Not Yet Great, But Definitely A Beekeeper

Nearly three years ago I suddenly became a beekeeper. A hive that my neighbor was keeping in our yard was dying. A pile of fallen bees sat by the hive opening, others were staggering and falling out of the hive. We had no idea what to do, but I called someone who did—friend-of-a-friend Faustine Nsabumukunzi, a third-generation beekeeper from Rwanda.Up to that point, my agreement with the bees was that I would ignore them if they would ignore me. But they were clearly suffering, and my maternal instincts kicked in. I didn’t want to deal with them, but I wanted somebody to help them. Faustine calmly opened up the hive and handed me out a frame of bees to hold so he could see what was going on inside. Neither of us was wearing any kind of protective gear, and I was just a little terrified that I was going to be stung a million or so times. Instead, absolutely nothing happened. I watched the bees walk around the frame, fly off, land on me, then fly off again, while he diagnosed the problem: Big black ants were robbing the hive’s honey and the bees were starving.

I handed the frame back to him so he could close up the hive, and mumbled something about not being a beekeeper and not having any idea what I was doing.

He laughed and said, “I think you will become a great beekeeper.”

To say I had my doubts would be a serious understatement.

Last week, after four days of endless rain, I found a pile of dead and dying bees at the door of our weaker hive. With no hesitation—and no hazmat suit—I opened up the hive and found that ants, tiny ones this time, had once again robbed one of our hives to the point of starvation. With the rain keeping the bees hive-bound, they were unable to replace the nectar and pollen stolen by the ants, and they were running out of time.

I took an empty hive box and removed the frames, one by one, from the old box, making sure to put them into the new box in the same order and facing the same way so the bees wouldn’t get disoriented. I brushed ants off the frames before I moved them, while the girls scrambled out of the way, some flying, some walking as fast as their six legs could carry them. I took care to work quickly so as to not let the brood get chilled, and when all the frames were moved over, I dumped the dead bees out of the old box, and brushed the few remaining ants to the ground.

I cleaned off the hive stand, sprinkled cinnamon powder all around to repel the ants, and replaced the box with the frames. I brewed up some sugar syrup and put a feeder on the hive, then closed it all up tight. Finally, I sprinkled diatomaceous earth around the base of the hives to keep the ants from climbing back up the legs.

We lost a lot of bees, and this was a small colony anyway, so I have no confidence that they’ll survive this setback, despite my hand-feeding sugar syrup to the girls at the hive entrance one by one. But I am confident that I did the best that could be done for them.

As I gathered up my tools, I remembered Faustine’s words from my trial-by-fire introduction to beekeeping. I’m not a great beekeeper, not yet. But I can say proudly that I am a beekeeper, and for that I am grateful.