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The sweet allure of beekeeping
For many of the aspiring apiarists I talked to in writing today’s story about a backyard beekeeping class, a thriving garden was the primary goal of setting up a hive on their property.
Even for Konrad Bouffard, owner of Round Rock Honey (who also blogs about beekeeping here), a better garden was the main attraction when he first got into setting up hives and tending colonies of European honeybees.
In my family, honey has always been the draw.
My great uncle Lee Handy tended hives after decades working his tail end off at a restaurant in Branson, Mo., back when it was a one-stoplight town. He and my aunt Mary put in 15 hour days there until they sold the restaurant, and he eventually established enough hives to have a second career as a honey salesman. (A strapping man in these family photos, Lee grew into the scruffy kind of old man whom I was always too scared to ask why he only had 8 and 3/4 fingers.)
To call him a beekeeper alone wouldn’t suffice. There wasn’t nearly the market for honey that there is now, so he had to persuade a lot of people into buying his product in the first place. He sold it by the quart (a few dollars off if you brought your own jar) to people who followed the “Honey ahead” signs along the road leading to their country house.
Up until their deaths about a decade ago, they had a five gallon vat of honey in their kitchen that, with just a pull of a lever, would ooze the most beautiful golden honey. I can remember eating honey until I was sick in that kitchen. My dad, to this day, won’t drink coffee without honey because that’s the way his uncle taught him how to drink coffee.
I’d never thought about carrying on the tradition until donning a beekeeping suit for the first time for this story.
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By Aaron
December 9, 2009 9:17 AM | Link to this
Great article and a great video/blog post as well. Thanks so much. I really look forward to your content. RRH is a great company and has a great product, I’m glad to see them doing this kind of education as wel.