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Carolina On My Mind
By: Stephen Bishop
I have divided allegiances. I’ve spent most of my life living within fifteen minutes of the North Carolina/South Carolina line. I lived on the northern side, while my grandparents lived on the southern side, so I’ve likely crossed that particular border more times than anyone else around—save for maybe a gambling addict in the 1990s. To understand that reference, you’d have to remember that South Carolina was once dotted with video poker “palaces,” many of which were located on the state line so North Carolinians (living in an uppity state where politicians prohibited gambling) could easily cross over to maybe hit the jackpot.
Certainly, South Carolina has a more rebellious spirit than North Carolina. Even to this day, people riding motorcycles in South Carolina don’t have to wear helmets. If you’ve ever driven on a road in South Carolina, you’d understand that this is even more dangerous than it sounds at face value. That said, the tradeoff for bad roads is low gas prices, and gas in South Carolina is always a good twenty to thirty cents lower than in North Carolina.
All this is to say, I have often pondered which Carolina is the best Carolina, and, like most things, it comes down to personal taste, by which I mean taste buds. For much of my life, I gave the edge to South Carolina because they can claim God’s gift to humanity: low-country shrimp and grits. Even the mere mention of shrimp and grits makes me salivate like Pavlov’s dog, but alas, that’s all I can do now because, in God’s infinite wisdom, He inflicted me with an adult-onset severe shellfish allergy. This means if I try to eat shrimp and grits now, I more or less die.
So, I now give North Carolina the edge because it has better barbecue, but really, anything is better than South Carolina barbecue, which is doused in mustard. Yes, you heard me — mustard. Makes you shiver, right? Why anyone would want to defile pulled pork with a yellow mustard sauce is beyond me. But, as I said before, South Carolina is more rebellious, and their citizens don’t wear helmets on motorcycles, which could be a potential cause for bad culinary choices or just a correlation. Who knows?
What does any of this have to do with beekeeping? Well, in November 2023, the first yellow-legged hornets were found in South Carolina. If you think yellow mustard sauce is bad, just wait until you see what yellow-legged hornets can do to bee hives. It’s not pretty. It’s taken me many years to learn how to manage varroa, the scourge of bees; I’m not sure I can deal with the learning curve of another major pest. And I’m not sure I’ll be able to forgive South Carolina if they let the hornets establish a beachhead (literally —the first nests were found at Hilton Head. They must be bougie hornets).
So far, to their credit, South Carolinians have repelled the invaders. Honestly, I’m not sure North Carolinians would have done as well. After all, we’re supposedly a basketball state, yet we still tolerate the performance of our pitiful NBA team, the Charlotte Hornets.
But in all seriousness, we’re all South Carolinians in the fight against the yellow-legged hornet. If the hornet gets established in South Carolina, then it likely doesn’t matter whether you live in South Carolina, North Carolina, or anywhere in the continental United States, we’re all doomed–it’s just a matter of time. So, when it comes to the yellow-legged hornet, we’d all do well to take up Churchill’s fighting spirit and stand with South Carolina, to fight them on the beaches, the landing grounds, the fields, streets, and sand dunes of Hilton Head, lest we all succumb to the tyranny of another pest.
