“ We have chose to fill our hives with honey and wax; thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest things, which are sweetness and light. ” --Jonathan Swift

... For so work the honey-bees, creatures that by a rule in nature, teach the art of order to a peopled kingdom. Honeybees William Shakespeare King Henry V

Beehive

Bee values …  Importance of Bees Pollination Honey Healthful Properties To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee. Emily Dickinson

Honey variations …  Honey... It’s Special Approximately 300 varieties of honey in US  Varies from water-white Bass Wood to rich dark Buckwheat Lighter-colored honeys usually are milder in flavor Darker honeys tend to have higher mineral content & antioxidant potential  Honey... The Taste of America’s Flowers Because of floral sources, no two honeys are alike in flavor or nutritional content

Caste System Duties of Hive Occupants Queen And for their monarch Queen – an egg-casting machine, Helpless without attendance as a farmer’s drill. Robert Bridges “The Testament of Beauty”

Caste System Duties of Hive Occupants Workers All we need is to be industrious not like a machine but like the honeybee. Mahatma Gandhi

Caste System Duties of Hive Occupants Drones From the Lime’s leaf no amber drops they steal, Nor bear their grooveless thighs the foodful meal; On other’s toils, in pamper’d leisure, thrive The lazy Fathers of th’ industrious hive. John Evans “The Bees”

Bee threats …  Varroa destructor…

Colony Collapse Disorder …

Africanized honeybees… XXX

Getting started …  Package Bees  Nucleus colonies  Catching a swarm Some have said that a share of divine intelligence is in bees. Virgil, Georgics