“Honeybees lack egos. As superorganisms, they work for the good of the whole and not the individual,” declares Chris Harp, apiarist (bee keeper) and bee doctor, whose HoneybeeLives operation is based in New Paltz.
From that location, Harp and his partner, Grai St. Clair Rice, who lives in Manhattan”™s Greenwich Village, conduct such operations as honeybee removal, swarm catching, hive tending, diagnosis and teaching.
Noting that honeybees have no yellow on them, but are orange and black or cardboard hue and black, Harp reports, “When a honeybee stings, it dies. It stings only to protect the colony.”
Harp, who has been involved with honeybees for 24 years, lived up and down the East Coast in his early years. He worked in various outdoor jobs, including trail cleaning in High Point State Park as a member of the Young Adult Conservation Corps.
Settling in New Paltz, where he had family roots, he purchased his present property. “The outbuildings had to be cleaned out,” he recalls. “There was a junk chicken coop and machine shop. When a roofer pulled out rotting rafters, bees came swarming out. I called the exterminator. Two days later, I pulled out the wallboard and saw thousands of dead bees and hundreds of pounds of honey poisoned from the fumigation. I was devastated about what I had done to them and vowed I would pay back.”
His partner”™s history differs widely from his own. Rice describes herself “as a city girl with a country heart.” She started out in the film, art and publishing worlds, serving for ten years as an editor/producer at CNN”™s New York bureau. As a photographer, she began photographing bees. “I am thrilled that bee keeping is again legal in New York City,” she enthuses, noting that she tends a couple of hives there.
Honeybees have short lives ”“ three to five weeks long, the partners explain. There are three categories of bees, they add: the queen bee; drones, who fertilize queens; and workers, who perform most of the tasks in the hive. “The queen is a slave, fed by the workers,” Harp points out. “Queens generally live three to five years, but recently their lives have only been lasting one to three years. Pesticides and fungicides have been found to be the partial cause.”
The queen does not want for suitors when she makes her mating flight, soaring high into the sky followed by a multitude of drones. She is fertilized by the 12 to 15 strong enough to stay in flight, ensuring having the most hardy of the breed as mates.
“Birds are a threat to the queen on her mating flight,” Rice reports. “The queen is bigger and slower than other bees, and birds lie in wait at mating season.”
The partners are elated when they get young students in the bee keeping classes. Currently they are following the career path of a student who came to their classes at age 12. He is now college-age and planning a career in genetics.
In addition to his New Paltz hives, Harp tends approximately 200 colonies in Connecticut and New York for individuals and organizations. The partners conduct organic bee keeping workshops and are consultants on hive health for troubled colonies.
The pair is concerned about the declining honeybee population. “The future of Earth depends on the existence of these bees to pollinate,” Harps declares. “Most pollen is too heavy to be carried by the wind. Be conscious of products used on lawns, and don”™t kill the dandelions. Respect what the bee needs and not what makes it easy for us humans.”
Challenging Careers focuses on the exciting and unusual business lives of Hudson Valley residents. Comments or suggestions may be emailed to Catherine Portman-Laux at cplaux@optonline.net.
