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I've been having an affair...

3K views 19 replies 17 participants last post by  phil c 
#1 ·
No, not with another woman...

..with my beehives.

Do any of you, when you're out with your spouses, or kids, find it difficult to concentrate on anything else, but the last time you went into that strong hive and saw a tight pattern of capped brood. Does your spouse accuse you of having something on your mind, other than them.

Do you find solace in being the only soul in your beeyard, rejoicing in the smell of the hive, tolerating the sticky propolis, only to subtly jar loose a frame with your hive tool and hear the bees quietly "gasp" in unison as you startle them? Have any of you heard this?

Is Lowes, Home Depot and the Weather Channel your non-beekeeping frequents?

Do any of your spouses wonder where your mind is? Oh, sorry, I asked this of YOU already, ...it's just that I was reminiscing about those six frames of tightly packed brood on the hive that looked so weak in January.

Do you pay more attention to the flora blooming than you do sports scores? Have Bee Culture and ABJ replaced National Geographic and Life magazine on your coffee table, only for your spouse to return National Geographic and Life magazine to your coffee table?

I'm sure there's a much larger, expansive list of "How you know you're a dangerously obsessive and addicted beekeeper."
 
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#2 ·
Sorry, but after I saw the first two lines and the title, the first thing that came into my mind was "Ow ow ow that must really hurt" :lookout:

Other than that...yes, I've been there. Time takes away the breathless passion and allows the relationship to settle more into a maintaining routine.

That and an observation hive....that way I can keep a close eye on my honey...
 
#6 ·
Yeah, the Wife and I have it Bad. Just checked the Bedroom Obsevation Hive, for the 3rd, ah 4th, ah 5th, oh well umpteenth time this week, the Queen is relaying in the cells that hatched last week. The eight frames are now 60% covered by Bees!!:)
 
#8 ·
Guys, sniff, sniff

...you're the best beeholics anonymous group a feller could have, oooh, I'm about to tear up, sniff sniff!:cry:

Hello, my name is fatscher, and I am a beeholic...:gh:

I just hived another package from Wilbanks and I swear if that hive doesn't smell like a brand new newborn baby, it even coos when I tickle it under its chin. Newly hived bees are SOOO cute and sweet. It's when they grow up to be teenagers....

Observation hive, yeah! that's it. Oh Lordy I need me one of them!:D
 
#10 ·
My wife says all I am interested in are my bees. But lately she has been calling them "my girls".

I find myself walking over to the hives off and on all day every day.

I squat down for a few minutes every time I visit "my girls" just to watch them come and go. (But I do it nervously because they don't mine stinging me.)

I look to see what's blooming everywhere now!

I look for hives while I am driving and point them out to my wife.

I just started last May and am retired with very little extra income at the moment. Can I say bee poor?????

I spend a lot of time on this board.

ABJ and bee catalogs are now my favorite "wish books".

Oh, did I say that I spend a lot of time each day looking and watching "my girls"?

I worry about them all of the time.....mainly because I am afraid I am going to screw up.

I am really in a tizzy now because I got an email last night stating my 4 packages of bees will be shipped Mon and arrive on Wed with my family leaving Thur to go to SC to be with my family for Easter!

I hope that a gallon of SW/HBH will last from Wed until I get back home the first to middle of next week!!!!

I know I am going to be thinking about these 4 new hives they whole time I am at home visiting with my family (Mom, sis, in-laws, son, daughter, grandson, cousins, aunts and uncles).

Made a split a month ago and then 2 more last week. I will be worried about them too! If I could have a beesitter for my girls to check in on them a few times I would!!!
 
#11 ·
This happened to me yesterday.

Had a long ruff day at work. I walk in the house looking kinda bummed. I took a seat in my chair. Here is the conversation that transpired:

Wife: This should cheer ya up. Just came in the mail. The new Bee Culture.

Derek: Thank's Babe. I start reading.

10 minutes later:

Wife: Boy Derek you sure look better now. But still look kinda down. What's wrong? I can make it right.

Derek: Nothing babe. I am good now. Just needed to relax a bit.

Wife: Well let me know if there is anything you need.

Derek: I sure could use some sugar.

Wife: Comes and gives me a kiss.

Derek: What was that for?

Wife: You said you could use some sugar.

Derek: No. I really need some sugar. I gotta make some 1:1 tonight.

Today's side note: Don't remember much after that. I do remember signing a credit card receipt for my ER deductable this morning.
 
#13 ·
The addictive properties of beekeeping have been observed for quite some time:

"I picked up "King's Bee-Keepers' Text-Book," which I had purchased the year I found the bee-trees, because the advertisement about it said that it told "how to hunt bees." As soon as I began to read this book, I contracted what is known as the "bee-fever," which took so strong a hold of me that I was not satisfied till I had borrowed and read Langstroth's book, and purchased Quinby's work, besides subscribing for the "American Bee Journal." "--G.M. Doolittle, Scientific Queen Rearing

After 35 years, my wife is used to it.
 
#15 ·
I got bee fever when I was in grade 1 and never has gone away. When I got my first hive just as I was going into grade 8, my bee fever got worse. That first year of bee keeping was probably the best time of my life. I remeber getting up at 4:00 in the morning while still on summer vacation and sitting beside the hive and occasionaly looking into the entrance and wait for the first bees to start flying, It seemed that the weather was better back in those days.

Now, 22 years later, I'm still smitten with bees. I think out of all my experiences and one of my greatest joys is to walk through my yard of 50 hives that stand taller then me with honey supers on a warm summer evening just before the sun sets during the black berry flow. Listening the the hum of the bees as they are ripening the days take of honey and the smell, that beautiful yeasty honey broodnest smell lingering on the calm air. At moments like that I become one with my universe.
 
#16 ·
Chillard Willard wrote: "At moments like that I become one with my universe." Wait until you get older. There's a reason why the some European countries have a special custom of "telling the bees that their keeper has passed on". It may be a real vocation and not an avocation as most people think. After all, without the bees what would happen to humanity's food supply?
 
#19 ·
snip..
Do you find solace in being the only soul in your beeyard,

tecumseh:
it is like praying in a closet. there are some time when a person FEELS closest to god, but it would seem to be almost a requirement that absolute solitude is the first requirement.
 
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