Post bee tour

May 31st, 2012 3:20PM-3:40PM

Many of the hives are owned by Evan Sugden, a beekeeper and a part-time entomology professor who was mentioned in the journal entry "Bees." There are several hives at the UW farm that is operated by the Bee Committee. Because the bee committee is a student led organization, student interns are held responsible for taking care of the honeybees.

During our tour, there happened to be a student intern taking care of the bees. It was a great timing for the tour to prove that bees didn't attack even when a person stuck his hand in the hive with just a beekeeping glove. Chimera and I had a little conversation with the intern, who I failed to ask his name, about what he was doing during our tour. He opened the hive for us to peek at the bottle of sugar water placed upside down so that osmosis allowed for gradual leakage of food source for the bees. Apparently, bees do not have to travel outside because of the sugar water readily available for them and the intern told us that that is one of the ways to mitigate loss of number of bees.

In a sense, the VIP treatment of the bees make it seem like they are spoiled; the bees already have their home and food available for them. If the bees should think about swarming when the population gets too large, they have a vacant housing awaiting them, although the intern told me that swarming rarely occurs. I believe this just comes to show how important honeybees are to the industry and the economy. Honey is a magical food that never rots and a precious source of nutrients like minerals and vitamins. Bees mean a lot to us now, and it seems like we made them dependent on us, too. According to the intern, honeybees rarely goes far to forage (because food is in their house) and they rarely sting even when he sticks his bare hand in the nest. During the tour I talked about how honeybees have been tamed to produce more honey while being less aggressive; I thought I found a great example there.

At this point, I am proud to say that I was standing right by the entrance of bee hive, in the midst of hundreds of honeybees. It will sound odd, but they looked adorable with small and fuzzy bodies and not showing even a hint of hospitality towards me. Occasionally, some individual bees stopped and rested at my legs, and whether a sign of friendship or taste of curiosity, the sight of bees on my body without any pain eased the last bit of discomfort I had with them.

Posted on June 5, 2012 03:42 AM by bluehoneysugar