Mr. G. Beekeeper

Some time in the late 90′s, I saw a documentary on honeybees and became fascinated.  I was living in New Jersey at the time, and since I intended to move back to Seattle, I put off appropriating bees and read everything I could instead.

When I did finally move to Seattle in 2000, I found the perfect place to begin keeping bees in Arlington, WA — Smoke Farm.  That fall and winter, I began plowing through The Hive and the Honeybee, The ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture, and First Lessons in Beekeeping.  In the spring of 2001, our first packages arrived, queens were introduced, and life with bees began.  Over the next few years I’d tasted the most sublime honey right out of the hive — from the peculiar Dandelion, to Maple, to a rural mix of Clover and other indescribables, our divine Blackberry, and even the mildly sour (to my taste) Japanese Knotweed.  There is no more rewarding thrill than lifting up your veil in the midst of buzzing, sticking your finger in freshly capped honey of new color and unknown origin, and experiencing the cascade of sweetness and perfume across your tongue.  Those first tastes intoxicate your head.

In 2005, I acquired my Master’s in the Art of Teaching, and my beekeeping practice suffered.  That fall I tried combining hives and they did not make it through the winter, as they clustered too far from the stores in a cold snap.  Even my little hive that never outgrew one box didn’t make the winter.  Remorsefully, I retired for a few years.

It is not the honey which called me back to beekeeping however, it was the bee herself.  I keep bees because I love them.  Thankfully there is so much to learn about them, so many unknown books to find in used bookstores, so many observations to be made of them in the field or outside the hive, that my appreciation and wonder for them only grows with each new gleaning.  The intention of this blog is just to share the love.

In 2009, I acquired 8 packages of bees, 5 of Italian stock, and 3 of New World Carniolan.  Three hives, with the help of The Smoke Farm Bee Alliance, are managed at Smoke Farm.  Here in Seattle, I keep two in the Central District on a flat, concrete garage that has great sun exposure, two in the Greenlake neighborhood within a beautiful garden, and one on a rooftop in Capital Hill.  I am hoping that come spring, many of them will be strong enough to make Maple honey for a waffle party.

citybeesseattle@gmail.com