YOU HAVE TO READ IT TO BEE LIEVE IT

Akronisms | Inside Akron’s backyard beehives

Don’t squish the bees!

WORDS AND PHOTO BY JEFF DAVIS

You’ve probably never been inside one of Akron’s beehives, of which there are many more than you might realize. Some are in backyards and gardens. Some are on roofs or porches. Some are hidden behind fences. They are on commercial properties and in neighborhoods. Sometimes there is only one hive. In some cases, a halfdozen or more, with the bees just going about their business and not bothering a soul unless provoked.

Note the syllable “hive,” which is not to be confused with a “nest.” A bees’ nest is a collection of wild bees living in the ground, a tree or perhaps a fallen log. These bees might be big, black and fuzzy, like bumble bees and carpenter bees, which are often solitary and stingless. They could be yellow jackets — which aren’t bees at all — but instead wasps who live in the ground, appear at late summer picnics, and chase people around their yards. These haters can (and do) sting repeatedly. In this case, yellow doesn’t mean caution. It means beware!

Here, we are talking about honey bees, also known as Apis mellifera, which scientists say help pollinate about one third of our food supply. Honey bees are generally colored in shades of brown with black stripes and can live in trees and logs. They can also live in a wooden box known as a hive: a bee home that is under pretend-management by a human incongruously known as a “beekeeper.” because honey bees haven’t yet been domesticated. They like to be fed, but they definitely won’t come when they are called. Even when given a nice home and lots of attention, they will sting those who mess with their honey or babies. Sometimes a bunch of them will pick up and leave like ten thousand lovers scorned, in what we call a swarm. We may say “keeping bees,” but “herding cats” is the appropriate simile here.

So, how many beehives are there in Akron? It’s hard to tell. Beehives don’t always survive Ohio’s winters, and keepers aren’t always able to manage a hive’s nutrition or control predation, so the numbers go down. New colonies are purchased from suppliers every spring, so the numbers go up. The wildcard is that beekeepers often divide their hives to prevent half their bees and a queen from departing in a swarm.

One theory is that bees swarm when they feel crowded. Splitting one hive into two puts a stop to that. Experienced beekeepers can do this a couple times each season, meaning they can split one hive into two, two into four and four into eight in a manner of months. So, the number of hives in town will change through the seasons. We can only guess their number.

Still, we do know the number of “apiaries” in the area, which is the number of properties that have hives. Randy Katz, the Summit County bee inspector, says there were 396 registered apiaries in the county in early May. That could easily represent 1,000 to 1,500 individual hives. There could be 200 to 250 hives in Akron. More than you thought, right?

Whether people want to profit from the bees’ work by selling honey and wax or take up beekeeping merely for honey on their breakfast toast and more productive gardens, folks who want to keep bees should begin by asking themselves if they are ready for the responsibility.

After all, these are living creatures. Continue reading this story on page 44