My Sticky Lessons

Sticky Lessons

I remember being hot, sticky, tired, and rather miserable in the summer time. As the children of a beekeeper, my siblings and I were slave labor. Everyone was expected to do whatever was necessary to keep the family business afloat. Since I was a girl, I wasn’t strong enough to go out in the bee yards, thank Heavens. My brothers were the ones that were selected for bee yard work, so that meant my sister and I were always part of the ‘extracting crew.’ Extracting honey from the honey comb was a lesson in endurance; unfortunately we endured from about the eighth grade until I was a senior, my sister for after high school. We extracted during the ‘honey flow,’ the time when bees found nectar in the foliage and other conditions were right. Honey flow in Montana usually starts sometime the end of June and continues through the beginning of August. 

Montana summers, though short, are hot and dry. Hot and dry was bad enough, but the warehouse where we worked was hot and muggy. If this weren’t enough unpleasantness, it reeked of hot honey. I did not appreciate my working conditions. These conditions were made worse by the poor, old overworked swamp cooler we used. It found its home in a cut out in the wall.  The cooler worked hard at cooling the building, but mostly managed to make the air a little wetter. It was under these conditions that I learned what hard work was. In this dingy warehouse, where the pallets were stacked high with white bee boxes full of honey, I learned the value of work, and the value of doing it right.

My first experiences in the extracting room were filled with patience from others at first, but as I became disenchanted with my job others became disenchanted with me. I wasn’t as diligent about my duties as I should have been. At huge spinning machines, I was pulling out hot, sticky frames with empty honey comb and putting them back in boxes, stacking pallets with boxes as I went. If I was a little slow, I was a little chewed out. The general rule was move as fast as possible, unless otherwise told. I must have been yelled at quite a bit at first, because I soon picked up the pace. Gradually, without realizing it, I began to take pride in my ability to work circles around others if I could.

I remember one day early in my extracting career, we ran out of honey to extract. I was disappointed when I found that more was soon to come. Instead of going home, we needed to wait a little while for the fresh honey to be brought over to the warehouse. My big brother was in charge that day, and he was less tolerant of lollygagging than most. He told me to sweep the floor and get every bee. I began to use an unwieldy push broom that was several inches taller than I was. Sweeping the huge floor with that particular broom took more effort and work than unloading extractors! I had not thought that possible. I worked and worked, and presented my work to my brother. He was not impressed. I was sent back out to that huge floor, “to get EVERY bee!” Again I worked hard, and again was sent back to the floor. I don’t remember if I actually swept up every bee, but I definitely tried. I do remember grumbling about my hard taskmaster. My grousing under my breath never seemed to matter to my brother. He simply continued to gruffly teach me.

            The longer I worked there, I learned to work fast, work hard, and check my work. My self-esteem grew because I learned for myself that I was capable, and I could become good at something even if it was difficult and I hated it.  I credit my family for investing time in me to make me a better, productive person, even though it could have been easier to have done the work themselves. They held me to a higher standard than good enough. Because of this background, I believe I have less of an entitlement attitude than I might have otherwise had. In fact, I feel empowered. Rather than depending on someone else, I know can make a difference. These lessons were priceless. However, that didn’t stop me from celebrating late in my senior year of high school when I got stung and had an allergic reaction, ending my long career as slave labor for my beloved beekeeping dad.

*My father is no longer keeping bees. The picture above is of my brother's bees en route  to another location this spring (2014, Montana). He is keeping the beekeeping tradition alive.
**My awesome dad a few weeks ago

The moral of my story? Happiness comes from satisfaction from work, from being independent.