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Plan bee: Field day highlights hives

Plan bee: Field day highlights hives, bee keeping, Owatonna
Claire LaCanne, left, holds a frame from one of the hives on the Wanous property as Rachel Larson, right, takes a photo of the activity and work done by the honeybees. LaCanne is with the University of Minnesota Extension Service, and is also a beekeeper. Staff photo by Kay Fate
By
Kay Fate, Staff Writer

“The beauty of working with honeybees is that the more you learn, the more you realize you don’t know,” said Katie Lee.

That’s Dr. Katie Lee – who has a PhD in entomology, and is the University of Minnesota Extension educator in apiculture. She is also a researcher on the Minnesota Agriculture for Pollinators Project, and supports the needs of beekeepers across the state.

And she’s still learning about bees.

“It’s this whole lifelong experience of getting to know this animal, like it’s difficult to know any other kind of animal – and they still surprise me,” Lee said.

She was speaking to a group of honey beekeepers and aspiring beekeepers during a field day at the home of Dave and Julie Wanous, who live south of Owatonna.

Lee called Julie Wanous “a good example of the benefits of beekeeping; there’s a community, and finding a mentor really helps.”

Wanous said she started keeping bees because “for me, it went hand in hand with gardening. I try to have something blooming all the time, whether it’s the trees, bushes, perennials, annuals… Bees are very good for the raspberry crop. It’s just a great hobby.”

She inherited some of her equipment – and the knowledge – from a family friend who had bees for years. He helped her find the right spot on her property for the hives, too.

“I consider myself fairly new at it,” Wanous said. “Every year is different, and that’s what makes it really fun. One year, you might get a couple gallons (of honey) out of a hive, but last year, we got 25 gallons out of our two hives. One year, we didn’t get any honey at all.”

She recounted the story of the year her bees were about ready to swarm, “starting the black cloud,” and she called her beekeeping mentor.

“He said, ‘get a pan and spoon, get out there and start banging it.’ And I thought it was crazy, but I did it, and sure enough, they didn’t swarm,” Wanous said. “Apparently, that sounds like a thunderstorm, and they don’t swarm in a storm.”

She also learned how to catch a swarm, once they leave the hive.

“We can learn from each other,” Wanous said.

That was the point of the field day.

Attendees learned how to open up a colony, how to light a smoker, how to use a hive tool, and what to look for inside a colony – and, Lee said, “just what it looks like and what the whole experience is like.

“If you’re trying to make a decision about if you want to keep honeybees or not, I think that’s a really important factor,” she said. “You’ll know relatively quickly if it’s going to be for you or not.”

Peter and Teresa Suek, of Waldorf, were two of the people just testing the water.

“Can I do this, or can’t I?” Teresa Suek said. “I’m trying to decide if this is something we’d do or not, because I’ve been fascinated for years. Our grandson wants me to have them so badly.”

He’s 7, though – and doesn’t live nearby.

“We would love to be able to have some habitat,” Peter Suek said, “so we’re trying to see what it’s all about.”

Jacob and Rachel Larson came from Chaska to learn more.

“We don’t currently have bees,” he said. “This is my first experience with beekeeping, so there’s lots of learning. Eventually, when we get a homestead, we’ll have bees for sure.”

After Wanous and Lee lit their smokers, the group gathered around Wanous’s two hives for the hands-on experience.

“The smoke keeps the bees calm,” Lee said. “Once they sting, they die, so it’s a miserable experience for bees and the beekeeper.”

Allergies become apparent after the second sting, not the first, she said. If you’re allergic to wasps or yellowjackets, that’s no guarantee you’ll also be allergic to honeybees.

“There’s no relation to any other venom” from flying, stinging insects, Lee said.

She opened a hive, which she compared to “essentially, files in a file cabinet. You can pull out a frame and look at it.”

Lee starts with the frames closest to the outside of the hive “because the queen is less likely to be on those frames,” she said. She slowly lifted the frame and explained what the attendees were seeing.

“All of that is capped honey,” Lee explained. “They put a little cap over it, to seal it off and preserve it for later.”

She pointed out the pollen stored in the center cells, used by the bees for their nutrition.

“Young bees have glands on the bottoms of their abdomens,” Lee said. “They secrete wax after they eat a lot of nectar, then use their little mouths and are somehow able to make all of this beautiful wax comb.”

As she talked – her only protection a hat with a veil – Lee got one of those surprises she spoke of:

“I’m getting stung currently,” she said, laughing. “I talk with my hands too much, and maybe seemed like a threat. Instead of pulling the stinger out, which squeezes the venom sac, you scratch it out, and don’t get such a big dose.”

Despite experience and years of beekeeping, “If you’re keeping bees, you almost certainly will get stung at some point. The bees don’t follow ‘rules,’ which is one reason I actually love them.”

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