In March and April, bee schools are buzzing
Mar. 10—Gerard Godville's apiary in Bridgewater hums with activity and a critical mission: preserving and expanding the insect army that pollinates vegetables, fruit and flowers and contributes to the state's crop of honey, royal jelly and ingredients for natural medicine.
Godville, a beekeeper for 22 years, waxes poetic when it comes to his passion for bees: "If you're a beekeeper, you do a lot more for the environment than a lot of people" — including supporting the success of local agriculture.
Spring is ripe for another beekeeper mission: 'bee schools' that train hobbyists and others interested in the ins and outs of nurturing bees, providing habitats and learning the tools and techniques of beekeeping in a suburban backyard or small farm.
Many of the state's nine regional beekeeper associations run bee schools, including the Pemi-Baker Bee School, held by the Pemi-Baker Beekeepers Association. This school for beginners and returning students runs for four Saturdays at the American Legion in Ashland starting March 16.
Rebecca and Rick Green, who own a pick-your-own blueberry farm in New Hampton, went to bee school to improve their crop.
Rebecca, who is now president of the Pemi-Baker Beekeepers Association, initially said, "Bees? No. My hesitation was about not wanting to be stung."
Now she's an ardent steward of the bees. And she's also a believer in schooling and belonging to a bee club, which enables members to learn from each other — including 'if at first you don't succeed, try, try again' and there's no one way to do things.
"You ask five beekeepers a question and you get six different answers," said Godville. "Everybody makes mistakes. That's how you learn."
Samantha Stevens, owner of Bewitched Acres in Meredith, married farming and a lifelong interest in bees. She enrolled in bee school in 2021.
"I was the weird kid who followed bees instead of butterflies," she said. "Now I have 15 hives."
Bee school is more than a forum for exchanging trade secrets, it's an introduction to bee culture, according to Pemi-Baker members.
Honeybees have complex social lives and shift jobs depending on what's required in the hive. Female worker bees progress from house bee to nurse bee to forager bee. One is specially fed and groomed to be a queen. Male bees, called drones, can't feed themselves. They mate with the queen then die. It's a stratified culture, and a very brief existence.
'Attitude of the hive'
When you hear buzzing inside a hive, that's the sound of bee wings flapping, typically to aerate or heat their environment, according to association members.
"You can tell the attitude of the hive by the buzz," said Stevens. A banana-like smell is a cue to stay away, she said.
Forager bees perform a figure eight dance that tells others the direction and distance of a food source, and how good it is. Some scientific evidence claims that honeybees can recognize human faces.
Pesticides, mites and bee diseases pose an ongoing and increasing threat. According to the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension, the Varroa mite, which arrived from Asia in the 1980s, the Nosema infection, and high annual losses of honeybee hives regularly ravage the population.
"People don't think about it when they spray for mosquitoes and ticks. It's also killing the native bees," Green said.
"We've had 65% survival rates," said Godville, adding that a 30% loss over winter is not uncommon.
"We've all lost colonies" at different times, said Clare Eckert of Plymouth, treasurer for the Pemi-Baker association, which has 125 members. Thanks to human intervention and beekeeping, New Hampshire's honeybee population is holding steady, Eckert said.
For bee lovers, beekeeping is more than a farm chore or fleeting interest.
"There are people who set up lawn chairs in front of their beehive and just watch the bees come and go," Eckert said. She said she knew nothing about bees when she started, "but I thought they were cool."
"People keep hives in New York City on rooftops. You can keep hives anywhere," Stevens said.
Jeff McCormick, owner of McCormick's Bee Farm in Gilmanton, started keeping bees in 2012. He said his first hives were a flop.
Now he has 250 hives and raises queens and sells bees, beekeeping equipment and honey as a full-time job. He describes bee school and bee club as a communal learning experience that supplies not just companionship, but new ideas.
"My skill as a beekeeper is getting better," he said, "when you find something that works. You're never truly a master at it. There are a lot of nuances to learn."
To enroll in Pemi-Baker Beekeepers Association's Bee School, go to www.pemibakerba.org. Online registration for the session that starts Saturday continues through March 13.
For information on other bee schools and regional beekeeping clubs in New Hampshire, go to www.nhbeekeepers.org.
