Journal Entries W14

8/9/16-Internship-Today I had the opportunity to go on a beekeeping route with Best Bees which is a company owned by Noah Wilson Rich in Boston. It was an interesting business model. The selling point was that the owner of the house is able to have a hive in their backyard while the company comes once a month to manage the hives and give honey to the owners of the hive. They do not teach the homeowners how to take care of the hive and don’t allow them to enter the hive either. I had a problem with this because they are not treating the bees in a healthy way but instead using them as a business model that gives the owner of the hive honey. It is quite an entrepreneurial idea because of the fact that the individual actually gets to consume his own honey without having to go through the mess of working the hive. If this is what the home owner’s desire then this company is right for the individual.

8/10/16-Internship-Today I went out with Anita the Essex county beekeeping inspector all over Boston. It was really cool to see Anita go through the hive because she is such a good beekeeper and inspector. I learned a lot about the setup of the hive and what we desire to see depending on the time of the year. Anita does natural beekeeping and works with top bar hives to provide the bees with the most natural conditions possible.

8/11/16-Internship-Today Kim, John, and I took Lynn Adler’s lab into the apiary and showed them the inside workings of the hive. I find it very enjoyable to show others what a hive looks like. The joy of people’s faces as they look into a hive where thousands of bees are working symbiotically with one another is an experience definitely worth sharing.

8/12/16-Internship-Today MDAR did a beekeeping outreach day. We invited beekeepers from all over the state to look into the MDAR hives and show beekeepers what to look for and how to work with bees. It was great to see so many beginners come out and enjoy this amazing service and opportunity to work with bees. The inspectors who have so many years of experience showed beekeepers what and what not to do. We then went through the hives to see what hives needed extra feeding for the winter.