Honey of a hobby

Area beekeepers say public can learn a lot from bees

Thursday, June 29, 2006

E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

by Jessica Loder

Staff Writer

Click here to enlarge this photo

Chistopher Anderson⁄The Gazette

Scott Seccomb carefully lifts the lid from one of his bee hives to pour smoke into it. Seccomb is a member of a group of Prince George’s County beekeepers.

Click here to enlarge this photo

Scott Seccomb inspects the frame from one of the bee hives he keeps on his Clinton property.

In the classroom at Watkins Park nature center, a group of beekeepers meet, speaking their own language. It’s not buzzing, not up close, but talk of frames and pollen, hives and honey yield. It’s a science and a fascination, and every conversation circles back to their common interest.

Bees.

The Bowie-Upper Marlboro Beekeepers Association — BUMBA for short — meets regularly to discuss such topics as Africanized honey bees and honey extraction. The group covers a gamut of ages, both male and female, of several ethnicities. It seems there is no one type when it comes to beekeeping.

There is also no one type when it comes to honey, explained Glynis Harvey of Upper Marlboro, who has been keeping bees since 2003. She said the honey a beekeeper gets depends on a number of things, including the flowers the bees get their pollen from. One of the most common, she said, is clover.

‘‘It’s all about how to steal the honey from the bees,” Harvey said with a laugh.

Good beekeepers don’t take all the honey, however, and while some collect twice a year, most collect only once, in late spring. This allows the bees plenty of time to gather more for the winter months.

BUMBA President Scott Seccomb of Clinton said the important thing for new beekeepers to learn is how to manage a hive, to keep it strong. For that, he said there is no one right way.

‘‘You’re dealing with nature,” he said. ‘‘The old joke goes, ‘people have tried every trick in the book to make them do what we want, but the bees seem to have read the book too.’”

It’s easy to see this is a passion for the beekeepers. Harvey said she’s liked bees since she was a child. Seccomb also said he enjoys keeping hives.

‘‘I love watching them,” Seccomb said. ‘‘You see them with the pollen, or going about their various activities.”

All about bees
For more about beekeeping contact one of BUMBA’s officers.
President Scott Seccomb, 301-868-2086, scott.seccomb@verizon.net
Vice President Leigh Walton, 301-577-3088, leiwal@verizon.net Editor David Morris, 301-725-6185, beefriend@verizon.net
BUMBA meets the first Thursday of every month except for December.

He said space is not a main concern with keeping bees.

‘‘People can keep them in regular subdivision back yards,” he said. ‘‘It’s not the size of the land that defines how well the bees will be supported, but the available [food] in the area — how many flowering plants there are and the length of the bloom time.”

Beekeepers do have to worry about swarms, when some of the bees from the hive leave with a new queen to start a new hive somewhere else.

A swarm might look scary to the casual observer, but if left alone they’re not very dangerous. They’ve stocked up on honey, ready to go on what could be a lengthy trip.

‘‘They’re fat and happy,” Seccomb said. ‘‘They’re not interested in you.”

A quick beekeeper with an empty hive can actually catch a swarm and put it in the new hive, both helping give the bees more space and giving him or her another active hive.

Harvey said there’s a lot of misinformation about honey bees. People can be afraid of them, associating them with other types of black-and-yellow insects that are more aggressive. She once had a group of students from her daughter’s school over to talk about bees.

‘‘They ate lunch near the hives, and [the bees] never bothered them,” she said.

And what about the honey?

‘‘Your main goal as a beekeeper is to make honey,” Seccomb said. Discussion of exact methods and habits can get intense as the beekeepers share information.

According to a presentation by Harvey at a recent BUMBA meeting, it s optimal for beekeepers to wait until a frame is at least 80 percent capped over before extracting the honey. Otherwise, the honey they get will likely be too watery.

Harvey said the best day for extracting is a hot, dry one when the air will help wick more moisture from the honey. They then cap the honeycombs, which means taking off the cap of each cell with a knife or other tool, and can put it in an extractor, which spins the honey out without breaking the combs so they cam be cleaned, dried and used again. People who want cut-comb honey or chunk honey break up the comb instead.