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THE DANGERS OF HONEY PRODUCTION

Many of my clients are homesteaders, the type of folk who strive for self-suffiency. But some people bite off more than they can chew.

The Moss family has a nice patch of land a few miles west of Arlen. They've got a wonderful garden growing, and some fruit trees that should start producing in a few years. But they wanted a few bee hives to harvest honey and have a place for their pollinators to live. Things were going fine, until the bees got too big for the hive.

Carl Moss gave me a call after his wife was stung inside of the house. The hives were a good distance away from the house, and all the windows are screened. There wasn't any reason for a bee to show up in the house. I went out for an inspection, and found a second hive that had established itself in their attic. My best guess is that a new queen bee had come of age and left to found her own colony, taking a share of worker bees with her.

I was able to don my beekeeping suit and safely remove the hive from the attic, and remove them to some undeveloped land a few miles away. As I told Carl before I left, I admired his willingness to throw off the shackles of local government utilities and taxation. But it's important not to get in over your head. Leave the beekeeping to the insect experts, or as I like to call them, insectsperts.

Dale Gribble, insectspert, signing off.