And About the Neighbors.......

The house next door to me has been on the market and vacant for about a year.  Other houses in my area of Atlanta sell the minute they are put on the MLS, but not this one.  It's a really pretty house, but needs updating and has an odd floor plan that doesn't work well for children - at least that's why the realtor told me it has taken so long to sell.

I'm currently renovating my kitchen and since my house is very tiny, I've moved to the finished attic to live for the forever number of weeks it is taking to finish the job.  So a few days ago, I was sitting on my upstairs bed, talking to my friend Gina on the phone, and gazing out the window at the roof peak at the side of my house.  As I am watching the exterior of the house next door, I realized I was looking at what may be honey bees flying in and out above a second floor dryer vent.

The dryer vent looks like it is on the second floor and as you can see is rather high up since the house has a basement, a first floor and then the dryer vent.

I don't have a powerful enough zoom on my camera to get a clear picture of the insects flying in and out, but they do act like honey bees.















When we were little my Daddy used to say a poem to us:

"Daddy!"
"Whatcha' want?"
"I see a bear..."
"Big bear or a little bear?"
"Little biddy bear."
"Eat grass and watch him"
"Daddy!"
"Whatcha' want?"
"I see a bear..."
"Big bear or a little bear?"
"GREAT BIG BEAR!"
"Run for your life, run for your life!!!!!"

I keep thinking about this as I watch the bees flying in and out of the hole entry above the dryer vent.  Do I eat grass and watch 'em or do I call the realtor and tell her the news.  You can see the hole entry above and to the left of the center of the dryer vent.

I have tried to photograph the insects with both my phone and my camera but neither have the necessary zoom capacity.

So a couple of days ago, I called the realtor.  I told her I thought there might be honey bees living above the dryer vent.  I told her that there are five beekeepers within a block of my house and although I thought they were honey bees, they were not likely to be my honey bees since bees when they swarm to a new home, generally go at least a mile away if they can.  I gave her the names and numbers of three master beekeepers I know who do bee removals.  I also offered my phone number for the owner (whom I don't know - the house was rented when I moved in next door) in case he had questions.  I hung up relieved but still a little wary.

Finally this morning I decided to take a pair of binoculars upstairs and look out of the window.  I think these might NOT be honey bees but rather yellow jackets.  One view through the binoculars looked like their bodies were more yellow than orange and more pointed at the end than the bee.  I am giving you a blurry photo which is the best I can do so you can see what YOU think!

When I talked to the realtor, she told me the house was pending contract, waiting on the inspection and the loan.  She commented that the inspection had already happened and the inspector did not notice the insect activity.

At least it has me thinking about the new neighbors and I will certainly take them honey when they move in and possibly (as one of my friends suggested) my Canadian honey buttermilk rolls!

Questions that were on my Mind as a First Year Beekeeper

As the beginning of my third year in beekeeping approaches (I started on Easter Sunday, 2006), I have been thinking about the questions I wish someone had answered for me as I got started.

One of my recent assignments was to give a presentation at the Short Course on "Bee-ing a Beekeeper" which was about my experiences and the stories of a panel of several others. I focused on the fun(ny) parts of Bee-ing a Beekeeper. I've thought about posting the PowerPoint presentation I did and then thought it wouldn't be the same without the stories to go with the pictures, but I may post it anyway.

In thinking about what I might address if I were asked again to talk about first year experiences, I generated (in no particular order) the questions that were on the top of my mind when I got started. They are:

• How hard is it to put together a hive box?

• What do you use to light a smoker?

• How do you put the bees in the hive and what are the scary parts?

• How do you deal with your neighbors?

• What is it like to be stung the first time?

• How much is the initial investment and do you have to have an extractor?

• Will you have enough wax the first year to make candles?

• What's the purpose of a hive inspection and how hard is it to do one?

• What are the most confusing parts of the first year of beekeeping?

I think I'll post on these questions over the next few weeks as many people begin their beekeeping experience for the first time. I've recently addressed how to build a hive box and how to deal with your neighbors. Stay tuned for posts on the rest of these questions.

How to Deal With your Neighbors When you Start Keeping Bees

One of the questions most new beekeepers ask is, "How do I deal with my neighbors?"

There's not an easy answer. Many beekeepers try to keep their beekeeping endeavors as unobtrusive as possible. I wasn't eager to invite anyone's opinion about my beekeeping. I did research it and found that since the bee is the state insect of Georgia, bees are allowed to "bee" anywhere in Atlanta.

Atlanta is a hilly city. I live in a particularly hilly neighborhood. When you enter my neighborhood (which is a U-shaped set of three streets) you become aware of the hills. One of the legs of the U goes downhill all the way to the street that makes the bottom of the U. Then you turn left to drive toward my house which begins the ascent of a hill. My house is at the peak of the hill and you go uphill on my driveway to get to my carport.

My bees are on the deck behind my house at the level of the main floor. Like many houses in Atlanta, my house is built into the hill, so it is a ranch but has a daylight basement on the back side. So the deck is about 14 feet high above the backyard, although it is at the level of my ranch house on the street side.

My neighbor on one side is steeply downhill from me. My neighbor on the other side is also on a slight downhill, and her deck is probably about 10 feet lower than mine.

Consequently I had my bees for two bee seasons without my neighbors having any idea.

I do wonder what they thought when they smelled smoke on the weekends. But I don't know them very well since I'm at work all day and nobody asked me about the smoky smell. And I was always having large bee labeled boxes of materials from Dadant and Betterbee or other bee companies delivered to my carport where they sat, available for viewing by anyone, until I came home from work.

This year after the honey harvest was over, I decided to give the neighbors on either side of my house a jar of my bees' delicious honey. Susan, my neighbor on the not-so-low side, was thrilled and talked to me all about what she knew about the healthful benefits of honey. She volunteered the other day that my honey was the best honey she had ever tasted. Below you can see the view from Susan's property line. Even in winter you can barely see the white of the hives on the deck and wouldn't know what they were to identify them. If you click on the picture you can see the whole thing.



My neighbor, Eric, on the other side, steeply downhill, has a baby - who was at the time about 8 months old. I gave the two of them a jar of honey when I saw them walking the baby. He seemed pleased, but not too excited to find out there were bees in the neighborhood. His wife said, "Honey's poisonous for babies, you know." I saw Eric, the father, a few weeks later and asked him how they liked the honey. "Oh, we haven't tried it yet," he said and looked uncomfortable.

So I would say that the news that I have bees was met with mixed reviews by my immediate neighbors. I did get a note from Libba, the president of the neighborhood garden club inviting me to come to a meeting (since I'm at work and they meet in the daytime, I haven't been in years). At the end of the note she wrote, "I'd like to taste your honey, Honey!" That let me know that my beekeeping has become a subject of neighborhood conversation.

I have recently seen Libba and given her a jar of the honey.

My deck serves to keep my bees' flight paths above my neighbors' yards. The other way that bees intrude into people's lives is by finding a water source on the neighbor's property. It's important to provide your bees a water source so they won't seek water at your neighbor's swimming pool or bird bath. I have provided my bees a water source, but they prefer nasty water out of the gutters on my house. The nearest house with a swimming pool is about 1/4 mile away.



Many beekeepers encourage telling your neighbors and sharing honey with them.

I don't think it's something you can make a blanket decision about doing. I was glad when I told my neighbors that I could say, "Oh, I've had these bees for two years." If the bees were new, people could have complained that the bees had bothered them ever since I got them, but nobody could claim that since the bees have been quiet as mice and my closest neighbors did not even know they were living on my deck.

The nice part of telling the neighbors is that I felt comfortable to store my boxes and supers in the carport during the winter without worrying about it. In the spring I may even fly the bee flag that I bought in the mountains.

Beekeepers in Secret

Many beekeepers feel uncomfortable letting their neighbors know that they have bees. People tend to interpret any sting as a sting from your bees if they know you have them. Beekeepers know that your bees don't just sting for fun - they sting if the hive is threatened or if you threaten their lives. The usual neighborhood sting is from a yellow jacket or a wasp....not a honeybee. It's ironic that a hobby which is helping pollinate the planet is one that is often kept secret to those around you.

Here's an article on the subject.

My neighbors don't know that I keep bees. My hives are on my deck in my backyard which backs up to woods. I am on a hill and my house is at the top of the hill. The neighbors on either side of me are at a slightly lower elevation. When they look at my deck, they are looking up enough that they can't see the hives. There is tall red-tipped photinia
that lines the deck on the side of the closest neighbor.

The other saving grace in my location is that in Georgia, the mosquitoes are terrible in the summer. If you have a deck, sitting on it is impossible at the very time of year when one might like to. If my closest neighbor sat on her deck more, she might notice my bees, but so far, if she has, she has said nothing.

I don't keep it too secret. I get packages from bee suppliers delivered to my carport where they sit with Dadant or Walter T. Kelley or Betterbee emblazoned on their sides until I come home from work. A friend gave me some 25 year old used hive boxes from his beekeeping that many years ago that I haven't moved out of my carport because unless I take the boxes apart and torch them, I'm afraid I might be moving AFB onto my deck since he doesn't know how his last hives died.

With the news full of bees disappearing, this seems like a time in which a neighbor might be glad someone is keeping bees, but I'm not going to take the risk of hanging my bee flag on my deck or putting a beekeeper bumper sticker on my car.