I have always wanted bees. To become a beekeeper.

But there is a difference between intentionality and becoming the thing you want to become.

Pascal introduced framework in the study of decision-making, coming up with the theory of expected value: When faced with a choice between uncertain alternatives, you should determine the positive or negative values of every possible outcome, along with each outcome’s probability, and then make your choice. Or in short–figure out best case scenario and worst case scenario, and see with which you’d rather live.

Another theory is loss aversion, or the discovery that winning $100 is only about half as appealing as losing $100 is unappealing. (The reason I don’t gamble). This theory illustrates that the relationship between value and losses/gains aren’t always equal; losses are a bigger deterrent than gains. 

I’d wanted bees for years–I can’t even count how many. Only that in 3rd grade, we were each assigned to pick a creature and do a report on that animal or insect. I chose honeybees. And the more I learned, the more interested I became in these diligent creatures. I wanted to learn more. I wanted to watch them work. I wanted to smell the honey and wax firsthand.

My desire to become a beekeeper has been a low level but steady desire, like french fries–I can live without them, but I’ll also never turn a french fry down.

But I didn’t get bees. I was married to a husband who was averse to bees and beekeeping. He had bee venom allergies. And he wanted nothing to do with any sort of farming or husbandry. The risk of putting strain on our marriage and relationship outweighed any unknown, positive outcome from beekeeping. Basically, I wanted to stay married. I made many decisions based on not wanting to lose something. Not wanting to lose my marriage.

And so I refrained. The loss deterred any unknown gains. The worst case scenario outweighed the best case scenario.

It didn’t matter. The worst case scenario still came to fruition. I lost anyway.

When he left the marriage, a tipping point emerged for so many decision points in my life. No longer did I have to consider his aversions. I wanted to turn every single failure and setback into an opportunity and this was one way to turn a failed marriage into opportunity. And furthermore, I wanted to create more space for myself in creating a new life as a single woman and single mother. I wanted matriarchy to combat the shit that would be coming down the pipe. It was time. I was ready. I wanted bees. I didn’t even want the honey so much as a living colony whose behavior I could observe and nurture. I wanted an example of an effective matriarchy.

I didn’t know it at the time, but my OCD tendencies are also greatly satisfied by beekeeping.

I knew very little about beekeeping. But in 2016, I took a basic class at the Biofuel Oasis. I put in an order for a nuc of Randy Oliver bees. I bought the equipment (bee suit, hive tool, smoker, frame perch, etc). And on a balmy evening in early April of 2017, I stood in a parking lot along with thirty other be-suited beekeepers for delivery of my hive. Who knew what people driving by thought of this scene?

One by one, we received our hives, our bedsheets in hand to wrap the hives up before putting them in our cars. A nucleus is a mini-colony with a mated, laying queen–five frames of bees and honey, or half a box. There is no package of bees to tap into a hive. No queen to release.

I carried that hive into the car. We drove it home. We set it on a hive stand in the backyard. And we walked away until morning.

It was a quiet beginning for what would become a new obsession. Little did I know that in one year, I would be one of the be-suited beekeepers handing over bee nucs to customers!

I’ve talked about the beginnings of beekeeping here on the blog. But a lot has happened in the last year.

I began an apprenticeship with Jennifer Radtke, which accelerated my learning curve. I took a bee biology class all winter long. I got to inspect and learn other hives and learn alongside other beekeepers.

I had my own hive (named East Egg), which began as one box and overwintered as a 3 box hive. I tended to it–monitoring varroa mite counts. It went treatment free all of last year, because the varroa mite count never topped 7 out of 300 bees.

It came out of winter super-strong, and topped out at 5 boxes (but also with tons of mites from robbing other hives through a warm winter), before I made a split off of it. I named the split, Bree (continuing the Hobbiton Farm theme). I feel like I birthed this thing–even though the bees did all the work.

They made a new queen. It is a rare ebony queen. And she is laying like a pro. Guys, I pretty much squealed when I saw her.

My intention all along was to move Bree hive to Sonoma Mountain. I’m interested in the different honey produced. The impact of varroa in a more rural setting. And increasing genetic diversity everywhere with this queen with Randy Oliver genetics (gentle and more mite-resistant than the average bee).

So I replayed what I did when I received the first hive. I taped up the entrance (covered by a robbing screen). This, I did at night after all the forager bees had returned to the hive. With a red light. Because I’ve since learned that it’s best NOT to piss off bees at night (they don’t fly, but they do POUR out of the hive and become very very very defensive).

All reports say to move a hive at night. But I think the bottomline is closing up a hive at night. I left it on its stand all night, and moved the hive in the morning.

I really am not a night owl.

So we moved it in the morning, driving it up in the back of our car.

And set it on a hive stand on the hills of Sonoma Mountain.

I’d done a few inspections on it earlier, and knew it had 4 full frames of capped worker brood, ready to hatch within a week or so. I knew it would need another box for space (you want to do this, because if bees feel like there’s no space to grow–they’ll SWARM). So I brought a box and drawn out frames, and added it immediately.

There is a decision to become a beekeeper. To become my own person. To follow my own desires. To appease my interests.

The bees make decisions, too. They tell the queen whether or not to lay drones or more worker bees (by the size of the comb). They know when the queen is failing and will build queen cells to supersede her. Or if there isn’t any room, at which point, they will build swarm cells to build another queen for another colony. The colony in turn feeds the queen and is dependent on her survival and health. She carries all their genes. She has the sperm of 10-20 drones in her abdomen for her entire lifetime of laying. The foragers go out and find the swaths of nectar and pollen, come back to the hive and do a dance to inform the others of where this source of food lies.

In the summertime, when there is a dearth of nectar and food, the worker bees decide to kick out all the drone bees, which do no work and only use resources. Their genetic pool is no longer of use when there are no queens mating during a dearth.

I make a decision to make a split off a 5 box colony. Because I decide I want another hive with my queen’s genetics. So I take frames with brood and eggs and frames with honey and make a separate box. In turn, my decision causes the bees to realize they do not have a queen. So they feed a few of the eggs more royal jelly and build a queen cell around the cell. They will make a queen for itself.

Bree made 3 queen cells.

The first queen will hatch. She will detect other queen cells. She will tear open the other queen cells and kill the unhatched queen, This is the decision she makes based on pheromones and survival.

Because I have a queen, I will leave the nucleus colony alone as this new queen goes out on mating flights for the next 7 to 14 days.

The queen will lay. She will lay a solid worker brood pattern. And because of that, I will drive it to Sonoma. And our kingdom has, as a result, expanded.