She Said

I think they’re simply benevolent. You know, they’re just working, just like the rest of us. – Julie Finley

I thought, “Oh, well that’ll be fun!” – Marge McLellan

Some people say that beekeepers are weird but I don’t think so. The beekeepers I know are actually all very different. – Mery Molenaar

The other thing that I find just amazing is how they can start from scratch and make twenty frames of comb in a matter of just weeks. – Patricia Butler

I heard this buzzing, this incredible sound in the air, and there were thousands of bees. I went, “Oh my gosh! They’ve swarmed out of the hive!” and just stood there watching them. I know I must have been crying because I thought of all the work it took (to move the feral colony into [...]

I’ve been stung a couple of times and it just doesn’t feel good. But as long as I’m in my suit I feel confident and I don’t have a problem with them buzzing around me. – Mery Molenaar

There are a lot of different opinions and people will give you different advice… and that is in itself interesting. But ultimately, as an individual, you have to make the decision about what you’re going to do (with your bees). – Patricia Butler

I’m a gardener. I’m not so much into flowers but I’m into vegetables and things that I can eat… That’s my small contribution… Raising my own food, not using sprays, trying to conserve on gasoline and heat and energy right here. – Marge McLellan

Let’s say the creator is a beautiful mother. She doesn’t love one of her babies more than the next one, right? She loves them differently, maybe. But she loves them equally. And, you know, we can imagine any kind of creator we want… So from my world view I guess that just because we’re human [...]

An experience of the environment is something people look for on the weekend on their mountain bike or doing extreme kayaking or whatever. I just realized, for myself, that I need to experience the environment every day. So coming to the garden is how I decided to make that fit into my life. – Julie [...]

Half the time I go in there, I don’t know what they’re doing. I don’t know if I’m reading them right. But I know they know what they’re doing. It’s very clear. – Suzanne Connolly Howes

It’s like church in there isn’t it? I mean, it’s sacred in there. I guess, for me, in a box of bees, you don’t have to explain yourself. You don’t have to understand everything that’s going on. Everything they do eventually makes sense even if I don’t understand it at the time. All of that [...]

It seems like I should be able to have friendlier bees, but sometimes they’re not. – Ruth Eastman

A friend once said it takes a year or two for people to decide whether or not to stick with beekeeping. For some people it’s too much work. Other people get hooked. I’m definitely hooked. – Patricia Butler

I don’t sell my honey. I give it to my friends and family and the people who love it are the ones who get the most. I love giving away honey to people who really appreciate it. – Suzanne Connolly Howes

Oh, jeez, look at all this honey! – Julie Finley

It’s like entering a different world. – Ruth Eastman

The most intriguing thing about bees for me is the way they communicate with one another. The way they build their comb, the hexagonal shape, it’s fascinating how well they work together. It’s a really determined, direct way of living. – Mery Molenaar

It’s just wonderful to see them! When I take the cover off the hive I’m just fascinated to watch them go about their jobs, working so hard. They know exactly what to do. – Marge McLellan

It’s a slow speed. You don’t answer the phone. You don’t do anything else while you’re with them. You just get lost, I mean hours… I can be with those bees for three or four hours, come in and realize I missed lunch, it’s three hours later, but I don’t care! – Ruth Eastman

Some of the hardest lessons, the best lessons, have come from making dumb mistakes. – Patricia Butler

I didn’t know anything about bees and I was scared about getting stung because as a kid I had kicked a yellow jacket nest and I had gotten probably a hundred stings on my body. I was actually really nervous about getting in and working them the first time because I didn’t know what they [...]

My dad was a beekeeper. He had been a beekeeper way before I was born and still kept bees as I was growing up. I remember bees in the backyard because I remember being stung once. I put a bouquet of flowers in my pocket and got stung. It was pretty painful but it always [...]

It’s wonderful to see… life! – Mery Molenaar

I’ve always been interested in bees as pollinators, but when we lived in the city I didn’t think I had to worry that much about them. When we moved out here it was my intention to plant fruit trees. So in the back of my mind I thought it would be important to keep bees. [...]