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Beekeeper Randy Long
displays materials he uses in instructing children
about beekeeping.
Life is sweet for Randy Long, the 40-year-old,
never-married farmer and beekeeper from Atwood.
Speaking by telephone with Randy, his pronounced
southern drawl leads one to envision any kind of
country yokel other than the one that meets their sight
in reality. No country bumpkin, he is also a model for
Model World of Jackson, with striking good looks and an
equally pleasant personality.
Randy was one of a second set of twins born to Dorothy
Laverne Smith (now Wood) and Robert Clyde Long. He and
twin Ricky were born 13 years after twins Ben and Glenn
and are also brothers to first-born sister, Brenda.
"All we ever done was farm," he says, concerning his
background. Early health problems set Randy a year
behind his brother in school, but he joined Ricky in
their own farming operation after graduating from high
school in 1983.
The brothers farm 2,000 acres of cotton, corn,
soybeans, and wheat. Ricky also keeps 80 head of
cattle, in contrast with Randy's brood of critters that
are confined to two small patches of land, one behind
his home and the other on the farm that begins at the
edge of town.
He obtained his first bees in February 2000 after
discovering, the previous year, that his grandfather,
Leonard Long, had dabbled in beekeeping years before.
The discovery came when his grandmother, Ivy Long, in
1998 fell and broke her pelvis and retired to an "old
folks' home" in Milan. She was 104 years old when she
passed away two years later.
In the meantime Randy, helping sort through his
grandmother's possessions, had come across his
grandfather's old smoker, a handheld device with a
metal body and small, attached leather-sided bellows.
The smoker, filled with glowing embers to emit a cloud
of calming smoke, is a beekeeper's best friend.
Randy still keeps the antique model alongside his own
newfangled smoker. Nearly identical to the old model,
its bellows are sided with paper rather than leather.
In addition to the smoker, Randy discovered documents
detailing his grandfather's beekeeping enterprise,
including the number of hives he maintained and a
record of honey sales from the 1930s.
The nostalgia worked its magic, along with childhood
memories of years before Long's death in 1980.
"He used to take us fishing all the time," Randy
drawls, "and Daddy told us about him, too.... I thought
it would be something neat to do."
Bee hives in the 1930s were a far cry from the modular,
painted wooden boxes that are stacked to create modern
hives. They resembled a basket turned upside down and
were similarly constructed of woven grass or straw.
"You had to destroy them to get the honey out," Randy
relates. "Nowadays you just pull the frames out."
Now working with 14 hives, Randy sometimes obtains new
colonies from spring swarms. He explains that when a
colony grows too large, the old queen leaves a daughter
to maintain the original hive while she and half the
workers set out to discover a new home. Gorged with
honey for the journey, the bees are relatively docile
before establishing a new hive, at which time they
become fiercely protective of their abode.
Much of the time, however, new colonies arrive by mail,
typically in a three pound package of some 10,000 bees
inside a wire crate, the queen encased in her own small
enclosure.
"People call you from the post office; they want you to
come get that package," Randy grins.
In order to give the colony an opportunity to acclimate
to the queen, a cork that separates her from the
workers is removed, revealing a barrier of "queen
candy". The worker bees gradually eat through the candy
in order to release the queen, after which the colony
is gently shaken into the hive from which a few frames
have been removed. The frames are slid back into place
as the bees disperse throughout the hive, which is
composed of a series of stacking, wooden boxes with a
removable top. Each box is constructed with guides into
which a series of frames are closely fitted to fill the
interior. Taller boxes form the main body of the hive,
which may consist of one or more of the main sections,
depending upon the number of bees in the colony. Atop
the main hive are "supers", shallower boxes of
otherwise identical construction in which excess honey
is stored. It is from the supers that honey is
harvested for human consumption, while in the main
hives the worker bees care for the queen and numerous
drones, developing eggs and larvae, and where also is
stored the pollen and honey that is eaten by the bees
themselves. "Queen excluders", a barrier that allows
workers to pass into the super but not the larger-sized
queen, are sometimes used between the main hive and
supers.
Randy is a walking encyclopedia of beekeeping, having
learned the ins and outs of the trade over years that
have included his being a member of the Jackson Bee
Association, a community of beekeepers to which his
mother also belongs.
He enjoys sharing his knowledge with others, especially
in school presentations where he has been amazed by the
interest children display in learning more about bees
as well as their knowledge of bee facts. He carries
with him to classrooms a narrow, portable observatory,
faced by glass, into which he slides two frames from a
hive, so that children can watch the bees at work. For
display purposes, he also takes along the smoker, his
beekeeper's hat and veil and gloves.
"You can't afford to get stung around the eyes," he
says, common sense dictating his use of the protective
device even when dealing with more docile swarms. Bee
stings near the eyes, he warns, can cause blindness.
He frequently asks children how many kinds of bees
exist in a colony, a question that is often answered
correctly even in the primary grades. Besides the
commonly observed worker bees and larger queen bees,
drones are the third resident of hives, though their
presence is unnecessary after the queen's initial
mating. She mates in the air with up to ten different
drones before retiring to the hive for the duration of
her life, unless she leaves to found a new hive, their
sperm stored in a specialized sac from which she
fertilizes her eggs.
The only difference between worker bees and queen bees
in their initial development is diet. Larvae selected
to become queens are fed a diet of "royal jelly", a
hormone-rich secretion produced by worker bees. The
difference royal jelly makes in the queen's diet
influences her to develop a longer body and larger
abdomen with a smooth, curved stinger that can be used
repeatedly, in contrast with the stingers of worker
bees. She also develops sharp cutting teeth while
workers have no teeth, and lacks organs needed by
worker bees to collect pollen and honey and secrete
beeswax.
Although a hard worker herself, laying 2000 to 2500
eggs every day, her pampered lifestyle provides her
with a lifespan of up to five years, according to
Randy, compared with worker bees who live no longer
than six weeks during the productive season.
"Their wings just wear out," he explains. "Sometimes
they can't make it back to the hive; their wings wear
out and they die away from home - they die off working
somewhere."
New workers emerge every day between mid-March and
October, following a development period of 21 days from
egg to maturity, compared with 16 days for queens and
24 days for drones.
"When they first hatch," Randy teaches, "they clean up
their cell and become house bees, cleaning cells for a
couple of days. Then they switch over to fanning the
entrance to the hive."
The fanning takes place to circulate the air within the
hive, creating, in essence, an air conditioning system.
"They even take water droplets and fly up inside the
hive and drop it on top of the brood chamber to keep it
humid and the temperature about right," he continues.
The workers then help care for the queen and feed
larvae, and graduate to receiving the nectar and pollen
brought in by other workers before leaving the hive to
forage themselves.
Added to the plight of worker bees is the fact that
their stingers are straight with a barbed hook that
acts as an anchor in their victims' skin. Unable to
withdraw the stinger, the bee's abdomen is ripped open,
leaving the stinger behind and dooming the bee to an
early demise.
Randy cautions victims of bee stings should flick the
stinger away rather than grasping it to pull it out, as
the latter method merely injects more venom into the
flesh.
Unfertilized eggs produce male bees, called drones.
Drones that mate with queen bees in aerial rendezvous
die immediately after the event, their purpose ended.
Virgin drones, on the other hand, may appear to have
the best lot among honeybees. Unable to sting or feed
themselves, they are catered to by workers throughout
the summer months.
"In the afternoon 200 drone bees may be outside the
hive (on the ledge at its entrance) just hanging
around," says Randy. "They don't forage for food or
make honey or nothing; the worker bees take care of
them. But in the fall they start pulling the legs and
wings off of them and throw them out."
Randy faces his hives toward the rising sun,
encouraging his bees to get an early start every
morning. "In the afternoon, they know to come back
home," he says. "And you can tell if it's going to rain
if all the bees are coming back in early."
A by-product of the bees' industrious activity, aside
from the production of honey, is the pollination of
crops and other plants, an activity that one source
values at some $9 billion nationwide.
"Anything that needs to be pollinated, the bees are
pretty well doing for free," says Randy.
During the winter months the bees cluster together in a
tight ball in which they constantly move from inside
out, generating enough energy to melt snow that may
surround them. In the spring, the process begins again,
with queens tempted to swarm as the colony grows.
Adding boxes to the hive, thus creating more work
space, can discourage her departure, though Randy says
that doesn't always work.
The bees' hard work pays in gold - thick, rich and
sweet. Randy declares there is a world of difference
between wild honey and that which is available in
stores. "Wild honey is a whole lot sweeter," he says,
"It's a whole lot better honey, and seems stickier,
too."
Part of the difference stems from a requirement that
commercial honey be pasteurized in a heating process
that destroys some of its natural properties, including
vitamins and minerals.
Spring honey, harvested in June, is a favorite among
honey aficionados, including Randy. Its light color is
reminiscent of the flowers from which it is derived:
including spring flowers and tree blossoms, like black
locust, clover and strawberries.
The richer amber color and taste of fall honey,
available in September, reflects the later blooms of
soybeans, cotton, tomatoes, okra, pepper... "even
punkins," Randy says in his easy-going accent.
None of the honey is touched by hand. Once the cappings
have been cut away, the frames are loaded into Randy's
two-frame extractor. A spin of the handle slings the
honey to the walls of the container, from where it
collects in the bottom. After sitting overnight to
eliminate air bubbles, it is collected in jars and
ready for sale. Last year, Randy harvested 383 pounds
of honey in the spring and fall.
"And it sold pretty quick," says Randy, who has
depleted even his personal stores until the next
harvest.
Aside from the obvious advantage of honeybees, bee
by-products such as honey and propolis (a mixture of
tree resins and pollen used to mend the hive) are known
for having antibacterial properties. Royal jelly and
pollen have also proved beneficial for human
consumption. Additionally, according to the Encarta
encyclopedia, "Honey bee venom is extracted for the
production of antivenom therapy and is being
investigated as a treatment for several serious
diseases of the muscles, connective tissue, and immune
system, including multiple sclerosis and arthritis."
"Honey is good for sinuses," Randy says, "and burns,
like aloe vera. Honey's good for lots of stuff, I even
like it on blueberry waffles." |
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