( a new honeybee haven in the hills )

a new honeybee haven in the hills

by jennifer hetrick

a trained police officer and bagpipe player in a band called the punkabillys, jason marshall is trying out another life-hat in his latest pursuit of raising honeybees just outside of zionsville in hereford township, berks county.

     

while serving with the douglass township police department in montgomery county, marshall stopped to chat a few times with adam nowicki who resides on merkel road in gilbertsville, once handing a jar of his backyard sourced honey to marshall while he was on duty. marshall felt a slow affection brewing for the idea of raising honeybees for himself, someday. last summer, he finally took his curiosity to a serious level, but it was too late in the season to bring bees in for the year. this past may, he had several thousand honeybees shipped up from hardeman apiaries in georgia, building the hives himself.  

marshall’s left arm, peppered with tattoos, often attracts the bees right on the spots where cherry blossom and lotus flowers are painted into his skin. he feels their airy, light pecking from the tattoos confusing the bees into thinking they’re really attempting pollination through the ink.

in the very beginning, marshall parked a chair on his back lawn and sat observing the behaviors of the honeybees, in awe of their way about life.

     

“i love the smell of wax, honey, and wood,” marshall says about the hives. “it amazed me, once you start working with them, how gentle they are.”

     

marshall notes that it’s usually other nearby flying insects which are aggressive and threatening—honeybees will only sting (and then take a turn into belly-up status) if you really anger, irritate, or disrespect them. yellow jackets are often seen buzzing around hives, as unkind stinging winged ones, but they stick around because they, like many humans, want honey for the taking, too.

     

honeybees do their best to defend their territory, their homes, to invasion from not only yellow jackets but unfortunately, also terribly destructive mites and other diseases which sometimes attack honeybee hives.

     

in the first year, honeybees only produce a watery sugar mixture. so marshall anticipates having some honey to jar up next season, if he can keep his colonies alive through the cold of winter, which is one of the hardest trials of a new beekeeper.

     

marshall explains that during winter, honeybees flock together into a softball-sized mass, fluttering their wings closely in the air in order to keep warm, not freezing. if the honeybees only cluster into a golf ball-sized mass, they will not survive, he reveals about small details making a big difference in survival chances.

while researching the lives of honeybees and their connection to people, marshall discovered that some asian countries have such a devastated supply of them that they use chicken feathers to whisk around in place of bees’ work, since pollination can’t usually occur in nature, aside from self-pollinating plants, without the help of honeybees. this says a lot in light of food production for people and the importance of not letting honeybees fall into jeopardy or extinction.

     

in his five hives, marshall houses four italian queens and one russian queen. one of his hives has a somewhat more aggressive bunch of bees to it, which he says is because the feisty queen passes on her genetic traits to them, meaning her offspring will be similarly aggressive. but for the most part, his honeybees are happy, kind creatures.

     

a misconception marshall has seen in some people is that with urban beekeepers, neighbors sometimes get stung and blame it on the honeybees. but ordinarily, they’re being stung by another type of flying insect, unfairly putting the blame on honeybees.

     

marshall has taken several courses in the subject of beekeeping since his start, but he continues to seek out more educational resources for this ongoing learning experience. most recently, he participated in a pennsylvania association for sustainable agriculture-sponsored course called late season care for bees: a hands-on workshop for intermediate beekeepers, hosted at two gander farm in fleetwood.

     

he’s working to become involved in different beekeeper associations throughout southeastern pennsylvania, thankful that beekeeping isn’t a competition but instead something those running their own apiaries are happy to talk about with others in the same field. marshall notices that people enjoy hearing him tell his story of raising honeybees, as they seem to find it a curious labor. it doesn’t hurt that honey is all too easy to love, too. marshall hopes to have a bit of honey for bottling next year if his bees make it through the chilly season. if all goes well, he’ll even have a bit of honey to sell.

     

to reach marshall for a pinch of  honey-speak, e-mail him at dropkickmarshall@yahoo.com.