Monday night was quite a trip, both literally and figuratively. Literally speaking, my driving adventure to the Charlie Rose Agricultural Center in Fayetteville was peppered with three fender benders and more neon-bedecked “cabarets” than you can shake a stick at. In the figurative sense, this was my first night of beginner beekeeping class. You can bet this twenty two year old in pink Converse high tops got some puzzled looks from the 40, 40 year old plus farmers donning work boots and overalls. A man by the door just came right out and said, “You lost, sugar?”
No, sir. I am very much in the correct place. But thank you anyway.
So you’re probably wondering why the heck I’m taking a beekeeping class, too. I won’t take it personally. My roommates have been relentlessly teasing me about picking up bizarre hobbies like dragon training and snail racing this week. But you’d be surprised; this new interest of mine isn’t as random as it may sound to the untrained ear. Lately at TS Designs, we’ve been talking a lot about the power of these little pollenating machines: our bees.
Bees are amazing creatures. That much, I learned in the first ten minutes of my absolutely fascinating beekeeping class. Their hives and colonies are smooth operating apparatuses. The life purposes and hierarchies of the queens, the drones, the worker bees, and the larvae are intricately executed and perfectly balanced.
TS Designs keeps a hive for a couple of reasons:
1. To harness the power of pollenation: natural miracle grow.
2. To harvest honey in order to sweeten in a more sustainable way.
Bees are the ultimate gardeners. By increasing our number of local pollinators, we increase the health and growth of our glorious flowers, the produce in the Garden of Eat’n, and the surrounding trees. Pollination not only promotes growth of individual plants, but also the spread of foliage. Our bees can travel as far as 5-7 miles outside of the constraints of the TS Designs property line – maybe they’re pollinating your yard too. You never know.
By producing our own honey, we take one more step towards attaining the very best sustainable practices we can. In the beginning, TS Designs used your standard packets of sugar to sweeten our morning coffees and teas, just like everybody else. But we’re not like everybody else, so we made the switch to large plastic containers of organic sugar for everyone to share. Realizing that there was an even BETTER solution to this issue, we invested in some outside help – the bees. Now, with our hive pumping out our very own honey, we’ve forgone sugar for this far more sustainable and equally (if not more) delicious alternative.
So Monday night blew my mind. At some point in time, I’m going to scan in my notes I take during class to show you all. I’ve got diagrams flow-charting to illustrations with formulas regarding bullet points next to pictures of cute little bees I have drawn. It’s nuts, I tell you. Nuts. I’ve made a goal for myself to become a certified Master Beekeeper by the end of my senior year of college. For the next five weeks of my class, I’m so looking forward to sharing my latest endeavor with you!
Bee cool.
Peace, love & t-shirts,
Natalie