by Ian Stevenson
Several years ago, my father, Andrew Stevenson, ordered three colonies of three-banded Italian bees, three white hive bodies, two protective suits, and various tools. Getting bees was his project, but it soon became a family undertaking, and while my mother has certainly been the most helpful to him, when I am home I chip in where there’s work to be done. I, too, am eager to look inside the whirring hive.
As for my father, he and his own father discovered their mutual interest simultaneously. Home one summer from college, my father and his dad found a bee swarm in a crab apple tree in the yard behind their Maryland house. They captured it in an African basket, and for the rest of his life, my grandfather kept bees in white hives in his garden. He distributed his honey to colleagues at his work downtown and gave it to neighbors. When he died, his colonies went to a friend who also kept bees.
My own father didn’t keep bees himself for a long time after he and his father captured that first swarm. Schoolwork and living in apartments are all not conducive to keeping bees. Our first house, on Jennifer Street, had a postage stamp backyard that would have been too small, I imagine, for a beehive. When we moved to Albemarle Street, we had a bigger yard and my dad made time for the bees.
Mail-order bees come in boxes with tin can reservoirs of sugar to last them the voyage. The queens (one in each box) come separately, in a little cage about the size of a matchbox. Accompanying her are a few “nurse” bees that take care of her. Each wooden cage has a wire mesh window and one end is plugged with a candy stopper. When placed inside the hive, the bees and queen eat at the stopper from both ends. While they eat, the worker bees become accustomed to her smell so that, when she is released from her cage, she is their queen.
From a hook hanging in the garage, I grab a white one-piece work uniform, slip into it, and pull the silver zipper up to my chin. I turn up the collar and put on what looks like a hardened, inelegant safari hat veiled in yellow gauze. The netting surrounds the back of my neck, and a string passes along its perimeter. Pulling this string tight around my waist, the netting sits tight against the white suit all along my back, chest, and shoulders – bee-proof, supposedly.
Stepping outside, I feel the day’s heat from inside the cloth. My father already has his veil on and is stuffing the smoker with bits of yesterday’s Washington Post and pine needles. I tuck the white fabric into my boots, lace them up, and head to the backyard. Walking with him towards the white boxes, I pull the gloves up my forearms. I remove the lid from one box and set it down, carefully, beside the hive. I remove the top super (a rectangular bee box like a dresser drawer), which is heavy and fat with honeycomb and insects.
Thousands of bees crowd the individual frames, two-stepping over the honeycomb and bombinating in the sunlight. Placing the super beside the hive, I reach for the smoker and pump smoke into the white box, intensifying the hum. The smoke makes the bees anxious, causing the colony to retreat into the hive to defend it and stoke up on honey. This makes them punch-drunk. With his hive tool, my father separates the frames by breaking the propolis sealant, which the bees use to glue everything in the hive together. Below his hands, the wood is mad with life.
Honeybees are in trouble. In the Northern Hemisphere, something called Colony Collapse Disorder causes bees to vacate their hives. In 2018, U.S. beekeepers reported that 40% of their hives had died the previous year. One of the most worrisome aspects of the problem is its undetermined source. Some think the problem has to do with pesticides, some varroa mites, and (increasingly) others, climate change.
Beekeeping has been on the rise in D.C. over the past few years, since its legalization in 2013. Last year, WAMU reported there were over 400 hives registered in the District. More beekeepers will increase the number of hives and may bring more attention to the bee’s problems.
In the fall, honey is harvested from the hives. Each super is removed and taken indoors. One super carries ten ponderous frames, hung like manila folders in a filing cabinet. Each frame is a narrow wooden rectangle with a wax sheet stretched across its area. Since springtime, the bees have been drawing out comb on the hives, constructing hexagonal tubes in neat rows to raise brood and store honey. When one tube is filled with honey, workers cap it with wax and move on to the next.
Inside, my father brings out an extractor, which is a large, cylindrical, and silver contraption. In a tray beside the spinning machine, he uncaps the honeycomb on both sides of each frame using an electric capping knife. He fits the frame into a slot in the four-foot tall extractor drum. When all six slots are filled, he closes the lid and switches on the machine, which begins to spin. The spigot at the machine’s base is open and above a bucket. For the moment, the bucket is empty. Inside the spinner, centrifugal force flings the uncapped honey against the metal barrel’s walls like one of those harrowing fair rides. Dripping down off the walls, the barrel’s shape encourages it to flow towards the spigot. A moment later, the honey begins to run in waves, cascading out of the tap and pooling in the bucket below.
In a world as urban as our own, it is rare that city-dwellers are able to glimpse the ways our food travels to our markets and our kitchen tables, let alone have a hand in growing and harvesting it. Keeping bees is one way to bring the farm to the city.