Thinking Outside the Box with a More Organically Shaped Backyard Bee Hive
By Cassandra Fairfield of Star Apple Edible + Fine Gardening
Randy Sue Collins is the Sonoma Bee Lady. She’s president of the Sonoma County Bee Keepers’ Association, has put out an instructional beekeeping DVDs, has a YouTube channel, manages 17 hives and even patented her own beehive, the Hex Hive®. With what began as a seemingly normal trip to a friend’s almond orchard—she’s an artist and had intended on painting winter’s flowering bouquet—blossomed into a project she now calls her passion: beekeeping and educating the public on the value (and fun!) of bees. On that day three years ago, Randy recalls being captivated by the smell of honey and absorbed in the gentle buzz of bees weaving sweetly through the almond flowers. Inspiration and fervent curiosity immediately resulted. Randy started researching honeybees, contacting local bee brokers and inquiring into various sources to learn everything she could about bees and beekeeping. At this point she still hadn’t considered keeping her own hive. In fact, her response to such a suggestion was that managing a hive would be too scary! Owning a beehive and maintaining a colony is understandably intimidating, with memories of childhood stings or the threat of swarming bees readily able to dissuade potential apiarists. But Randy is proof that with a little education, even the apprehensive can learn to harvest his or her own honey—and what awaits is a decadently golden reward for your taste buds and your garden. After spending time with experienced beekeepers with the Sonoma County Beekeepers’ Association, Randy was ready to invite a colony into her backyard. Her first hive was a Langstroth Hive, which is a rectangular shaped box and also the beekeeping standard. The Sonoma Bee Lady quickly developed an affinity for nature’s sweet pollinators, realizing that, “bees are not here to hurt, they’re here to help. When out foraging, they’re just getting their groceries and going home. That’s all.” Like any good gardener and proponent of sustainable living, Randy began examining standard beekeeping practices in search of the most natural, least intrusive methods available. The deeper she delved though, the more conflicting information she stumbled upon. So Randy’s resolve was to call upon her intuition for guidance. Mainly she found it curious that manmade hives tend to be boxy when bee nests found in nature are round. Shouldn’t beekeepers provide similar conditions for their colonies too, she wondered. Randy and her husband tried to locate a more cylindrically shaped hive for their yard, but their searches remained fruitless. So the Sonoma Bee Lady dreamed up her own solution, the Hex Hive®. After a few prototypes, first too heavy then too large, Randy and her contractor friend eventually produced a beautiful, yet highly functional hexagonally shaped hive—also the same shape as honeycomb cells! The hive is a highly efficient bee friendly residence and honey producer for the home, not to mention a unique piece of garden art. The Hex Hive® has six supers, or honey collecting boxes, each containing six large removable frames. Also, the supers’ hexagonal side corners hold 3 smaller frames to completely fill out the interior space. Each super has its own entry to minimize the labor a bee would have to exert climbing in and out of a single entrance. The entryways are also smaller so less effort is focused on guarding the colony. Since that first hive in 2009, Randy has had plenty of time to observe her bees in their new environment. She says they’re much calmer and appear to be a lot happier, which she attributes to the more organic and circular flow of energy within the Hex Hive®. Two years later, Randy has been commissioned to make hives for homes and farms all over the world. Thomas Schumacher of the Walt Disney Company has two at his home in upstate New York and Findhorn, an intentional community in northern Scotland, has requested that one be installed on their land too. Randy’s beekeeping philosophy, easily transposed to the rest of her organic lifestyle, is to support the bees (and nature) to support themselves. She supplies the home and space and leaves the rest up to the bees. Randy always starts with a local swarm, never applies treatments or prescribes medications and finds no need to smoke out bees in attempts to “calm” them during harvests. She has no interest in fostering what she calls an “artificial bee” and she’s had great success with the hives she manages. The Sonoma Bee lady explained that designing a bee friendly garden contributes to the health and vitality of backyard beehives, which as nature’s efficiency would have it, works in both directions. Plants such as lavender, rosemary and sunflowers are great pollinator attractors and they help edibles like squash, cucumbers and fruit trees to be pollinated and grow properly. Also, offering a diverse platter of plants for bees to choose from, arranged in tight clusters around the yard satisfies their appetite best. Another great tip Randy mentioned was to allow a handful of edibles to bolt, or go to seed. Bees will happily arrive to pollinate these flowers and carry their nectar to the hive for your enjoyment later. When in doubt, intuition is key when drawing up a bee friendly garden, or as she puts it, “what’s good for us, is good for the bees!” While Randy encourages thinking “outside the box” to achieve a more harmonious balance with the planet, she’s also a realist and doesn’t believe everyone should own a hive. Though she does think every home should have a garden, or at least some potted rosemary! Randy loves passing on information about bees and inspiring confidence in potential apiarists. Information on Randy Sue Collin’s Hex Hive®, along with handmade beeswax candles, DVDs and more can be found on her website at http://www.thanknature.com |
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