The Farm in Literature and Culture : Field Trip and Notes

The Beekeeping Buzz

By: Meghan Cleverly

When I hear the word “agriculture” the first thing that pops into my mind is “farmer”. I envision a farmer, wearing mud-covered cowboy boots, with a sun-kissed tan and hands that are strong and worn from years of hard work. I imagine them working on their family farm while raising children to help tend the livestock and crops in a peaceful spot out in the country, miles away from big city lights. While this description holds true for many, I have come to realize that we all play a part in agriculture and that my vision for agriculture was simply one piece of the agricultural puzzle. I have never really considered myself to have an agricultural experience, but as I came to realize how agriculture is so vital to everyday living, I realized I, too, have been raised with agriculture.

Growing up my mother and I tended to our many flower beds. Each spring we would spend hours upon hours weeding, tilling, and putting fresh compost on our beds in preparation for our flowers. After planting the flowers, we continued throughout the summer to make sure they were receiving a proper amount of water and sunshine. Our flower beds were a huge success every year, boasting large blooms in all varieties and colors. Although I was aware that bees and pollination play large roles in the growth of pretty flowers, I had little understanding of how those roles worked. Using my research and fieldwork, I will examine what I have learned about bees and beekeeping and how they apply to my experiences. I will also include an example of visual rhetoric that I have found in my everyday life while studying about beekeeping as well as making connections to themes we have discussed in class.

As I was trying to decide what to do for this field trip assignment my mind kept coming back to beekeeping. Ever since I was a little kid I have loved bees. I thought they were so cute with their stripes and little wings. I recall a fun childhood memory of catching bees and holding them fearlessly. So, when the assignment said I could pick nearly anything to study, I knew it had to be about bees.

Halloween 1997.

I was entranced with learning about others beekeeping journeys and how they came to be a beekeeper. I chose to interview a family friend, who also shares a passion for bees, to learn about his journey from beekeeping professionally to beekeeping as a hobby. When I reached out to this friend and beekeeper, Lin Richardson, he was more than happy to help me with my endeavor. I was very excited to learn about bees and his time as a beekeeper and unbeknownst to be at the time, I too would catch the beekeeping buzz.

As I entered Lin’s home one Friday night I was warmly welcomed inside. As I sat down to interview him I realized that I was not as prepared as I would have liked. I had forgotten to write down what questions I would be asking him and was forced to come up with my questions on the spot. Lin didn’t seem to mind and was happy to answer any question I had.

Lin & I.

I first asked him how he stumbled upon beekeeping. He told me that as child he lived near train tracks on his family’s farm which contained large red ant hills. Lin built an ant farm and soon began to develop a love for insects. It wasn’t until his senior year of high school that he became interested in beekeeping. Having loved ants, he was sure he would also love bees. His AP Calculus math teacher was the one who piqued his interest, who tended hives. However, his teacher refused to tell Lin anything about beekeeping. It wasn’t until a few years when the internet first started to thrive that Lin found information on beekeeping. Upon reading about it, he was hooked.

Lin began beekeeping with bees that he had collected from animal control as a volunteer on the swarm list. He later went on to purchase a honey company with a friend, which they owned for four years. Together they successfully produced over 70,000 lbs. of honey a year with no employees or outside help. As Lin went into detail about his business endeavors, I knew right at once that I had hit gold for another project. As a business major, I was fascinated to know the specifics to his company and how it started and ended. However, I realized that studying about the beekeeping business was a whole other project in and of itself. I have chosen to focus my Farm Related Research project on the local beekeeping business industry. After taking careful notes on his business practices, I tried to steer the interview back to fundamentals of bees and beekeeping.

I asked Lin to take me through a year of beekeeping, which is tied to the seasons. I learned that in the winter bees are hibernating and trying to stay warm while eating their honey that has been left for them in the hive. In cold environments, such as Utah, bees have to twitch their wings to create extra heat for the hive. The average temperature of the hive ranges from 80-90 degrees.

If you’re just starting out in the springtime, you can simply order bee colonies from your local bee keeping supply store. They will give you a fresh beehive, most likely with frames, a foundation, and a queen bee to rule the hive. Bees begin by building their home and exploring for dandelions. Over time the bees will start to recognize the hive as a home. Lin explained “when a queen bee lays an egg, that egg takes about three weeks from the time it was laid to the time it hatches as a new bee…it goes through the process of being a larva, growing up, being capped over like a chrysalis, and metamorphosing (Cleverly "Beekeeping with Lin Richardson").” These brand-new baby bees are the ones that eat pollen then three weeks later turn into house bees. During this stage, they move honey, clean things out, feed the new bees, and build and maintain the comb in the hive. Three weeks later they’ve graduated to being a guard bee around the entrance of the hive. Three weeks after that they transition into foraging bees and eventually they die. I found it very interesting when Lin explained that, “if a bee doesn’t become a foraging bee and fly all over creating and bringing tiny drops of nectar back to the hive, they live a lot longer…. They’re like little machines. They either run out of fuel or they wear out (Cleverly "Beekeeping with Lin Richardson").” Bees really are busy!

But what about the queen? A queen is the same genetically as a female worker bee. The difference is queen bees are allowed more room to grow and receive more food than a typical female worker bee. When they hatch, their abdomens are much larger because they were allowed to mature differently. A queen helps keep the hive in order due to her pheromones, which helps keep the worker bees’ reproductive systems dormant.

As the weather begins to shift into colder temperatures the bees take notice. At the end of the year, typically in the fall when the flowers have stopped producing, the queen stops laying eggs and the hive once again goes into the dormant cycle.

I couldn’t believe how incredible these tiny insects are! As Lin further explained how he protected his hives from diseases, I was moved by the mutual loyalty between the bees and its keeper. The beekeeper carefully watches over his hives, assisting them in any way he can to make their lives better. The bees work hard to collect nectar, which creates honey and other products that are used for so much good.

Honey is generally harvested in the fall. Although honey is usually described as sweet across the board, it can have varying tastes. This is because “different harvest times will yield different tasting honey based on what trees and flowers were in bloom when the honey was produced (Backyard Beekeeping).” When harvesting honey, it is important to be wearing a beekeeping suit and to be gentle in handling the hives. Sometimes puffing a little bit of smoke into the hive will help calm the bees down, in the case they may be agitated. To harvest the honey, “the frames are placed in an extractor and then, by spinning for several minutes, the honey is freed from the frames (Backyard Beekeeping).” It is important to make sure equipment is clean and free of contamination.

Frames filled with honey.

Extracting honey from a previous harvest.

After learning of this process, I was amazed. I was so ignorant of the beauty of beekeeping. It reminded me of “The Pleasures of Eating” by Wendell Berry. In it he argues that most people have no idea how their food is prepared, and that they simply see it as having arrived in their neighborhood supermarket. He claims that, “the products of nature and agriculture have been made, to all appearances, the products of industry (Kinkead, Funda, & McNeill 273).” Before my fieldwork, I fell prey to this misunderstanding. Berry goes on to explain that there is hope to escape this ignorant trap “by restoring one’s consciousness of what is involved in eating; by reclaiming responsibility for one’s own part in the food economy (Kinkead, Funda, & McNeill 273).” I have learned that pure, raw, and organic beekeeping truly puts a person in harmony with the land. Local honey is also great for health benefits and “can be used medicinally due to its antibiotic and antifungal properties.”

Overall, beekeeping is a win-win situation. Backyard beekeeping allows the average person to connect with nature while assisting their gardens as well. I hope to be a local beekeeper someday and have a hive or two to help my garden grow. I also know that by tending bees I will grow as a person by caring and reveling in this great agricultural endeavor. Even though I won’t be able to own hives for several years, I am reminded of the power of bees in unordinary places in my daily life. While I was browsing through my favorite jewelry shop one day during this project, I came across a great piece of virtual rhetoric.

Example of visual rhetoric.

This bangle was carefully designed to remind the wearer every day that a bumble bee is loyal, conscientious, driven, and that they, too, can develop those qualities through hard work. Beekeeping is a theme of hard work & loyalty, one that I am so grateful to now be a part of.

Works Cited

"Beekeeping with Lin Richardson." Personal interview. 10 Mar. 2017.

Berry, Wendell. “The Pleasures of Eating.” Farm: a multi-modal reader. Kinkead, Joyce, Evelyn Funda, and Lynne S. McNeill. Southlake, TX: Fountainhead Press, 2016. 272-276. Print.

Messner, Rachelle; Strange, James; and Brain, Roslynn, "Backyard Beekeeping" (2014). ENVS Faculty Publications. Paper 904. Web. 28 March. 2017.

Additional Pictures