Read along below!
Two Tews – Both Beekeepers
By: James E. Tew
Family members
Many beekeepers have stories and histories of family members and friends who encouraged them to pursue beekeeping. In a way, that was my path – but not exclusively. My bee life took two separate pathways but both pathways ended in me being a lifelong beekeeper.
Uncle Auby, pictured in figure 1, in the World War II army uniform, was the first in my family to begin to talk incessantly about “honey bees.” That was to be expected from Auby. You see, he was just a bit more than excentric. In the photo, Dad (young man at the left) had not yet been inducted into military service. That would come a year later. Unknown to Auby at the time of this photo, while serving in Asia, he would contract polio and would be mobility-challenged for the remainder of his life.
Using Veterans Administration support, Uncle Auby became a watch and clock repairman. Even now, I have some of his watch repair tools. As time passed, Auby began to talk more and more about honey bees. I do not recall who introduced him to apiculture. Who cared? It was just another peculiar thing Auby was doing. For a while, he also repaired electric train engines. Bees was just one more unusual thing Auby undertook.
At family reunions and family gatherings, hearing my uncle constantly discuss honey bees was one of the pathways my bee life took. Auby was one of the several who introduced me to beekeeping.
Auburn University
After serving my own military time, I attended Auburn University where I intended to become an entomologist. While matriculating there, I literally stumbled into a bee class, my second pathway to beekeeping.
I was immediately infected with the beekeeping bug. Suddenly, Uncle Auby’s bee interest meant a lot more to me. Using phone technology of the time, we began to talk. My youngest brother negotiated with our uncle to give us two his hives of bees. He drove them all the way from Micanopy, Florida to our home in Alabama.1 His transport vehicle was a Rambler American with two bee hives haphazardly leaning out of the trunk. Boom – I was a beekeeper.
My beekeeping father
Dad was still productively working in his paint supply business, but he had questions about the whole bee thing. After his retirement and his hip replacements, he began his own bee operation. My brothers helped him. As is so often the case, he became the bee man in our home town and was an active member of both the local bee club and the state beekeeping group. He became a small-scale honey packer and had a bee equipment inventory that he sold to other beekeepers. He was a late life avid beekeeper (Just ask my brothers, who did all the physical labor.)
Five Tews – All beekeepers
Auby was a beekeeper, Dad was a beekeeper, my youngest brother ran a regional Dadant facility, and my remaining brother worked incessantly as Dad’s bee assistant. Five Tews – five beekeepers. It was a great time in my bee life. Of course it could not last.
Uncle Auby went first
If natural causes are ever truly a natural thing, then it can be said that Uncle Auby died of natural causes in 1991. He was 87. At 91, Dad passed in 2012. My brothers moved on to other interests and left beekeeping. Where there had been five, now there was just one – me.
One Tew Bee, LLC
Since I worked in a public arena, my lawyer told me that I needed an LLC to offer some legal protection should I ever need it. I chose the name One Tew Bee, LLC. At the time, it seemed like the correct thing to do. In my family, there was only One Tew Bee left.
The patina of beekeeping
Beekeeping is so much more than managing bees. I treasure my years of memories more than I value my actual hives. I have become the old bee man – the excentric in the family. When I go to a family reunion, I don’t know most of the people there. Yet, they are from my clan.
I wish I could thank Auby and my dad, along with many other people who helped me find my way to apiculture. But I can’t. It’s the way life works.
But I can thank you
But I can thank you. If you have read this far, you are most likely a dedicated beekeeper. I appreciate the time you took here and I hope beekeeping will one day be immensely valuable to you, too.
Dr. James E. Tew
Emeritus Faculty, Entomology
The Ohio State University
tewbee2@gmail.com
Host, Honey Bee
Obscura Podcast
www.honeybeeobscura.com
1 To Alabama readers – at the time, I did not know that Alabama had a no-comb entry law. Upon discovering this, I contacted the state apiarist at the time, Guy Carr, who sent an inspector out to make things legal. From that time on, I acknowledged the state regulation.
