of a large-scale operation,
and missed the intimacy.
“This whole beekeeping process not only connects you with your
native ecosystem, it connects you to the community,” Uhler said.
His business has grown from 10 to 40 clients. Uhler feels the
burgeoning interest is because humans are craving contact. People have
created artificial tools like television and the Internet to isolate themselves
“The first aspect of beekeeping is to observe, then to respond with
love and care,” Uhler said.
Each hive contains 40,000 to 50,000 bees, and each bee lives for six
weeks. A bee dies after it stings an animal or a human. The queen bee
lays 1,500 to 2,000 eggs a day, and nurse bees feed the queen as she mills
around the hive. When worker bees come in contact with the queen, they
greet her. Every queen has a unique scent she spreads to bees in her hive.
When bees no longer smell the queen substance, the hive is overcrowded.
Some of the bees go off to create a new hive, and make a new queen by
feeding a female worker bee royal jelly for a full 16 days.
“They’re an amazing, natural phenomenon,” Dumm said. “I’m really
fascinated by how they run their production line.”
In Dumm’s yard, the bees live in a manmade hive, in special
beekeeper boxes. Inside each super, or shelf of the box, is a wooden
frame, and the bees build honeycomb within each frame. The comb is
used to store nectar and honey, and to lay eggs in. The top super is where
Back in Carpinteria, the morning lesson with
Dumm is coming to an end. Today’s session
was longer than usual. One of the hives
was not very healthy, and the queen bee is
not laying many eggs.
winter
|
spr ing
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