![]() ![]() There is no denying honey production is one of the key attractions for the backyard beekeeper. Then, in his soft beekeeper voice, he says goodbye to the bees before he packs up his gear and heads home through the traffic to San Jose. He checks his hives at Stanford with care. “Truly,” he says, “I try to do as much good with this as I can.” Most of his beeswax goes to friends who make crafts to gain needed income. Most of his honey goes to local food banks. “I always tell everyone I’m just a grumpy old man beekeeper, because so many of those taking this up these days are much younger and cooler than I am.”Ĭooler? Well, that’s a judgment call. “I’m here to see you today and I have a nice guest with me.” He turns and smiles at me. “Hello, girls,” he says softly as he approaches the hives, which are indeed filled mostly with female worker bees. Hall is not ashamed to be caught talking to his bees. He also keeps hives in San Jose and at the O’Donohue Family Stanford Educational Farm in Palo Alto, where he is the advisor to the Beekeeping Club. He now works full time as a bee rescuer-moving swarms that city folks find a nuisance. A health scare 12 years ago gave him a chance for a change. San Jose resident Art Hall, 68, vice president of the Santa Clara Valley Beekeepers Guild, spent most of his career in tech. began keeping bees on its Mountain View campus. An administrator at Stanford tends her hives in Emerald Hills. The Rolling Hills 4-H keeps bees in Cupertino. Neighbors across the valley are joining in. His wife, he admits, tolerates his interest with some dismay, due to the honey-on-the-doorknobs and honey-on-the-shoes that inevitably go along with it. Now, he tends more than 20 hives stashed in backyards throughout the county, producing 900 pounds of honey each year. That night he went home with a box of bees in the back of his car. Determined not to destroy the bees, he figured out how to move them himself. One day, during his work for the Santa Clara Valley Water District, a swarm of bees interfered with his work and he couldn’t find an expert to help. I mean, look at us: We wear funny suits that make us look like we have paint strainers on our heads!”Ī graduate of Humboldt State, McKenzie came to beekeeping by accident. “Beekeepers don’t want you to measure how popular it is!” laughs Saratoga resident Ken McKenzie, president of the Santa Clara Valley Beekeepers Guild. The guilds can also aid in perilous tasks-such as shipping live bees through the US mail. ![]() They lobby city governments-failing, so far, only in Foster City where ordinance 6.04.320 of the municipal code still outlaws keeping bees. They serve as advocates and educators as well as cooperatives for members, saving them money on supplies and services. California’s commercial honey is a fraction of that.īackyard beekeeping, then, is a fraction of a fraction and thus flies well under the radar of California’s giant agencies. It categorizes bees as livestock and ranks their value at just a fraction of the state’s $47 billion agricultural income, with most of that coming from pollination fees. The California Department of Food and Agriculture takes a more practical view. Readicker-Henderson, “considered honey a kind of magic.” “The ancients,” says beekeeper and writer E. Humans have had a relationship with bees for thousands of years-long enough that it isn’t unusual for archaeologists in Egypt to find viable honey in excavated tombs. Shop the app store on your phone and find dozens of apps on honey and beekeeping. Check out Costco, which had a local hit with its “Little Giant Beehive Kit.” Google the Flow Hive, created by two inventors who began a crowdfunding campaign hoping to raise $70,000 and found themselves with $12.2 million. Surf over to, where the fourth edition of Beekeeping for Dummies is Amazon’s number one new release for spring. How much work can they expect? More than caring for a cat, says Kendal, but less than caring for a dog. ![]() “They don’t mind traveling.” The mini-hive, with its plexiglass sides, has the beginners enraptured. “This is a really calm colony,” she explains. Today, the animated apiarist has lugged along a teaching hive for the 50-mile round trip. Though she has her own small startup called Kendal’s Bees, for this 30-year-old the bees represent passion, not profit. Kendal Sager, vice president of the Guild and former Dream-Works staffer, is a backyard beekeeper from Los Altos. Just how popular is backyard beekeeping? It is so popular that early on a spring Saturday morning, a group of 40 locals gather in Burlingame for the two-hour seminar “All About Beekeeping.” Presented by volunteers Tori Muir, Kendal Sager, Brigitte Roay and David Clark, it is sponsored by the Beekeepers’ Guild of San Mateo County, a group that has seen a tenfold increase in its membership in the past decade. ![]()
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