So here I am on this perfect blue-sky spring morning, dressed like a freshly landed space alien, with 14 million bees (okay, maybe 30) bouncing off the veil of netting protecting my face. I feel the vibration of their Buddhist-like mantra: Ommmmm … Should-We-Sting-Her, Hummmm?
Luckily, these bees are currently in a slightly altered state (more about that later) and my host, beekeeper Claudia Silveira, says they’re more interested in memorizing my face for future encounters than they are in stinging.
Claudia outfits me in a beekeeper’s suit: blousy white pants and overshirt, gloves, and a wide-brimmed, veiled hat, just like in the movies. It’s my second visit to her hives and I’m feeling relaxed. Last time, at my insistence, she made a duct tape belt to hold my pants up and blocked every conceivable point of entry, including around my ankles, which came already outfitted in hiking boots and wool socks. Still, my mind played tricks on me. Occasionally, I’d feel a creepy-crawly sensation, exactly like tiny bee feet. No way was I scratching at it, just in case.
Here’s how it went down:
Claudia is dressed identically (without the duct tape), as is Julian, a local farmer who schleps the hive tools and starts the pot smoking. It’s not what you think. Smoke disorients the bees, rendering them incapable of sending such signals to their hive mates as “Intruder alert! Mobilize the forces!” and “Commence attack!”
Julian stuffs a handful of straw into the smoker and strikes a match. Soon ribbons of smoke waft in the shards of sunlight around our heads and settle over the hive. Using tongs, Claudia lifts the vertical frames out of the box, gently brushing away any bees in danger of being crushed. She points out empty queen cells, capped honey cells, and a clump of treasured bee propolis, which looks like what it is: chewed up tree resin. She gathers some honey and honeycombs and checks for emerging queens before the bees come to their senses.
She tells me about the drones that perform the “waggle dance,” complicated airborne figure-eight choreography that alerts the colony to the location of a delicious patch of nectar-rich flowers even miles away, specifying exactly how many degrees it currently stands to the left or right of the sun. It’s true! You can Google it!
Later, as I peel off my duct tape and wiggle (not waggle) out of my bee suit, I tell Claudia and Julian about my tickly bee feet sensation. Claudia says, “I doubt anything can get through all that.” Julian says, “Look there!” We look. One lone bee is taking a stroll, nonchalant as you please, inside my recently vacated pants.
After Hurricane Ian took out half of Claudia’s coastal hives, she moved to several safer inland spots. She now has about 20 queens in 20 colonies. I invited myself for this new visit. We’re suiting up in a vast and luscious home garden, with more than 10,000 bee and butterfly-friendly plants. The hives are tucked behind the gardens. Joining us are her grandson, Ben, age nine, and her husband, Bob, a retired pharmacist who helps at the hives and in the Lee Queen Bee lab, and my companion, Randy, on his first hive experience.
Ben has a healthy respect for the bees and follows all the protocols. Randy keeps his distance. As Claudia examines a frame damaged by the dreaded wax moth, an army of drones goes into action, encircling their queen and nudging her to safety. Ben helps Bob keep the smoker going, and smoke-drunken bees calmly check me out. Bees have mind-boggling collective intelligence, so clearly the message got through from last time that I come in peace.
The bee’s knees and other factoids
- Yes, bees really do have knees. Hairy ones. But no kneecaps.
- Bee propolis from the saw palmetto, rich in live enzymes, phytonutrients, antioxidants, vitamins, and amino acids, is widely used to relieve allergy symptoms and boost the immune system.
- The bee’s humming sound comes from its wings, which can beat over 200 times a second!
When honeybees swarm, they mean no harm!
- Swarming is a normal sign of a productive and strong honeybee colony, Claudia explains. They tend to swarm here in Southwest Florida during our magical springtime when the flowers are blooming and the nectar is flowing. Homeless due to overcrowding, the loss of their queen or severe weather, they’re pretty laid back: simply having a rest while their scout searches for a new home. Once successful, he’ll do his amazing waggle dance and off they’ll go. Meanwhile, please don’t call an exterminator; call your local beekeeper, who can re-home them in a safe, healthy apiary.
- Claudia Silveira, affectionately known as Lee Queen Bee, holds a Florida Master Beekeeper certification from the University of Florida, and has collaborated on the Beekeeping 101 Program with the UF/FAS Extension (Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences). For over a decade, she has mentored aspiring beekeepers and given beekeeping workshops at the Alliance for the Arts in Fort Myers. She also makes skin care and medicinal products using by-products from her hives, including soaps and moisturizing creams, honey salt scrubs, propolis tinctures, a sore throat spray, and a rubbing cream for joint pain and muscle pain from sports injuries. Visit Lee Queen Bee on Facebook.
Who knew that you could earn a PhD in beekeeping? And that’s a wonderful thing, because the healthier and happier our honeybees are, the better chance we have of saving the Earth! Meanwhile, anyone can start by planting some bee-friendly flowers.