The Rural Voice, 1979-12, Page 7Bee
keeping
You can
"get stung" continually
and still stay in business.
BY YVONNE REYNOLDS
Bill Ferguson has hives, but he is neither
complaining nor seeking medical attention.
He is a beekeeper with an apiary three
miles west of Hensall.
Bill first became interested in beekeep-
ing when he was a high school student. He
had a few hives of his own, and worked in
his free time for a beekeeper in Zurich. He
started his own business in 1963, and
moved to his present location almost two
years ago. Ferguson Apiary now has at any
one time from 900 to 1,000 hives nestled in
suitable locations from Arkona to Mitchell.
Most farmers gladly pay host to a few
hives, knowing their hard-working little
guests will amply repay their hospitality by
pollinating crops. The farmers reap a
bountiful harvest and so do the bees.
Mr. Ferguson points out that a hive is
made up of a top board (which goes on the
bottom) and three of four supers. A super
is simply a box containing nine honeycomb
frames. The bottom -most super is the
brood chamber, where the queen lays
2,000 eggs each day during the honey
season. This box is separated from the
upper boxes by a wire mesh excluder,
which gives the worker bees access to the
honey supers but prevents the queen from
climbing up and laying eggs in the
honeycombs.
When the hives are set out in the bee
yards in the spring, each hive contains
about 30,000 bees; the population soon
more than triples to approximately 100,000
bees. As soon as the trees, especially the
maple, and the dandelions begin to bloom,
the bees start gathering nectar. The elm
was a big supplier, but disease has
destroyed most of those stately trees. The
basswood is another favourite, Mr. Ferg-
uson said, because its blossoms hang
upside down, protected from the rain
which washes the nectar from other
flowers. Basswood honey, a gourmet's
Bill Ferguson, wearing the traditional beekeeper's yell, applies
smoke to calm his bees. (Photo by D.F. Reynolds)
delight, can still be obtained from some
apiaries,
The first honey, primarily from clover,
begins to flow in July. The flow is
determined by the season and the weather
- the bees require 10 days of perfection
when temperature, crop and humidity are
ideal, to produce the Ontario average of 75
pounds of honey per hive. If the wind is
from the north, the bees stop working.
After a heavy rain, the blossoms require
two days to replace the nectar that has
been washed away, and once again the
bees are idle.
In the spring Mr. Ferguson makes the
rounds of his bee yards every two weeks.
Twice during the season he brings home
full honey supers and extracts their golden
contents. The frames, laden with wax -
capped honeycomb, are opened with a hot
knife and put into an extractor which
separates the honey from the comb by
centrifugal force. The honey is then filtered
through a device invented by Bill that looks
like a nylon stocking.
Over the years, Mr. Ferguson has
developed admiration and respect for his
millions of little employees. Experience
has taught him that bees have their little
idiosyncracies - they hate idleness, and
become very annoyed if they have been put
out of work for a few days because of
adverse weather conditions. They also
detest working in alfalfa. When a bee
begins to probe for nectar in an alfalfa
flower, it triggers the blossom and part of it checked to see if the queen is still all right.
bangs the bee on the head. Bill orders his replacement bees by the
THE RURAL VOICEIDECEMBER 1979 PG. 5
After long observation, he can now
interpret part of the dance a worker
performs when it returns to the hive to
report on distance, direction, location and
type of bonanza it has discovered.
Mr. Ferguson has also found out the
hard way that bees do not like dark
clothing, are enraged by blue jeans, and
dislike many deodorants and perfumes.
His wife Rosemary had to stop applying
her favourite brand of perfume because the
bees swarmed toward her whenever she
was wearing that particular brand.
He has been stung so often that the
wounds no longer swell. Although he uses
the traditional beekeeper's hat and veil, he
finds the gloves too awkward, but admits a
sting under a fingernail does hurt.
"Beekeeping is one occupation where
you can get stung continually and still stay
in business," he jokes.
He has advice for anyone facing a swarm
of bees. Rule one: leave them alone and
they'll leave you alone. Walk away slowly,
and don't swat at them. If you are stung,
scrape the stinger away. When a worker
bee stings, she loses both the stinger and
the tiny sac at the top which contains the
venom. Pulling at the stinger only
squeezes more venom into your body; if
you don't remove the stinger at once, its
muscles will continue their pumping action
for a minute.
Mr. Ferguson tries to keep his bees alive
over the winter. In the spring the hives are