We have a friend of the family who grew up gardening with her grandmother, and through that she got interested in keeping bees, although with her house and job and resources at the time, she didn't have the ability to do so. When my family moved to our first property in North Carolina, she came and lived with us for a while to help us get settled in. Since we finally had some land, she was helping Mom to plan our first garden and through that she started talking with me about bees. I have always loved nature and learning about animals especially, and so we started doing a little bit of looking at bees online and just sort of kicking tires about the subject together. Somehow she got wind of the Swain County Beekeepers' Association's bee school, and she asked me if I wanted to go with her, both because I'd displayed some interest in the subject and because I'm extremely proficient at remembering information and taking notes.
Even though I'd never seen a beehive in my life, in fact I'd never even been stung by a bee before, (Actually now that I think about it, that probably contributed to my lack of fear about bees. Although I was very afraid of all bugs as a young child, I grew out of it through my sister Abigail, who loves bugs.) bee school brought me from vaguely interested to feeling like beekeeping was something I could do. I wasn't in love with bees yet, but I was looking for a personal area to contribute to the new homestead and even without any experience, I had this strong sense that I was suited for the work. I'm emotionally stable, I'm deliberate and thorough when I go about a task, and I have an almost uncanny ability to remember and apply even abstract information. I often tell people when asked to describe myself that I'm basically a Vulcan, and beekeeping seemed orderly and scientific, requiring dedication and precision, all qualities that come naturally to me.
I went to bee school in 2011, but my parents weren't ready to invest in bees yet. We were juggling a lot of new balls starting a garden and getting chickens and just having land for the first time, and we were also renting the property and we didn't have the best relationship with our landlords. I was only 15 at the time, so I wouldn't have been able to manage the whole enterprise by myself yet, so it was something that got pushed to the backburner. On my own time though, I continued to read and learn about bees, and actually about all other insects too, living in the true country for the first time in my life. I used to sit under our quince bush when it was in flower and watch the honey bees, bumble bees, and other bees that I didn't know how to recognize yet working the flowers, and getting used to the way they moved and the sounds they made and desensitizing myself of any fear I had of them. I also had the pleasure one summer of witnessing a mating swarm of cellophane bees, although I didn't know what kind of bees they were at the time.
We purchased our current property in 2017, and the gloves were finally off to do many of the things we'd always talked and dreamed about doing, and my parents told me to begin research in earnest so by the following spring we could get bees. I found Rusty Burlew's website HoneyBeeSuite.com, which became a foundational cornerstone of my personal beekeeping style, and on her recommendation I read The Beekeeper's Handbook by Sammataro and Avitabile cover to cover. I found New Zealander Trevor Gilbanks's YouTube channel, through which I learned how to physically manipulate a hive, and I joined Beemaster in August which enabled me to connect with people to ask specific questions and get personal help. My county either didn't have or had only just started up a beekeepers association, and that fact coupled with me feeling more comfortable and capable of feeling my own way made me decide not to join my local club. I reserved the right to do so later if I felt overwhelmed, but I never did.
I ordered the bulk of my equipment from BetterBee over the winter, and through Beemaster I found Wild Mountain Bees (now Honey + the Hive) in Asheville, and I ordered 2 packages from them and picked them up in April. I read a lot and watched YouTube videos of people installing packages, and having never handled any bees before in my life, I installed them with Haley's help on April 13th, 2018. I lost one colony to varroa my first fall, and from the one remaining colony that made it through the winter, I've grown my apiary to what was 10 colonies this last summer.
