There is a lot of learning. Some of it is kind of humbling. Some of it’s humiliating. But it’s all very fascinating and the longer I do it the more engaged I become.

– Patricia Butler

What I’ve found exceptionally interesting and difficult is just understanding the bees and beginning to be comfortable with their rhythms, and of course having them comfortable with me. And finding the queen; things you can’t really teach. There is a great deal of this activity that you simply have to experience.

– Patricia Butler

I use some smoke to quiet them down before I even open it up. I don’t use a whole lot of it. Most of the time the bees will just be busy doing their thing. They don’t really want to bother me. And as long as they don’t see me as too much of a threat, they won’t.

– Mery Molenaar

They’re harvesting nectar and they’re making wax. Find somebody else who’s putting less negative energy in the world and I’ll give you a dollar.

– Julie Finley

I think she looks beautiful. She’s like the heroine of this tribe.

– Ruth Eastman

I think their culture is fascinating to watch . . . When they’re born they have a job for them, and the jobs are all planned, and they do it, and there’s no fighting. It’s just fascinating how they take care of things.

– Marge McLellan

There’s just a kind of magic around the queen. She’s like the holy mother, right? If she’s not well then nothing is well in that world.

– Julie Finley

I’m still very nervous about the whole thing even though it’s completely fascinating and I’m definitely much more in awe than I could have understood I could be.

– Patricia Butler

All these little tiny bundles of energy are just buzzing around and leaving the yard and I don’t have a clue where they’re going. I can’t follow them and see what six mile distance they’ve gone. But they come back to this home unerringly and bring this gift from the flowers back with them and they work so hard to do it that they just humble me.

– Suzanne Connolly Howes

I remember I picked up a swarm of bees over here in the neighborhood a couple of years ago… At night I had to come home dragging the garden cart with my bees suit on. My bee suit is made for a taller person than I am and the neighbors looked at me, they thought I was becoming senile, but I got my swarm of bees!

– Marge McLellan

During the spring and summer the queen lays up to 2000 eggs a day. It’s just mind boggling that an animal that is born with all the eggs she’s going to lay in her life can lay 2000 eggs a day and can live for five years! I mean, that’s a huge, massive amount of eggs! There are just so many things like that about bees and each little piece of information like that just blows my mind.

– Suzanne Connolly Howes

Sometimes I go out there and sit by myself with my son and watch the bees bringing in their pollen and flying in and out… It’s always nice to be around animals. I want my children to grow up around animals and this is just the beginning of that.

– Mery Molenaar

I tend to be able to get things done in a hurry, and that works for me, but beekeeping is an activity that I think is going to teach me patience because otherwise you just waste time.

– Patricia Butler

More honey, honey, honey, honey, honey…

– Suzanne Connolly Howes

The more you know about it don’t you think you like it more?

– Marge McLellan

I’ve always been interested in nature and this is just a great way of being together with animals. They’re pretty easy pets. They’re really easy pets, actually. And you have a lot of them.

– Mery Molenaar

One of the things I think I’ll learn from this hobby is more patience. I just want to do it right and there doesn’t seem to be an easy way! It takes experience and exposure and patience.

– Patricia Butler

Maybe, now that I think about it, there’s something spiritual about being out there with those bees. You really see there’s something controlling things, you know. And they’re alive! That’s my definition of spirituality, to be alive and get involved. You sense that in nature, don’t you?

– Marge McLellan

When a bee comes back to the hive she doesn’t put the honey in the comb herself, she gives it to somebody else, then another bee will process it or put it away. They share things. They live together. They’re helping each other.

– Mery Molenaar

When I first started keeping bees I was giving honey away. I got the feeling after a year or so that I’d walk into a room and people would say, “Oh, here she comes with her honey.” So I decided I’m not going to do that anymore and started charging for it. As soon as I started charging, “Oh! Where’s your honey?” I don’t know why humans are that way but they are. If you charge a little tiny bit for it, they want it.

– Marge McLellan