My Dad was a Bee Keeper when I was a young child. My sister and I would get to help him go check on the bees and also help him harvest and extract the honey at the end of the season. Well by help, I should say we were there to turn handles when instructed and keep my Dad company. In all actuality we were probably there to give my Mom a break from our sibling fighting. I did not retain much of the knowledge my Dad tried to hand down about bees and beekeeping, but what I did learn is that my Dad really loved bee keeping. He loved nature and he loved to nurture things. My Father found peace in the outdoors with nature surrounding him. From the stories I hear this love of nature started as a young boy in Vermont, when his weekends were spent with his brothers or friends camping and hunting in the mountains of Vermont (that of course was back in the day when you really didn't know where your children were, and know one asked you either). I grew up with my Father taking us hiking, fishing, and camping. He would keep these traditions up through all of my complaining that my legs were tired. He would keep taking us out on the boat even though sometimes all my sister and I would catch were branches of trees, and not even come close to snagging a fish. He even continued these traditions on with his grandchildren. Taking my boys on week long trips into the north woods with no real bathrooms or video games, and he somehow navigated all their miserable complaining, too. He didn't always handle things patiently, but that is when my mother would step in. She had the patience of a Saint, and knew how to smooth out frustrated, angry moments .
My Father knew a lot about trees, birds, and gardening and always loved to pass that knowledge on. He would start flowers and vegetables from seed indoors when the winter weather was still upon us. Then would replant them out in the garden when spring finally sprung, and then Mid- summer would supply all his friends, family, and neighbors with more than they could all handle of peppers, tomatoes, corn, zucchini, and potatoes. My father's garden was always surrounded by by tall sunflowers, marigolds, and many other flowers. His love of gardening would circle back to his bee keeping. He loved that his garden was always a buzz with his bees collecting pollen.
If you ever had a problem having a conversation with my Father, you just had ask him about his bees, and he could talk for hours. My father over his life found a few bee keeping friends. Ones that would leave jars of honey on his outdoor picnic table at weird hours of the day. I sometimes liked to refer to it as the Secret order of the Bee Keepers. But that Secret order of the Bee Keepers came in very handy at the end of my Dad's life.
My mother passed away from cancer in July of 2018, my Father 4 weeks later ended up in the hospital, for a long 10 week stay, that he never got to come home from. The picture above is the last picture I took of my father. It is very fitting that one of my last memories of him healthy, was him harvesting honey from his hives. When he went into the hospital he had not yet finished processing the honey, so we had some pretty large vats of honey at his house, and one of them had a bug situation. I was visiting my father about every other day when he was in the hospital, and one of his biggest concerns was the honey. He first tried to instruct us how to finish processing the honey, but with my inexperience, that was just going to lead to a sticky situation. I lovingly refer to his sometimes daily questioning about his honey as the " honey situation". I felt like it might be the least of our worries as my Dad got sicker, everyday in the hospital. But I now come to realize it was my Dad just trying to finish what he started. It was my Dad hoping to see life outside hospital rooms again.
My Dad never made it home to tend to his bees again, but with the help of the Secret order of the Bee Keepers, his hives and supplies moved on to a new young beekeeper, and his friend Art took the vats of honey home and finished processing them. The "Honey Situation" became a wonderful way my Dad got to share his passions with people even after he was gone. Even at his funeral my Sister prepared wonderful little jars of his honey to share with everyone who came to give their condolences. My Dad was a Bee Keeper, and I am so grateful I got to capture this aspect of his life through my Camera lens.