By: Ed Colby
I’ve never been able to grow a beard, even a bee beard. And 10,000 honey bees dangling off your chin and chest always struck me as creepy, even for a beekeeper. I only agreed to do this because Tina asked me to.
You have to understand that Tina and I go back some. When I served as president of the Colorado State Beekeepers Association (CSBA), Tina was my vice-president and the staff I leaned on. Unless you’ve served in a similar capacity, you likely cannot imagine the political and diplomatic challenges inherent in such a job. There were rivalries, and there were conundrums. Not everyone got along. I even received some hate mail. A lot of seemingly intractable problems centered around matters that I personally cared not a whit about. But I was the leader and oftentimes the decider in such matters.
This venerable organization dates back to 1880. Think of it! For 144 years Colorado beekeepers have rallied under the CSBA banner. My predecessor was a tireless organizer and bee advocate whose shoes I was certain I could never fill. Still, somebody needed to step up. Nobody else wanted the job.
My once lofty presidential goals dimmed with burnout and the passage of time, although in our finest hour, Tina and I did rattle some cages at the state Ag department. I found myself the skipper of a ship at sea. My principal responsibility, as I saw it, was to keep the vessel upright and off the rocks until such time as I might hand over the charts to some worthy successor.
The presidency required significant time and effort, but I got to meet and work with some dedicated – not to mention brilliant – bee people.
I don’t handle stress well, and the job came with some. Tina was my salvation, the calm and clear voice on the phone that assured me that we could get through this, whatever it was. She was my confidant, my strategist, my best CSBA friend. She never let me down.
So when she asked if I’d consider donning a bee beard at the state meeting in June, I said no problem.
Then I called Dr. Katie Lee. I first met Katie in 2009 when she gave a sugar-shake mite-test demonstration at a queen rearing class at the University of Minnesota.
Later, I clipped a bee magazine photo of her wearing a massive bee beard and stuck it on the refrigerator, where it stayed for years. My gal Marilyn referred to it as “your bee pinup.”
When I invited Katie to give a talk on hygienic bees at a CSBA Summer meeting, she stayed with us here on the farm. We three clicked, and Marilyn and I still talk about that halcyon weekend.
When I asked her about bee beards, she said not to worry. “I’ve done about 15 of them, and I’ve supervised hundreds.” She said to use a Vaseline barrier to keep them out of my nose and eyes and ears but otherwise to just relax and enjoy the attention.
Marilyn and I hosted the night-before potluck at the CSBA Summer meeting, and Tina came up from Durango a couple of days early to help put things in order. Our place was a wreck, inside and out. Marilyn and I both have a lot going on. Tina gets that. Her priorities are the same as ours: Live your life. Take care of your bees. The lawn and the dishes can wait.
She and I made a wager at the meeting a year ago. The loser was to give the winner a day’s labor, at her place or ours. But this year, when I reminded Tina that she lost the bet and needed to pay up, she turned the tables on me. “Ed, I’d come up early and help you anyway, even if I’d won that bet!”
I decided to leave the details of my bee beard to her. On the appointed day, she caged the queen from a gentle hive and fastened it to a string that she placed around my neck. She instructed me to hold the lid to a large plastic tub in front of my bare chest. Then she began pulling frames out of the hive and dumping bees onto the lid. The idea was that those bees would gather around the queen, creating the beard. A little group of bees gathered ‘round, but most of them ignored Her Royal Majesty. Even when Tina brushed them against the queen, they wouldn’t cluster around her.
These little darlings came out of a Spring split, and someone suggested trying again with a stronger colony. I said forget it. The bees’ legs pull at your bare skin in a way that’s not too comfortable, and a sting now and then comes with the territory. I’d had enough.
From another point of view, maybe my cup was half-full, anyway. When I sent a photo to Katie Lee, she called my pathetic beard “a ravishing necklace.” I told her she was a poet.
Look, I’m older than dirt. I don’t have to prove anything. And it comes as no surprise that my beard flopped. I’ve never been able to grow one.
Gentle reader, did you find this poor epistle amusing, heartwarming, instructive? Contact Ed Colby at Coloradobees1@gmail.com. Ask him to promptly mail you an autographed copy of A Beekeeper’s Life, Tales from the Bottom Board – a collection of the best of his Bee Culture columns. Price: $25. Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back!
