#1. Anticipation

It's been over 30 years since I kept bees.  And that was only for one season, before my parents sold our home in Grendon Underwood, not far from Oxford, in England.   I was a then member of the Mid-Bucks Beekeepers, a group of mostly elderly men, many of whom provided great mentoring.  I bought a hive from a retired beekeeper, complete with bees.  I picked up the hive one evening, covered it with a blanket, hoisted it into the back seat of the car and off I went.  Next day, the bees woke up in my apple orchard, 20 miles from where they'd started, and never seemed to mind.

Now I'm ready to start keeping bees again.  The big day is approaching - this Wednesday is the first day of my beekeeping course at the Cornell Agricultural Extension in Riverhead.  Every Wednesday evening for the next half a year I will be brushing up on beekeeping.  I expect to place an order for bees and supplies soon and get my hives up and running this spring.

Taking a break from the winter winds here on Montauk, I spent a week with Aunt Millie in Florida last week where I met Kelvin, a good ol' boy from Tennessee.  A friend of a friend, Kelvin is a jack of all trades and has a particular talent working with stone and doing woodwork.  Turns out that as a kid, Kelvin helped his buddy's father manage 2000 hives.  2000 hives!  It seems to me that what Kelvin doesn't know about bees isn't worth knowing.  He had some great management tips, but even better - he's going to be spending part of the summer with his old friend Paul in the Springs.  So, it looks like I may have found my new mentor.

It's been 30 years, and it seems like the timing is finally right.  I can't wait to get the process started.