Stung by Bees

One year for Christmas, the rest of the family decided to buy my nature-loving grandparents a beehive. For a few summers, they watched the bees buzz happily in and out of the white box in the back corner of the yard. But eventually even my industrious grandparents found beekeeping wasn’t worth the hassle and unloaded the equipment on someone else.

If they can’t do it, I doubt a bunch of inexperienced suburbanites with smokers can keep a hive going.

[C]ars pull up to the Reseska Apiaries warehouse in Holliston – one driven by an attorney, one carrying a plumber and a machinist, another a yoga studio owner. The occasion is the arrival by truck of 270 three-pound boxes of honeybees from Georgia, all ready for pick-up by a diverse and burgeoning cadre of backyard beekeepers.

Keeping a beehive isn’t like maintaining an ant farm. The mysterious colony collapse disorder is becoming more problematic. Even if that doesn’t get them, there are plenty of other things that can go wrong. My grandparents’ hive kept losing its queen, which sends the other bees into a frenzy.

Best of luck to the “newbees.” We hope it all works out for them. But we much prefer hanging around this Beehive.