Peter Sieling
“Sorry, I don’t want any adventures today. Thank you!” —Bilbo Baggins
“Yesterday, when it was tomorrow, it was too exciting a day for me.” And, “You never can tell with bees.” —Winnie the Pooh
In the nightmare, I was delivering a van load of nuc hives to beekeepers in New York’s North Country, the region north of the Adirondacks bordering Canada. I swerved to avoid a deer, the van careening sideways into a ditch. The nuc hives burst open. Bees were crawling all over me and stinging by the hundreds. I woke up sweating at 3:00 AM, an hour before my alarm clock. I dressed and made coffee. In my head I could hear the kind of music they play in movies just before the hero walks into a trap or just before the deer jumps in front of a van loaded with nuc hives.
Outside, Jupiter stared down balefully at me. The expressway is busy at 4 AM with early morning people— third shifters, murderers, herds of deer, migratory beekeepers, and other shady characters. I got off at the first exit and took progressively smaller roads, then turned in at a long gravel driveway. The house and barns were dark, but a tiny gas light flickered in the woods above. I squeezed the van between the clothesline and house and parked near the bee yard. Joe was waiting for me. He had hired me to deliver nucs to Amish or plain people scattered over the North Country of New York, from Watertown to the Canadian border. His itinerary arrived in my mailbox the day before, too late to back out. My wife plotted out the trip on the computer. It would take 14 hours, not including stops. My cargo van is 14 years old. It has a hiccup in the engine that no mechanic has successfully diagnosed. Plain people don’t own phones, but they knew their bees would arrive today. I had a zero margin for error. What could possibly go wrong?
While Joe sorted nucs and closed entrances, I loaded the van. Halfway through loading, one nuc started leaking bees. Joe swapped it out, but I now had a few hundred loose bees in the van. I started north in the predawn light toward Interstate 90, the New York State Thruway.
Heading east on the Thruway, the rising sun blinded me for the next 50 miles to Syracuse. I drove north across the Tug Hill region, known for lake effect snowfall measured in feet rather than inches. Every now and then a bee came to the front to visit me, but they mostly flew up and down the rear windows. Two and a half hours from home I made my first delivery.
Stop 1—Williamstown, NY, 126 miles
I drove up a steep dirt driveway, past a saw mill, a mountain of sawdust, and some sheds for sale. A man stepped out on the porch and looked at me like I was a space alien or maybe a revenuer.
“I brought your bees!” I called.
“Oh…he’ll be right out,” he answered. I waited. Two empty hives sat on the stoop of a shed. I began to wonder how much time I would have to wait at each stop when the son came out. When he found out I was also a beekeeper, not just a delivery service, he peppered me with questions. He had first bought bees the year before and they died. He saw Joe’s ad in the Busy Beaver, or maybe Plain Interests magazine. He was surprised that I was driving around with bees loose in the van—wondered if I got stung.
Stop 2—Lowville, 60 miles
I drove through the biggest wind turbine farm I’ve ever seen—hundreds of them, and ended up at a farm. A girl was weeding in a giant garden. She didn’t look up until I got out and said, “Your bees are here.”
“They just left,” she said shyly and ran to the other end of the barn, looked out the back door across the field and came slowly back. She didn’t know what to do.
“I can just set these two nucs on the north side of the house for now. And then I need, um, something for delivering…” She disappeared into the house and brought out her mother, who paid me.
“You’ve got bees flying around in your van!”
“Those are extras. If anyone’s nucs are light, I brush them out.”
Stop 3—Woodville, 42 miles
I drove through a large tract of deer infested state land. Rather than bulldozing straight through the forest, the road builders wound and twisted the road around the trees. Almost every culvert and bridge was inhabited by families of Canada geese lounging on the road shoulder.
There is no Woodville on my map, but I had to drop the next three nucs somewhere. The zip code and street matched Hendersonville so I took the chance. No one was around, so I walked into the mud room just as a girl and her mother stepped out. When I told them I had their bees, they gave me big smiles. Mother ran down the driveway and flagged down her husband, who pulled up in a pickup truck. He put the nucs into the truck to take to his bee yard, saying that the planting could wait.
Stop 4—Watertown, 26 miles
My map app wanted me to drop the next four nucs off in a swamp, but a couple hundred feet back was an Amish farm with a produce stand out front. I drove up their driveway and was greeted by three or four little boys. Mom came out as I was showing them the bees’ tongues sticking out of the screen. Father was out in the field so I set them in the shade.
Stop 5—Evans Mills, 6 miles
The stones in the driveway were sharp. I once slashed a tire on an Amish road. Stones don’t bother steel wheels. Thankfully I didn’t pop a tire. I knew I shouldn’t take photos of people, but different communities have different rules. At the first few stops I asked permission to take photographs. One man said, “Well, if I don’t see you take the picture I won’t know…” Others were obviously uncomfortable with the request, even with photographing the buildings, so after a few reluctantly granted photos, I stopped taking pictures.
Stop 6—Gouverneur, 26 miles
Jacob’s first two hives had died over the Winter. He was worried about American foulbrood. One person told him the hives were all right to restock, but he wanted to make sure before putting his new nucs into infected hives. When he found out I was a beekeeper he asked me to check his hives. We walked back behind the corn crib and I looked at a couple dead brood frames. I showed him how to stick a straw into a cell and draw out ropy stuff. It didn’t look like foulbrood. “Well, I’m glad to get a second opinion,” he said.
Stop 7—Hammond, 27 miles
Two dogs came running and barking toward me. I didn’t want to be eaten so I pointed to the ground and said, “Sit!” The poor dogs looked confused, sat, and then in case that wasn’t enough, lay down. “Good dogs.” They were probably bilingual. A boy around 12 years old and his older sister came out of the house. The boy said his parents had gone to Louisiana and wouldn’t be back for four days. We carried the nucs to the back of the barn where four empty hives stood in a row. I told him the nuc frames ought to be transferred as soon as possible. He’d helped his dad with the bees and was already getting out the smoker and veil when I left.
Stop 8—Heuvelton, 20 miles
Ben got a free nuc because the one he ordered the year before didn’t survive. Did you know that most Amish farms have roundabout driveways? I guess it’s hard to put a horse in reverse, so they just make a loop. It was handy for me—no backing out. I may make a loop around our house, if I get home alive.
Stop 9—Ogdensburg, 23 miles
The father wasn’t home so three teenage boys took the three nucs to the back of the barn. The rest of the family came out to watch. I wish I could have taken a photo. A pregnant mom stood with the rest of the children lined up by height. From left to right I’d estimate their ages at eight, seven, six, five, and four years old. “You’ve got bees flying around in your van! Do they sting?” the mother asked.
“Not yet, but there seem to be a lot more than when I started this morning.”
Stop 10—North Lawrence 56 miles
This was a long drive for a single nuc. When you use a map app on your phone you don’t get a good sense of where you are going. It is all small roads with twists and turns: “Turn right for 8.6 miles. Turn left for 2.3 miles, right for 8.03,” and so on, 116 turns altogether on this trip. I didn’t realize until this stop that each one took me closer to the Arctic Circle.
The husband was down the road sawing lumber. His wife was talkative. Two dogs were chewing on empty honeycombs. “Where is Joe? Way down near the Pennsylvania border! Well!” I asked how they found out about Joe’s bees. “We saw an ad in the Busy Beaver.” At this point I was almost in Canada. “Here come our son-in-laws. They’ll know what to do with the bees.” At the same time the husband came running from the mill, happy to see his bees.
“Where’s your next stop?” he asked.
“Constable.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Me neither, until yesterday,” I said, entering the address in the map app.
Stop 11. Last stop—Constable, 27 miles
As I pulled into the driveway a line of children formed. I opened the van door and saw one of the hive covers had pulled up and bees were coming out. I quickly pushed it back down, but judging from the quick movements behind me, Melvin had just been jabbed. We loaded his four nucs on a steel wheeled skid steer. His two year old bare foot daughter came over and plunked herself down on top of the last nuc. The kids all waved at me as I drove away.
Stop 12—Back to Joe’s, 281 miles
My route took me south along the St. Laurence Seaway, to Interstate 81. I waved at Canada. She didn’t wave back. Three hours to Syracuse, west on the Thruway with the setting sun in my eyes, then south through Geneva, then Bellona (the official site of the original Ontario County Beekeeping Association, which, in the late 1800s, published an official document with a series of “Wherefores” and “Be it Resolved” that the federal government should introduce the giant Asian honeybee to the USA).
I stopped at Joe’s house to let him know how it went. All was pitch dark, then a single light shone in the window. Joe came out and I returned his map (loaned in case I lost cell service) and checks for those who hadn’t paid ahead.
Stop 13, my lucky number—Home! 12 miles
I made one last stop for gas and cleaned the bugs off the windshield. I reached Home Sweet Home at 10:30 PM, after driving 732 miles, burning $102 dollars of gas, total time 19 1/2 hours with zero stings: A good day’s work.
