Queen Maggie, May I Introduce My Mother, Patty

The family legend is that my mom's aunt used to sit outside between the hives that her dad kept.  While he was working, she would bring a book and read, thousands of bees flying around her head.  She was completely at ease around the bees, and would often be found leaning up against the hives.

Her dad fondly called her his Beezie.

I never met anyone who knew her by any other name.

Historically, I don't know of any other beekeepers in my family.  I have a beloved aunt who keeps bees, and another beloved aunt who has bees kept on her farm.  One of my favorite cousins has been wanting to keep bees for almost as long as I have.  But we don't have a long tradition in the family of beekeeping.

I truly wish we did.  There is nothing quite like being able to talk bees with a family member - to discuss the problems and solutions with someone who has worked through the problems themselves.

Yesterday, I started that process.

That's right.  Patty Lawton geared up with me and we inspected the hives.

Mom had never worked with bees before, but I kept checking through the afternoon, and she exhibited absolutely no fear.  She donned the garb, we checked for openings that could be exploited by a curious bee, and together we opened the hive.  She lifted, she smoked, she counted, she observed, all on a day where the actual temperatures were reported in the mid 90s.

After she had met Maggie's crew (Maggie is the queen in my top-bar hive, pictured above), we opened the other two hives.  Lady Xoc has been laying like crazy, but there were enough empty frames to let me consolidate her frames into a smaller space - making it an easier place to defend.  And then we inspected Isabella's hive, and closed everything up.

Maggie's hive.  She is called Maggie because 

I caught her swarm on Drummond St.  

And Margaret of Drummond was 15th C royalty.

The whole time, I was showing her the different parts of the hive, and it felt a little like I was giving a celebrity tour of a movie set: if you will look on the left side of the bus, there is a queen cell; on your right is a drone cell.  At the top of your frame is some capped honey and some pollen. Here is a frame of worker brood, and some eggs... ooh, look quick - there's a drone.

Last step was to clear the tools and get the consolidated frames into a different spot.  We got them inside, and mom took her gear off, and grabbed a water bottle and sat down.

I got her back up, and gave her the honors.  She took a fork and scraped the cappings off of the small sections of the two frames that had honey. And we crushed and strained the results.

"Oh, I WISH I could still have biscuits with honey!"  She tried a finger-full of the product before we cleaned it all up for the night, and we harvested just enough to fill one jelly jar.  But I suspect that Patty's honey will be more jealously guarded than Smaug ever defended his hoard.

If you doubt it, just ask her for some, next time you visit.