It’s spring and just because you are distracted with bees doesn’t mean everything else in life stops. It’s never a good sign to have a strange stench in the basement. It only took a day or so to realize the sump pump had quit working. With more rain in the forecast, I quickly called a company I found on the internet. They were extremely helpful and quickly had a plumber out to our house the next day to do the repairs. When the repairman arrived our garage door was up and he noticed our bee hives in the garage. Would you believe he is a beekeeper!!! Who cares about the sump pump, let’s talk bees. And that he did. He kindly shared insight and encouragement and even left his number for us as a reference. In the short conversations with him it was becoming apparent that my “book smarts” was inferior to his “street smarts” with bees. Here I am reading and trying to learn but there’s nothing that replaces experience. He was fortunate to have some connections to veteran beekeepers that shared their ways with him. He also seemed to be the jump in and take it on kinda guy, learn from your mistakes, see what works. Meanwhile, we’re here taking classes, reading books and trying to plan it all out perfectly…it feels like such a disadvantage. All while my son reminded me (after watching the second bee class session) that one rule of beekeeping is “don’t over think your first year”. Making mental notes to myself and soaking in all this wisdom found outside of the books. If nothing else, I can justify the INSANE cost of the sump pump repair with hopes of having met a fellow beekeeper that might be willing to share his secrets to success.
-Worker bee 2021
Howards' Hives and Honey 