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7 | The IFP -H alton H ills | T hursday,M ay 23,2019 theifp.ca • Truck Accessories • Upholstery • Heavy Equipment Glass •Window Tinting 354 Guelph Street, Georgetown 905-873-1655 Wehandleall insurance work. We handle all insurance work. Furnace Air Conditioning Gaslines Boilers Water Heaters Radiant Heating 905-877-3100 proud local dealer of Canadian made products .caTo book this space call 905-873-0301 To book this space YOUR AD HERE! Strikers from Smith and Stone Limited block a train from unloading in May 1964. More than 500 union workers voted to strike at Georgetown's largest plant. The strike lasted 47 days and ended when the union agreed to a 3 per cent wage hike per year over three years. EHS photo THE WAY WE WERE It seems that I'm start- ing down another road of adventure. It involves adding new faces to the far- tiny faces that will make their pres- ence known. You see, I'm becoming an 'honorary apiarist.' In lay-terms, a bee-keeper. Now first things first, the word honorary is key to the story here.You see, my friend set up a bee hive on my farm. And he is the api- arist, not me. I'm one of those "stand at a healthy distance from the hive while someone else does it" type of apiarist. I ain't dumb - those little critters can sting. This adventure started a couple months ago, when my friend Bob asked if he could set up a hive on the farm.Lately, the agricul- tural news has been filled with stories of the bee pop- ulation dying out, due to various causes. And if the bees die off, how do our plants pollinate? So I was actually quite flattered with Bob's re- quest. Bob assured me that I wouldn't be doing any hands-on apiarist duties, so I readily agreed. Last week he set up the hive, (one of those familiar white wooden boxes we see in out the meadows) in preparation for a new bee family (called a 'nuc',) mov- ing in within a week or two. Nucs, (or nucleus colo- nies) are small honey bee colonies created from larg- er colonies. The name is de- rived from the fact that a nuc hive is centered around a queen, who is the nucleus of that particular bee colony. The nuc consists of wooden frames with bees, brood (baby bees), and both open and sealed honey and pollen storage cells, as well as a laying queen of the cur- rent year. The purpose of the nuc is to provide every- thing the newly-transport- ed bees need to get them- selves established in the new hive. When the nuc is brought in, it contains thousands of bees - some sources esti- mate about 3,500 bees to a pound, or about 10,000 bees in a typical three-pound nuc. After a week or so, the virgin queen takes her mat- ing flight, and is fertilized during that flight, mating in the air with as many drones as possible. She is fertilized multiple times during the course of a couple days of her mating flight, but she only mates for that one peri- od in her life. After that, the queen spends all her time laying eggs to build the hive. They reproduce at a staggering rate, and by mid-summer, Bob said that hive will likely be home to about 30,000 bees. I must admit, I found it fascinating how complex and efficient a bee hive could be. But of course, all is not always perfect in ev- ery hive. Honey bees have some parasites that wreak havoc on the hive. There are mites that attach them- selves to the back of the honey bee, piercing their exoskeleton, then drain their body fluids. And certain varieties of moths enter the hive and fill it with "silk," overtak- ing the entire hive. The on- ly way to deal with the moth parasite is to burn the entire hive. For years, I've sat on the veranda, idly watching the occasional bee land on a flower to harvest the pollen. I've often wondered to my- self, "How far did that bee fly to locate that flower?" Bob says they can fly up to two miles to locate pol- len. Imagine, that tiny in- sect flew two miles to get here? Wow! This summer, I'm hope- ful I'll have a different viewpoint. When one of our bees lands on our flowers, I can say "Good work little work- er bee." Ted Brown is a free- lance journalist for the IFP. He can be contacted at tedbit@hotmail.com. ADVENTURES IN BEE-KEEPING OPINION I HAVE NEW TENANTS - ABOUT 10,000 OF THEM, WRITES TED BROWN TED BROWN Column SIGN UP FOR OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER AT THEIFP.CA PROMOTE IT FOR FREE TODAY THEIFP.CA/EVENTS