Benjamin Paul Camp

A brief disclaimer: Andy Camp is my dad.

This is a story about Andy Camp, a beekeeper. He’s much more than just a beekeeper, but this story focuses on his love for keeping bees.

Andy Camp started keeping bees in the late 1970s. He stopped for a while but resumed the practice around 2009. When asked why he keeps bees, Andy said, “I don't know…for the honey.” I imagine ancient beekeepers would have a similar answer.

For those who don’t know that much about bees or the terminology used within the industry, I've provided an illustration below:

**Drones are the male honey bee and they only mate and eat. Once they mate, they die.

**Workers are the female honey bee and they literally do everything except lay eggs.

**The Queen is there to lay eggs and be the queen.

Currently, Andy has four hives, which he keeps on opposite sides of his pasture. He said, “They say that bees in clusters—you know, all the beehives together—creates more of a problem than if they’re separated. But a commercial beekeeper can't afford to put them a hundred yards apart.” Like most things, the larger the operation becomes, the more complications arise.

Over the years, Andy has acquired an immense amount of knowledge about bees. He learns from both online research and hands-on experience. “As far as just knowledge of bees and beekeeping, that's like a deep well,” Andy said. “You can learn and know what you need to know, but it’s just like any other subject. It goes deep, deep, deep, and deeper, and the minutia of it is almost unending.”

Of all the aspects of beekeeping, Andy said his favorite is simply the act of it. “Just opening up the hive, adding frames, or reorienting frames,” he said. There is a method called “checkerboarding,” in which the beekeeper (apiarist) staggers empty frames and full frames. This practice creates space that tricks the bees into believing there’s more room to store honey. Andy only checkerboards occasionally, as he prefers minimal interaction and just lets them be.

According to Andy, there are a few prerequisites before one tries to keep bees:

• Don’t be allergic to bee stings.

• Have at least a backyard or an area with minimal foot traffic. Also, rooftops are an option for those who live in the city.

• Live in a place with lots of flowering plants (flowers, trees, certain grasses, etc.).

Money and time are also important factors, but they depend on how involved you want to be. Aside from these few things, anyone can keep bees.

For several years now, Andy has been catching bees instead of buying them. He said, “Put up a hive box in a tree, put some pheromone or lemongrass oil in the box, some old comb, and place it at the right height in the tree, with the right orientation toward open spaces, and in the right size box.” It’s not an exact science, but out of the four boxes he sets out in the spring, Andy usually gets two hives.

If Andy is catching two hives every spring, one might assume he has a large collection of hives, but that’s not the case. According to Andy, Varroa mites——an external parasitic mite that feeds on honeybees—are the number one cause of hive collapse. Each year, Andy loses at least one hive, sometimes all of them. Andy said there are two schools of thought, “treat or not treat.” Not treating relies on nature or survival of the fittest. Treating is believed to help stifle the increasing presence of Varroa mites. Andy said the Varroa mite wasn’t in the U.S. when he first started. The issue has gotten increasingly worse over the years for both private and commercial beekeepers.

As Andy talks about the challenges, it’s clear that his passion goes beyond the honey. Even though he said he doesn’t know why he keeps bees, after spending the afternoon with him, I think I have an idea: He loves enveloping himself in the subject. He spends hours learning about which trees give honey a better taste, how hives split and leave to find a new hive (swarming), and how bees communicate to find the best nectar. Andy Camp will always be a student, eager to learn and share his discoveries—I suppose the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

For the honey.

The End.

-Credits-

• The Photo Spot……..Film Processing 

• Rachel Allred…….Illustrations

• Donna Camp……..Editor