Killer Bees

Randy was 12 years old when we set out for the New Land. It was a good age for our #3 son to be moving to a farm because he was still young enough to adapt easily to a new life and a new culture. And I think Randy loved to learn new things. As it turned out, he was a natural born farmer. He was just a child, of course, and he needed guidance as does any child, but he was always an easy child to raise. We always said of Randy that he was an old soul, and so he is. I still think he would make a wonderful farmer.

A good farmer has to have a lot of the qualities of an intelligent person. He has to be able to make connections, to foresee the results of his actions in the future, to be open to new ideas and ways of doing things, and to be a keen observer. He has to be skilled in many different areas.

The first thing Randy learned was how to plant vegetables. He was just barely thirteen when we moved to the Ross farm, the abandoned and decrepit farmhouse we rented in Eastbranch for the summer after our long winter on the Berry Farm. Even though we had no running water in Eastbranch, and had carried our own outhouse there and set it up, I have more pleasant memories of that place; no doubt because we only lived there in warm weather. Even in its decrepit condition it was more cheerful than the Berry Farm had been.

That spring, the spring when Randy turned 13, we were hard put to get the place in living condition. It had to be cleaned, and I think we painted and maybe wallpapered one bedroom upstairs. We also had to build cupboards in the kitchen, and we found a big old white porcelai sink and drainboard that had been in a railroad station. This we set into our homemade cupboards and we installed a brand new shiny red handpump next to the sink. Then we had to run black plastic pipe from the spring down the bottom of the hill in back of the house to the kitchen.

So as Dave and the older boys were busy doing these things, we needed Randy to start the garden. Somehow we had gotten it tilled; I can’t remember how. And now it was ready to plant and the summer was coming fast. So Dave asked Randy to start planting the vegetable seeds. Randy was reluctant. He was reading a good book! He didn’t want to go out into the buggy garden and do something he had not the first notion how to do. But Dave insisted, and so like the good child he was, Randy set to work.

He read all the instructions on all the packets of seeds. Some of the seeds needed soaking for 48 hours, some for less, and some could be planted right away. Randy made neat, arrangements of the different seeds, all soaking in just the right amount of water for just the right length of time. And then he started planting! Well — it was a revelation to him, and he loved it. He became a planting fool. That’s one of the reasons I believe he is a natural born farmer.

He planted all kinds of vegetables, and they all grew well. We all helped, of course. He didn’t do the whole garden by himself, but he certainly started it, and made it a success. And he discovered one of the loves of his life. It was very gratifying to see this development of his skills, and to note this new, strong interest of his. We chuckled to ourselves, thinking how wise we were to bring him to Nova Scotia and get him away from the television. (We had left our tv set behind). Now he was blossoming the way a young boy should.

It was the same with Jody, but Jody didn’t really take to planting seeds. It was fussy work and we were too particular about just how to do it. He preferred large motor activities. Jody loved the tractor we got later, and the animals, and the woods. But more about that later.

When we were still staying at the motel, before we met the people who rented us the Berry Farm, Dave and the three older boys made several trips to Halifax and messed around. One of the things they discovered was a place where the province sold pamphlets for farmers, or would-be farmers. There were booklets about how to do all sorts of things. How to raise goats, and how to raise sheep, and how to get started raising bees. These pamphlets were very helpful and they sold for only 25 or 30 cents apiece. So the guys collected a bunch of them to add to our collection of how-to books.

When Randy read these, he had become interested in raising bees. Actually, he had become interested in bees when reading an old book we had found in a used book store in the States. It was the classic, The ABC’s and XYZ’s of Beekeeping. So the following year, when we were on our own farm in Mt. Thom, Randy got his first hive of bees.

We left the Ross farm and moved to our own place in October of that year, one year after our move to the Berry Farm. It was the following spring when Randy got his first bees, and so he would have been just 14 years old. (his birthday is in April). Or maybe he got his first bees that summer. I can’t remember how he happened to get his first hive, or exactly when. However, it was probably with Cherry’s help that he managed to get them and the equipment he needed. Cherry and Rick were our first friends after we moved to South Mountain, and our own place.

Cherry had wanted to raise bees herself, but had discovered that she was allergic to their stings, and so this bit of husbandry was not to be for her. Instead, she helped Randy keep his interest going, and probably was instrumental in his getting his first hive. Sometime after he had his first hive, Cherry called Randy and told him that there was going to be a free, open house demonstration of beekeeping at the Agricultural College, and would he like to go? Randy said yes, and so they set off in Cherry’s Volvo to spend the Saturday afternoon in Truro.

The beekeeping lecture was complete with exhibitions of hives and hive tools, and smoking equipment, and bee hats and veils, and everything one needed to know about bees. In the midst of the session, a police car pulled up to the college, and some policemen got out and made their way to the rooms where the display and demonstration was taking place. They probably followed the signs. They asked, if there was anyone there who could handle a swarm of bees, which had appeared in a nearby neighborhood – Truro Heights.

All the would-be beekeepers looked at each other. The leader of the group couldn’t leave because he was giving the lecture and was in charge of the exhibit. None of the other people present were intrepid enough to volunteer their help – except Randy. He said he would go.

So, leaving Cherry behind at the college, (remember, she was allergic to bee stings), Randy got into the police car and drove off with the two policemen to the neighborhood where the wild bees were congregating.

Now this was just about the time of the frenzied media reports of “Killer Bees” coming up north from South America or some such place. People had heard a lot about the probability of Killer Bees coming clear up to Canada! Maybe this swarm of bees, in a place where they were not supposed to be, was part of the swarms of these killers, the people may have thought. And even if they were not the Killer Bees, they would be apt to attack, wouldn’t they?

As the police car approached the area, they could see insects flying around in the air. These insects turned out to be the bees. When they got about a block away, the police stopped the car, and Randy got out and walked alone the rest of the way to where the bees were. He had nothing with him. Nothing to cover himself with and nothing to put the bees into. All he had was the knowledge with which he had armed himself with, and that was that when bees were swarming, they were not apt to attack because they had no hive to protect.

Randy was young, and he was also a natural born beekeeper, so he walked right up to the swarm of bees. He saw that they were on the small stump of a dead willow tree. The stump was only about 4 inches across. It had suckers growing around it, and on this place, the bees had settled. Randy stood quietly next to the stump surveying the scene and wondering what to do next.

As he stood there, he noticed people starting to come out of the houses nearby. They were walking over to him, seeing that he was quite unharmed and unafraid. Soon there was a small crowd standing around. Randy said that if he had a saw, he could take part of the stump while the bees were on it, and the bees would come with the stump. but he needed a box or something to put them in.

One of the men, probably the one who owned the property, offered Randy the use of his hand saw. And another man said he had a box Randy could have. So soon Randy began slowly and carefully sawing the stump, and discovered that the vibration was not too strong for the bees. They remained there calmly. In about five minutes, Randy had sawed through the stump, and then he carefully set it in the box, tucking a branch of the sucker inside with the bees, and closing the lid. Then he carried the box back to the police car.

The police decided it would be best to close the area of the back seat off, in case any of the bees decided to fly up to the front seat. So Randy sat quietly in the back with his new bees. When they got back to the college, Randy got out, met Cherry and put the box in the back seat of the Volvo, and off they set for home. It was a great adventure, and Cherry loaned Randy what he needed for a new hive.

Randy set up the new hive next to the one he had, but it was August and the new swarm was small, so they did not make it through the winter. Neither did the other hive. But the following Spring Randy got a couple of hives from somewhere in Hants County, and we had a lot of honey that year. We had even more from one of those hives that had wintered over successfully the next year. So it can be said that with Cherry’s help, Randy had become a successful beekeeper.

This talk of bees reminds me of how Lady loved honey. When we went with her to the hives and there were bees flying around, Lady would snap them up in her mouth and eat them! We figured she was loving the taste of the honey. She never seemed to get stung doing this little trick. So we can say that Lady was a successful beekeeeper too!

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