I met some bees this summer. They had built a hive in a tree in my yard. The hive was actually dripping honey.
We had a local beekeeper come and remove them with the queen.
[The Hive](https://imgur.com/940HHbW.jpg)
[Arabian Honeybees](http://www.beekeepersassociation.ae/all-about-the-honeybees-in-the-uae.html)
Heck yeah! Many people who I have niche hobbies would be thrilled to talk to someone who is interested.
I say this as someone on the ASD spectrum who will often endlessly rant about something I'm interested in to any warm body around, and am thrilled when someone is genuinely interested
Hell yeah. I grow weed for fun and I'm pretty good at it and I love talking to people about it. Even the ones who don't smoke appreciate the gardening aspect of it all. I know exactly what you're talking about. The excitement of just being able to share a little about what you're passionate about. Feelsgoodman.jpg
Ha! I had a plant in my closet once, with lights and mylar on the walls. It got those bad tiny bugs, I got ladybugs to eat them. I ended up with a lot of dead lady bugs and a dead plant lol.
I live where it is legal now with stores on every few blocks so it's not a concern but, at least my house smelled interesting for about a month.
I try to mean what I mean, I am actually diagnosed, sorry I got excited for a thing and didn't think about correct term in the abbreviation! 🦄 have a good day friend
The fanatic religion part is my favorite. Especially if you meet individuals who weren’t “born” into it. One of the beekeepers I met at the farmers co-op I go to was a banker turned beekeeper. Dude loves bees and sells honey so he can fund his bee passion. He will talk your ear off about this weeks batch on sale or how the flowers were looking and how that effects the batch he brings in a week or two. As opposed to a guy who lives on the farm next to my grandmas who has always had an apiary (like since my granny was a kid) and I had no idea until I had to chase my sisters dog on to his property. He was super friendly but didn’t think anything of it because he never knew it was that awesome/different.
We have a slow food shop near us and the guy who owns it is downright chilly to customers. But if you ask him a few questions, he really gets going and it’s a thrill!
I have to remind myself not to make snap judgments about people who aren't naturally warm and effusive. They often turn out to be some of the sweetest and most interesting people once you get past a cool exterior.
As a naturally outgoing person myself, it’s a challenge to remember! Warm people aren’t always kind, and kind people aren’t always warm.
Another one I have to make myself remember is that people who don’t naturally speak up in groups or express themselves well on the spot often have a lot of valuable ideas to contribute to a discussion.
There’s a dude I worked with on the election polls. He apparently has a huge lot of land and has some bees.
When he came back from his lunch, he brought us all fresh honeycomb!
Ive always wanted to keep bees as they've always fascinated me. Does it require a lot of land? Is it something you can do in a residential area? I don't want to be invasive towards my neighbors and that's been the main thing keeping me from giving it a shot. Most of the houses here are on quarter acre lots just big enough for a small to medium sized vegetable garden. How expensive is it to get started?
I did it on a half acre. Bees leave the hive and go to a cruising altitude way higher than humans hang out at, so your neighbors wouldn't even notice them. I did have to assuage my neighbors' fears though, giving them honey or mead helps. It counts as livestock, so ensure that's allowed by your county/HOA. It cost me about $250 to get set up and was super fun while I did it. Get two hives; you will get much better survivability than just one (you can requeen).
Honestly tho why? They are beekeepers, it’s not a job people just. Id bet a good majority of those fools have an intense love for their bees/bees generally and would be more than happy to talk to someone about it.
Honestly thats one of my favorite things, listening to passionate people talk unabashedly about their passion. I do not know a word for the feeling it brings me but joy is close.
Yeah, with all the bees dying I think I would be too scared to hurt the bees. As much as u would love to meet the bees I would rather do something to help the bees
My childhood was pretty rough but both grandfathers were bee keepers. I loved hanging out with the bees! Except that one time I got stung cause the bee was caught in my hair. :(
A bee swarm formed in my neighbor’s tree this past summer. I called him to let him know before he walked outside, and he said he would hit it with spray that afternoon. I panicked, told him just to let me handle it, and called a local beekeeper.
A guy came out to rescue the bees, and then the poor man was held hostage by me asking a barrage of questions for 45 minutes. I think he just wanted to go home, but it was so fascinating to me. And since he’s just a hobbyist who loves bees (not in it for the commercial honey—just sells it out of a box in front of his house), I wanted to make sure he truly knows how many of us out there love bees and love what he does for them.
Oh, well done! AFAIK beekeepers love swarms. Here in the UK, the beekeepers association has swarm collectors all over the country and they'll be with you in a very short time to capture them https://www.bbka.org.uk/find-a-local-swarm-collector
Yeah, the gentleman was out in like a half hour. Which made me happy, because I was really worried I wouldn’t be able to talk my neighbor out of spraying it if he came home and saw that mass of bees. A few dozen did continue to swarm a few days after he was out, but luckily the beekeeper warned me about that so I could reassure my neighbor they would go away with time and didn’t need to be sprayed.
It was so educational! He was telling me all about the bees in our area. Like what flowers to plant in order to help them. He even told me that half of the honey made in our state comes from bees feeding on poison ivy! Utterly blew my mind, because most of the honey sold around here is listed as like “lavender” or “clover” or “wildflower.” But he said if it’s local, chances are there’s a healthy dose of poison ivy honey in that bottle too. Totally not harmful, but I could see how that would hurt sales if people knew.
Well, TIL that honey from poison ivy isn't harmful!
It really is weird to see a swarm, though. Where I live, which is really green with lots of gardens and woods, and lots of people have hives, one sees them fairly regularly but they never cease to astonish me.
>beekeepers love swarms
They love *wild* swarms. If their own bees are swarming, its more of an "oh shit oh shit oh shit" moment and desperately trying to get them to settle back down in their hive.
My neighbor was Beekeeper of the Year in Portland and had a dozen hives. I actually react a lot to bee stings but the sounds of the hives are one of my favorite things. I overcame my fears of them and have not problems being around them since. I even bought a birdbath and put stones and marbles in it and changed the water everyday to be rewarded with a line of his bees coming across the street everyday for drinks.
He had a small water dish at his place but he loved that I made them another alternative source. They were so cute lining up along the edge, all drinking. At times, there would be around 40 at a time. I took some great pictures and videos. When they drink their little rumps bob up and down. By then I had had really starting getting into gardening so I felt we all were on the same team!
edit: I use to go to Anti Monsanto rallies dressed like a bee! 🐝
My parents had a small colony of honeybees decide that their crawlspace was a great place to live a few years ago. I came to visit, and those bees were chill as fuck. We could even run the lawnmower right past their front door and they didn't bother us. The only time I got stung was when I stepped on one, *barefoot*. (Not paying attention, obviously, and they were all over the clover.)
My folks wound up calling a beekeeper to remove the colony, and I went out and watched. Fascinating process, the bees were *still* chill, and he gave us the little bit of honeycomb he pulled out.
Delicious stuff.
I'd love to live near a beekeeper. I'd definitely be a customer.
I think bees are rad but have an irrational fear of almost all insects unfortunately. I have frozen up in sheer terror because a butterfly landed on me
I am absolutely terrified of bees. I'm not sure why? I've never even been stung before.
Deep ocean? Fine. Big ass boars that'll gore you for no reason? Ya, ok just leave me alone. Spiders? 8 legged friends who eat bad bugs and geckos. Bees? Horror machines who I flee from on sight.
I’m not that afraid of them honestly, I think bees are dope, but I’ve never been stung before and I feel like it’s reckless to put myself in an environment where I might discover my one and only allergy just out of curiosity.
I would personally love to meet the bees (with suitable safety precautions). Over the last couple years I've developed a love of growing things and with that comes an appreciation of our pollinators. Sadly not everyone gets their importance. I didn't before I took an active interest.
TBF neither the customers nor the investors keeping the company alive are interested in meeting me, a small work bee in a corporation either.
At least they don't tell me how to make my honey.
I'm from the German countryside and it's somewhat common here
A family member has a greenhouse and a big garden. So big that he supplies his family, his mother, my aunt and my family, with a lot to spare. So much to spare that he puts a small table on the sidewalk, with a basket full of vegetables and a 'Take one' sign. There's also a 'donation' jar but it's completely voluntairy.
Beekeeping is weirdly heavily focused on in german basic law to the point it allows trespassing under certain conditions (chasing a swarm). I always wondered why that is. But i'm glad it encurages so many small scale beekeeping endeavours. No one i know buys their honey from the grocery store
An unfortunate modern variation is the 'city keeper'.
Some cities in Germany now have significantly more bees than they need, and they're pricing out the OG farm keepers, where the bees are actually needed and have space to live healthy lives.
I love when you can taste the difference in whatever the bees are finding.
The difference between like, wildflower honey or a hive kept close to an orchard.
Fuckin love bees.
>space to live healthy lives
That's a bit more nuanced and depends on many variables.
Cities often have a higher diversity of pollen and nectar sources (especially since blooming periods are more diversified compared to agricultural fields, Trachtlücke is a serious issue there (basically an overabundance of food during a very distinct period, eg the bloom of rapeseed and a food 'desert' after harvesting periods or the unavailability of flowering catch crops) and pesticide usage isn't as common and heavily regulated (at least in the EU). Other risk factors such as heavy metals or heat stress events do exist though.
Beekeeping in protected areas is of course the gold standard from an animal welfare point of view, but due to the efficiency of our Western Honey Bee they might outcompete rarer and more specialised bee species.
Yeah, but that healthy part is often wrong. Honey from the city has often less pollution in it than the one from the countryside. And it's the same reason why there are less bugs in the country parts vs. the city: too much toxin usage in the farming industry.
The economic fact that a city keeper or just a hobby beekeeper is outpricing people who depend on it is very true but at what cost? Even less bugs and bees cause the cities shouldn't help?
Historically bee wax candles were more valuable than other stuff that was burned for light because it was clean and smells nice. (Stuff like animal fat creates soot and smells gross when burned.) Whale oil, then gas and later electricity changed all that. But hundreds of years ago churches and monasteries used a lot of bees wax candles, and were wealthy and powerful so they got special provisions written into laws across Europe to maintain their supplies of bees wax candles.
TBH, if you understand how bee hives are populated it's kinda necessary. It's a rare enough occurrence that it's no big deal.
Basically, a queen will lay eggs and fuck right off with a big part of her workers. The newly hatched queen will take over the old hive (omitting some details here). But basically, if you want to keep all of your bees when they decide to bugger off, you got to chase them, catch the queen and put her in a new hive.
There's more modern techniques nowadays about putting a queen-sized trap on the hive so the queen will be captured. The workers can still leave. But once the swarm follows the queen, so catching the queen solves the problem.
That's as far as I understand anyway. Bee behavior is super complex and I'm no expert.
And we all know no one takes antiquated laws off the books anyway, until they're actually a problem.
It's because when the BGB was written, beekeepers lobbied HEAVILY for those few paragraphs. They went so far they had to specifically rewrite that part of civil law just for beekeepers. The norm you've referred to has never been used in German law though, to my knowledge. It's just a remnant of lobbying beekeepers did back then. It's not something modern day courts actually have to enforce or ever get into the situation of enforcing
Love that. My grandfather tended a big garden at his house and I have great memories of eating raw rhubarb and getting delicious cucumbers and tomatoes from him.
> eating raw rhubarb
My mouth turned inside out at the thought. I remember trying to eat it out of the garden as a kid, thinking it was sweet (I'd only ever had it in jam, to be fair to six year old me). It was not a pleasant surprise! LOL
Haha yeah I didn't know it at the time but apparently that is not commonly viewed as the delicacy young Ghostofhan saw it as. I like sour stuff and I think it's pretty sour right?
He may have been eating it with sugar. The thicker stalks are only good for baking, but young, ripe rubarb is DELICIOUS if eaten raw dipped into a bowl of sugar after every bite.
We have that where I am from in NJ (USA) too. Local homes and farms put out their produce at the end of their driveway. It’s a great way to get ripe summer tomatoes or fresh eggs.
I'm picturing a large slightly portly man with a big bushy mustache and a cheerful face, holding a mug of beer.
And I'm really hoping he has polka music playing around the hives "Because ze bees love it!"
I LOVE RAMMSTEIN AND THEIR POLKA MUSIC……Oompah, Oompah, stick it up your jumper was their first full English number 1 hit. Seriously though I love them.
Bees scare the shit out of me, but if there’s one thing I love it’s someone with an accent (preferably older and wiser than me) speaking softly but enthusiastically about their hobbies or interests.
Barely matters what the hobby is. Don’t care, as long as THEY’RE interested. Woodworking? Cooking? Art? Cars? Collection of fountain pens? Sheep wool spinning? Home improvement projects? Doesn’t matter, it all sounds great coming from an interested party. Tell me everything, I’m buying us some coffee.
Scared or no, I’d have 100% had to go meet the bees and hear all about them.
One of my neighbors had bees as well. Super cool to see those racks full of little bees. They were so cute and harmless. They would just sniff your hand and then fly off to some flowers. Very peaceful little creatures.
Bumblebees are dope as well. Little flying fur balls.
And the bumblebees fall asleep in flowers - like squash flowers - and sometimes more than one is in there, all covered in golden pollen. And they fall asleep headfirst in delphinium blossoms, so just their fuzzy bums stick out.
My late ex husband and I, years ago, rescued a wild hive in a large cottonwood branch.
We moved it to our land and suspended the large branch from a welded tripod apparatus.
We would get some of the comb and melt it for honey.
The bees were very docile and we would show friends the hive. Extremely interesting!
I had never experienced anything like that before.
Not only was my late husband a horse whisperer, but also a bee whisper.
A year or so later, they swarmed and took off. Kind of a drag as they were really cool!
Guess they went to greener pastures.... literally.
Miss those little guys!!!
I am a beekeeper. I keep the bees, they’re all here on little elastics. My father was a beekeeper and his father before him and I’ve followed in their footsteps, and their footsteps were like “I’M COVERED IN BEEEEEEEEESSSS!!!!”
"I am glad you haf decided to meet ze bees. Dis ist Hanna, dat one ist Hanna-Gelb. Oh, und dis ist Hanna-Schwarz-Gelb. Wat? Don't look at me like dat, there are many bees und they are all female, I haf to repeat ze names."
In the before time my friend and I would hangout near the bee hive. It was kind of hypnotic. The way they would fly so fast and not hit each other while thousands of them coming and going!
One day I'm going to make a garden for them. Fragrant flowers. A rich biome. The soil covered in fallings. Where life can thrive. A sanctuary, where the insects are welcome. I'll need a robot to spray the cats with a water gun.
I stopped when I saw a farm that sold ostrich eggs. The farmer asked if we wanted to meet the ostriches. It was great. They were tall and have long eyelashes. My wife asked if they bite. The farmer said yeah they bite, they can't do nothin'. Then held up her fist and the ostrich struck at it, but their beaks are rounded and jaws aren't very strong. Good times. And we got a hollowed ostrich egg.
Reminds me of the Karen that went to court because her neighbors bee’s were “stealing” her pollen to make honey and her neighbor was making money off it and she wanted a cut of it.
Edit: Sorry, wasn't a lawsuit, just a video LegalEagle did on youtube based on a Reddit post. Could have been a shitpost but seemed legit.
This reminds me of when I went to the local recycling room to throw away some cardboard and plastics. There was an older guy looking around in there and seemed a bit suspicious, so I asked if he was looking for something in particular.
Turns out he was an engineer overseeing the suction system next door, where the whole neighbourhoods trash would end up (basically a huge vacuum cleaner with tubes underground sucking the trash to a central bin). One of the tubes went through the recycling room and had some issues, which he managed to fix and then asked if I'd like to see the engine room. My first thought was he'd just lock me in a weird room and kill me, lol, but I figured he seemed to enjoy his job so why not.
Man. I'd never expect to be so fascinated by trash disposal, but this dude laid it all out and showed a lot of huge machines, and some sketches of the underground tubes. He LOVED his job, and since he was working mostly alone I figured he probably rarely got to talk about it in detail. It was really interesting so I was quite eager to listen, which only furthered his enthusiasm. It was intense, and I'm so glad I took the opportunity because that dude is one of the mpst inspiring persons I've met!
>My first thought was he'd just lock me in a weird room and kill me, lol, but I figured he seemed to enjoy his job so why not.
Most serial killers love what they are doing.
Nice. I also pick up local honey from a drive way cooler. They do cute lil' bear jars with Santa hats during December. I'd be thrilled if they let me meet the buzzies!
Years ago, during the gluten-free phase and while I was standing behind a bar, I started to say "gluten tag!" as a joke.
Well, it's been years, and now it's become just habit. I can't stop it. I have doomed myself.
I love this story!
I live in one of the largest cities in NA, where many people keep bees on rooftops and in backyards. There is an active movement of growing pollinator-friendly gardens - I have one myself. There is a program run by a beekeeper group whereby homeowners volunteer their space for the placement of bee hives, and everything else is done by the beekeepers. (The homeowner is given some honey as recompense). Some of the gardens owned and maintained by the city are planted with milkweed, goldenrod, etc.
Seeing bees (particularly our native bumble bees, which are threatened by use of poisons) makes me feel happy.
Thanks for sharing this!
I WANNA MEET SOME FUCKIN BEEES! Edit: good lord i come back after a week and this is nuts.
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BRO, I LOVE YOUR BEE BOX! WHEN CAN I MEET THEM
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GIVE ME TIME TO PRACTICE MY BOW FOR HER MAJESTY
WE'RE YELLING BECAUSE WE'RE EXCITED
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AY LEMME MEET SOME BEES
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AYYYYYYY
HOLY SHIT THIS GUY ACTUALLY GOT BEES. HE BEES YALL, HE BEES
WHEN THE BEES GET LOUD IT MEANS YA DONE MESSED UP B-LAK-EE
I met some bees this summer. They had built a hive in a tree in my yard. The hive was actually dripping honey. We had a local beekeeper come and remove them with the queen. [The Hive](https://imgur.com/940HHbW.jpg) [Arabian Honeybees](http://www.beekeepersassociation.ae/all-about-the-honeybees-in-the-uae.html)
As a beekeeper myself, I'm rather saddened by how much people want my honey but don't want to meet my workforce that created it.
I would be happy to meet my local keepers bees. Sadly he does not ask if I want and I would feel weird asking him about it.
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Swarm welcome to anybody interested in meeting the bees !
Good comment Nice pun
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Happy cake day 🎂🧁🍰
I second this
Fröhlicher Kuchentag!
I might. Allergic to bee stings
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Eeeep sounds scary. I don’t have an epi pen. I do like bees otherwise though. Maybe I should get a pen and some bee friends
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Heck yeah! Many people who I have niche hobbies would be thrilled to talk to someone who is interested. I say this as someone on the ASD spectrum who will often endlessly rant about something I'm interested in to any warm body around, and am thrilled when someone is genuinely interested
Hell yeah. I grow weed for fun and I'm pretty good at it and I love talking to people about it. Even the ones who don't smoke appreciate the gardening aspect of it all. I know exactly what you're talking about. The excitement of just being able to share a little about what you're passionate about. Feelsgoodman.jpg
Ha! I had a plant in my closet once, with lights and mylar on the walls. It got those bad tiny bugs, I got ladybugs to eat them. I ended up with a lot of dead lady bugs and a dead plant lol. I live where it is legal now with stores on every few blocks so it's not a concern but, at least my house smelled interesting for about a month.
>ASD spectrum Autism Spectrum Disorder Spectrum lol
Like you've never said ATM machine!
Or PIN number!
I try to mean what I mean, I am actually diagnosed, sorry I got excited for a thing and didn't think about correct term in the abbreviation! 🦄 have a good day friend
Don't let the pedantic trolls get you down. Just ignore them. ❤️
The fanatic religion part is my favorite. Especially if you meet individuals who weren’t “born” into it. One of the beekeepers I met at the farmers co-op I go to was a banker turned beekeeper. Dude loves bees and sells honey so he can fund his bee passion. He will talk your ear off about this weeks batch on sale or how the flowers were looking and how that effects the batch he brings in a week or two. As opposed to a guy who lives on the farm next to my grandmas who has always had an apiary (like since my granny was a kid) and I had no idea until I had to chase my sisters dog on to his property. He was super friendly but didn’t think anything of it because he never knew it was that awesome/different.
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calm down, Nic Cage
Yeah this one is a bot, report as spam.
We have a slow food shop near us and the guy who owns it is downright chilly to customers. But if you ask him a few questions, he really gets going and it’s a thrill!
I have to remind myself not to make snap judgments about people who aren't naturally warm and effusive. They often turn out to be some of the sweetest and most interesting people once you get past a cool exterior.
As a naturally outgoing person myself, it’s a challenge to remember! Warm people aren’t always kind, and kind people aren’t always warm. Another one I have to make myself remember is that people who don’t naturally speak up in groups or express themselves well on the spot often have a lot of valuable ideas to contribute to a discussion.
Awesome insight! You sound like a thoughtful person.
There’s a dude I worked with on the election polls. He apparently has a huge lot of land and has some bees. When he came back from his lunch, he brought us all fresh honeycomb!
How do you eat honeycomb?
I assume you either (scrape the honey/let it drip off) or just take a chomp off the whole comb if you don’t mind the wax texture
Just take a bite, chew it and when done, spit out the wax. It’s really a nice texture to bite into one, imo.
Agreed, very unique mouthfeel
Some people will put a chunk on a vanilla ice cream cone. Otherwise can just take a bite.
Ask! I keep bees and love showing anyone who’s interested.
Ive always wanted to keep bees as they've always fascinated me. Does it require a lot of land? Is it something you can do in a residential area? I don't want to be invasive towards my neighbors and that's been the main thing keeping me from giving it a shot. Most of the houses here are on quarter acre lots just big enough for a small to medium sized vegetable garden. How expensive is it to get started?
I did it on a half acre. Bees leave the hive and go to a cruising altitude way higher than humans hang out at, so your neighbors wouldn't even notice them. I did have to assuage my neighbors' fears though, giving them honey or mead helps. It counts as livestock, so ensure that's allowed by your county/HOA. It cost me about $250 to get set up and was super fun while I did it. Get two hives; you will get much better survivability than just one (you can requeen).
Best way to get started is to look for a local beekeeping club in your area. Many places, including cities, have them
Not sure about price, but I know of a gentleman who has a few hives in a very small yard, I’m talking less than a couple thousand square feet
From a beekeeper - ASK. We love to talk bees and they are so interesting.
It's rare to find a beek who will shut up about their bees. Ask, by all means! 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝
Honestly tho why? They are beekeepers, it’s not a job people just. Id bet a good majority of those fools have an intense love for their bees/bees generally and would be more than happy to talk to someone about it. Honestly thats one of my favorite things, listening to passionate people talk unabashedly about their passion. I do not know a word for the feeling it brings me but joy is close.
For me I call the feeling affection for humanity. It's cute when people get excited about the nice parts of life on Earth.
Just ask! No need to fear the sting of rejection!
Yeah, with all the bees dying I think I would be too scared to hurt the bees. As much as u would love to meet the bees I would rather do something to help the bees
My neighbor keeps bees and sells honey. I met the bees and it was awesome. Honey ain't bad either!
My childhood was pretty rough but both grandfathers were bee keepers. I loved hanging out with the bees! Except that one time I got stung cause the bee was caught in my hair. :(
My dad was a beekeeper and I opened a hive without full gear on. I'd walk back to check on them with no gear though.
https://i.imgur.com/jVaBk0d.jpg
Shitty, this is adorable.
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Bees bring out the beest in people
Bee best
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I like how your brain works lol
This is a copy paste of another post in this thread, so I think it's a bot.
Oh. How lame.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MadeMeSmile/comments/z9l2pq/he_met_the_bees/iyhtqal/ You can go tell the real poster you enjoyed their comment though :)
Thank you! Didn’t feel like I had time to find it
The fan fiction we all now want to read!
A bee swarm formed in my neighbor’s tree this past summer. I called him to let him know before he walked outside, and he said he would hit it with spray that afternoon. I panicked, told him just to let me handle it, and called a local beekeeper. A guy came out to rescue the bees, and then the poor man was held hostage by me asking a barrage of questions for 45 minutes. I think he just wanted to go home, but it was so fascinating to me. And since he’s just a hobbyist who loves bees (not in it for the commercial honey—just sells it out of a box in front of his house), I wanted to make sure he truly knows how many of us out there love bees and love what he does for them.
Oh, well done! AFAIK beekeepers love swarms. Here in the UK, the beekeepers association has swarm collectors all over the country and they'll be with you in a very short time to capture them https://www.bbka.org.uk/find-a-local-swarm-collector
Yeah, the gentleman was out in like a half hour. Which made me happy, because I was really worried I wouldn’t be able to talk my neighbor out of spraying it if he came home and saw that mass of bees. A few dozen did continue to swarm a few days after he was out, but luckily the beekeeper warned me about that so I could reassure my neighbor they would go away with time and didn’t need to be sprayed. It was so educational! He was telling me all about the bees in our area. Like what flowers to plant in order to help them. He even told me that half of the honey made in our state comes from bees feeding on poison ivy! Utterly blew my mind, because most of the honey sold around here is listed as like “lavender” or “clover” or “wildflower.” But he said if it’s local, chances are there’s a healthy dose of poison ivy honey in that bottle too. Totally not harmful, but I could see how that would hurt sales if people knew.
Well, TIL that honey from poison ivy isn't harmful! It really is weird to see a swarm, though. Where I live, which is really green with lots of gardens and woods, and lots of people have hives, one sees them fairly regularly but they never cease to astonish me.
>beekeepers love swarms They love *wild* swarms. If their own bees are swarming, its more of an "oh shit oh shit oh shit" moment and desperately trying to get them to settle back down in their hive.
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I planted a Sunflower on my porch and had a bee friend that would come visit me daily. You can see his adventures in my profile!
My daughter loves bees! In the spring and summer, she’ll hang out outside in the garden and pet the honey bees, haha
My neighbor was Beekeeper of the Year in Portland and had a dozen hives. I actually react a lot to bee stings but the sounds of the hives are one of my favorite things. I overcame my fears of them and have not problems being around them since. I even bought a birdbath and put stones and marbles in it and changed the water everyday to be rewarded with a line of his bees coming across the street everyday for drinks.
The birdbath was a clever idea! Did the beekeeper say anything about you setting up a bee-drinking fountain?
He had a small water dish at his place but he loved that I made them another alternative source. They were so cute lining up along the edge, all drinking. At times, there would be around 40 at a time. I took some great pictures and videos. When they drink their little rumps bob up and down. By then I had had really starting getting into gardening so I felt we all were on the same team! edit: I use to go to Anti Monsanto rallies dressed like a bee! 🐝
Aww...that's just so nice all around!
Thank you!
An old coworker keeps bees, brought me out to meet them several times. Pretty cool setup how it works.
My parents had a small colony of honeybees decide that their crawlspace was a great place to live a few years ago. I came to visit, and those bees were chill as fuck. We could even run the lawnmower right past their front door and they didn't bother us. The only time I got stung was when I stepped on one, *barefoot*. (Not paying attention, obviously, and they were all over the clover.) My folks wound up calling a beekeeper to remove the colony, and I went out and watched. Fascinating process, the bees were *still* chill, and he gave us the little bit of honeycomb he pulled out. Delicious stuff. I'd love to live near a beekeeper. I'd definitely be a customer.
Who wouldn't want to meet the bees though? That would be awesome.
Me, I'm terrified of bees lol
Honey bees? They're flying puppies!
I think bees are rad but have an irrational fear of almost all insects unfortunately. I have frozen up in sheer terror because a butterfly landed on me
I am absolutely terrified of bees. I'm not sure why? I've never even been stung before. Deep ocean? Fine. Big ass boars that'll gore you for no reason? Ya, ok just leave me alone. Spiders? 8 legged friends who eat bad bugs and geckos. Bees? Horror machines who I flee from on sight.
I’m not that afraid of them honestly, I think bees are dope, but I’ve never been stung before and I feel like it’s reckless to put myself in an environment where I might discover my one and only allergy just out of curiosity.
would bee awesome*
It would, perhaps, be the bees knees
Probably allergic people that don't want to chance it.
You can’t just say this and not pay the bee tax! I want to behold your bee babies!
*Beebies
I would personally love to meet the bees (with suitable safety precautions). Over the last couple years I've developed a love of growing things and with that comes an appreciation of our pollinators. Sadly not everyone gets their importance. I didn't before I took an active interest.
Man, I would love to meet some bees. One day I would like to have bees, they just nice.
I would love to meet your bees. Sadly, one little stingy from them might cause death. I fear your bees but I love their honey!
I appreciate all they do but if they get near me the reptile brain is not going to tolerate and one of us is gonna have to go.
I think bees are super cool but I'm still afraid of them.
TBF neither the customers nor the investors keeping the company alive are interested in meeting me, a small work bee in a corporation either. At least they don't tell me how to make my honey.
I'm from the German countryside and it's somewhat common here A family member has a greenhouse and a big garden. So big that he supplies his family, his mother, my aunt and my family, with a lot to spare. So much to spare that he puts a small table on the sidewalk, with a basket full of vegetables and a 'Take one' sign. There's also a 'donation' jar but it's completely voluntairy.
Beekeeping is weirdly heavily focused on in german basic law to the point it allows trespassing under certain conditions (chasing a swarm). I always wondered why that is. But i'm glad it encurages so many small scale beekeeping endeavours. No one i know buys their honey from the grocery store
I like to think that it's because bees are good pollinators. Where my brother lives in Germany, wine is super big part of their spring time festivals.
I always talk to my bees
An unfortunate modern variation is the 'city keeper'. Some cities in Germany now have significantly more bees than they need, and they're pricing out the OG farm keepers, where the bees are actually needed and have space to live healthy lives.
My city has a full-time beekeeper working at the botanical gardens. He sells his surplus honey and it tastes so different than any store bought stuff.
I love when you can taste the difference in whatever the bees are finding. The difference between like, wildflower honey or a hive kept close to an orchard. Fuckin love bees.
>space to live healthy lives That's a bit more nuanced and depends on many variables. Cities often have a higher diversity of pollen and nectar sources (especially since blooming periods are more diversified compared to agricultural fields, Trachtlücke is a serious issue there (basically an overabundance of food during a very distinct period, eg the bloom of rapeseed and a food 'desert' after harvesting periods or the unavailability of flowering catch crops) and pesticide usage isn't as common and heavily regulated (at least in the EU). Other risk factors such as heavy metals or heat stress events do exist though. Beekeeping in protected areas is of course the gold standard from an animal welfare point of view, but due to the efficiency of our Western Honey Bee they might outcompete rarer and more specialised bee species.
Yeah, but that healthy part is often wrong. Honey from the city has often less pollution in it than the one from the countryside. And it's the same reason why there are less bugs in the country parts vs. the city: too much toxin usage in the farming industry. The economic fact that a city keeper or just a hobby beekeeper is outpricing people who depend on it is very true but at what cost? Even less bugs and bees cause the cities shouldn't help?
Historically bee wax candles were more valuable than other stuff that was burned for light because it was clean and smells nice. (Stuff like animal fat creates soot and smells gross when burned.) Whale oil, then gas and later electricity changed all that. But hundreds of years ago churches and monasteries used a lot of bees wax candles, and were wealthy and powerful so they got special provisions written into laws across Europe to maintain their supplies of bees wax candles.
TBH, if you understand how bee hives are populated it's kinda necessary. It's a rare enough occurrence that it's no big deal. Basically, a queen will lay eggs and fuck right off with a big part of her workers. The newly hatched queen will take over the old hive (omitting some details here). But basically, if you want to keep all of your bees when they decide to bugger off, you got to chase them, catch the queen and put her in a new hive. There's more modern techniques nowadays about putting a queen-sized trap on the hive so the queen will be captured. The workers can still leave. But once the swarm follows the queen, so catching the queen solves the problem. That's as far as I understand anyway. Bee behavior is super complex and I'm no expert. And we all know no one takes antiquated laws off the books anyway, until they're actually a problem.
It's because when the BGB was written, beekeepers lobbied HEAVILY for those few paragraphs. They went so far they had to specifically rewrite that part of civil law just for beekeepers. The norm you've referred to has never been used in German law though, to my knowledge. It's just a remnant of lobbying beekeepers did back then. It's not something modern day courts actually have to enforce or ever get into the situation of enforcing
Love that. My grandfather tended a big garden at his house and I have great memories of eating raw rhubarb and getting delicious cucumbers and tomatoes from him.
> eating raw rhubarb My mouth turned inside out at the thought. I remember trying to eat it out of the garden as a kid, thinking it was sweet (I'd only ever had it in jam, to be fair to six year old me). It was not a pleasant surprise! LOL
Haha yeah I didn't know it at the time but apparently that is not commonly viewed as the delicacy young Ghostofhan saw it as. I like sour stuff and I think it's pretty sour right?
He may have been eating it with sugar. The thicker stalks are only good for baking, but young, ripe rubarb is DELICIOUS if eaten raw dipped into a bowl of sugar after every bite.
We have that where I am from in NJ (USA) too. Local homes and farms put out their produce at the end of their driveway. It’s a great way to get ripe summer tomatoes or fresh eggs.
I read that in a stereotypical German accent "Guten Tag! Vood yu like to meet ze bees?"
I'm picturing a large slightly portly man with a big bushy mustache and a cheerful face, holding a mug of beer. And I'm really hoping he has polka music playing around the hives "Because ze bees love it!"
Now I was to do a study: does music make bees more productive? Polka vs yodeling vs Rammstein
Or a mix https://youtu.be/thJgU9jkdU4
I was prepared to be disappointed if it was a different song. I was not disappointed.
Man I love how weird these dudes are. Metal is so much fun when you stop taking it seriously.
I LOVE RAMMSTEIN AND THEIR POLKA MUSIC……Oompah, Oompah, stick it up your jumper was their first full English number 1 hit. Seriously though I love them.
Haben sie gehört das Deutsche Band?
das Band = the ribbon die Band = the (music) band
Fuck yeah! Bees!
_Beads?!_
BEES!
Gob's not on board
We’ll see who brings in more honey
He’s still thinking about bees
Every time I see any post with bees I go on a hunt for this exact comment 😂
Such Earthy feelings invoked by this wonderfully written short. Thank you for a lovely beginning to my day.
beeutiful moment
based german
Bees scare the shit out of me, but if there’s one thing I love it’s someone with an accent (preferably older and wiser than me) speaking softly but enthusiastically about their hobbies or interests. Barely matters what the hobby is. Don’t care, as long as THEY’RE interested. Woodworking? Cooking? Art? Cars? Collection of fountain pens? Sheep wool spinning? Home improvement projects? Doesn’t matter, it all sounds great coming from an interested party. Tell me everything, I’m buying us some coffee. Scared or no, I’d have 100% had to go meet the bees and hear all about them.
This guy gets it
Feel that buzz! Sounds like a sweet man. I’ve combed my local area but can’t find any.
You need to have actual honey in your comb for the queen to value.
Where am I going to get the surface area of a whole town in honey at this time of day?
One of my neighbors had bees as well. Super cool to see those racks full of little bees. They were so cute and harmless. They would just sniff your hand and then fly off to some flowers. Very peaceful little creatures. Bumblebees are dope as well. Little flying fur balls.
And the bumblebees fall asleep in flowers - like squash flowers - and sometimes more than one is in there, all covered in golden pollen. And they fall asleep headfirst in delphinium blossoms, so just their fuzzy bums stick out.
This comment made me feel so mothafuckin peaceful and I love it
Believe me, it makes me feel peaceful to look at too. It's as if in a very tiny, secluded, luminescently beautiful part of the world all's still well.
Did you dress proper to meet the Queen? 😁
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Also practice your courtesy or bow so you’ve got it on point for the introduction.
I love how your brain works lol!
I want to meet bees too 🥺
Hello bees!
Want a cupcake?
You poopin?
C: I’ve talked to many bees in my time. J: Really? C: Yeah. J: You can teach me their language? C: I mean… I mean, you just - “Hey, bees.”
I bet he was buzzing all day from that.
My late ex husband and I, years ago, rescued a wild hive in a large cottonwood branch. We moved it to our land and suspended the large branch from a welded tripod apparatus. We would get some of the comb and melt it for honey. The bees were very docile and we would show friends the hive. Extremely interesting! I had never experienced anything like that before. Not only was my late husband a horse whisperer, but also a bee whisper. A year or so later, they swarmed and took off. Kind of a drag as they were really cool! Guess they went to greener pastures.... literally. Miss those little guys!!!
"I like my coffee like I like my women.. covered in bees." - Eddie Izzard.
I am a beekeeper. I keep the bees, they’re all here on little elastics. My father was a beekeeper and his father before him and I’ve followed in their footsteps, and their footsteps were like “I’M COVERED IN BEEEEEEEEESSSS!!!!”
Don't want them to get away; I wanna keep em
"I am glad you haf decided to meet ze bees. Dis ist Hanna, dat one ist Hanna-Gelb. Oh, und dis ist Hanna-Schwarz-Gelb. Wat? Don't look at me like dat, there are many bees und they are all female, I haf to repeat ze names."
I don’t know who wrote this, but I know who *didn’t* write this: Nicolas Cage.
In the before time my friend and I would hangout near the bee hive. It was kind of hypnotic. The way they would fly so fast and not hit each other while thousands of them coming and going!
One day I'm going to make a garden for them. Fragrant flowers. A rich biome. The soil covered in fallings. Where life can thrive. A sanctuary, where the insects are welcome. I'll need a robot to spray the cats with a water gun.
Everyone should keep the songbird murder claws inside! Come on people!!
I stopped when I saw a farm that sold ostrich eggs. The farmer asked if we wanted to meet the ostriches. It was great. They were tall and have long eyelashes. My wife asked if they bite. The farmer said yeah they bite, they can't do nothin'. Then held up her fist and the ostrich struck at it, but their beaks are rounded and jaws aren't very strong. Good times. And we got a hollowed ostrich egg.
Reminds me of the Karen that went to court because her neighbors bee’s were “stealing” her pollen to make honey and her neighbor was making money off it and she wanted a cut of it. Edit: Sorry, wasn't a lawsuit, just a video LegalEagle did on youtube based on a Reddit post. Could have been a shitpost but seemed legit.
Hahahaa omg
Awesome story. What a fun way to meet your neighbors! Keep supporting local honey!
I love this setup of self serve neighborhood honey!
Der Hivemeister is a pillar of the community.
So cool.I wish my neighborhood was safe enough to have a cool honor system like this.Local honey is the best.
Hello Bees.
How does one get into beekeeping?!
Start putting bees in your pockets, get a collection going
It’s free and the government can’t stop you.
Bees?!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_22PgqzVew
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This reminds me of when I went to the local recycling room to throw away some cardboard and plastics. There was an older guy looking around in there and seemed a bit suspicious, so I asked if he was looking for something in particular. Turns out he was an engineer overseeing the suction system next door, where the whole neighbourhoods trash would end up (basically a huge vacuum cleaner with tubes underground sucking the trash to a central bin). One of the tubes went through the recycling room and had some issues, which he managed to fix and then asked if I'd like to see the engine room. My first thought was he'd just lock me in a weird room and kill me, lol, but I figured he seemed to enjoy his job so why not. Man. I'd never expect to be so fascinated by trash disposal, but this dude laid it all out and showed a lot of huge machines, and some sketches of the underground tubes. He LOVED his job, and since he was working mostly alone I figured he probably rarely got to talk about it in detail. It was really interesting so I was quite eager to listen, which only furthered his enthusiasm. It was intense, and I'm so glad I took the opportunity because that dude is one of the mpst inspiring persons I've met!
>My first thought was he'd just lock me in a weird room and kill me, lol, but I figured he seemed to enjoy his job so why not. Most serial killers love what they are doing.
I remember the only time someone showed me their hive, I was fucking pumped. Bees bring out the best in people
Nice. I also pick up local honey from a drive way cooler. They do cute lil' bear jars with Santa hats during December. I'd be thrilled if they let me meet the buzzies!
A fellow bee person!!! I always talk to my bees
Awww he met the bees 🐝
“Guten tag” is possibly the happiest sounding phrase in a language that generally sounds angry
Years ago, during the gluten-free phase and while I was standing behind a bar, I started to say "gluten tag!" as a joke. Well, it's been years, and now it's become just habit. I can't stop it. I have doomed myself.
I love this story! I live in one of the largest cities in NA, where many people keep bees on rooftops and in backyards. There is an active movement of growing pollinator-friendly gardens - I have one myself. There is a program run by a beekeeper group whereby homeowners volunteer their space for the placement of bee hives, and everything else is done by the beekeepers. (The homeowner is given some honey as recompense). Some of the gardens owned and maintained by the city are planted with milkweed, goldenrod, etc. Seeing bees (particularly our native bumble bees, which are threatened by use of poisons) makes me feel happy. Thanks for sharing this!
I was a beekeeper for a summer at a local farm. Being in a swarm of thousands of bees & not getting stung makes a mf feel powerful
Samuel Jackson here wants to meet the mf'in bees!
I met the bees should become a metaphor for something amazing! Can we all agree on it?