My adventures in beekeeping started in 1965. I was about 12 years old. Every Friday myself and about 4 other classmates would venture by bus to the Newark Museum located in downtown Newark, New Jersey. There we would participate in an astronomy program. Before and after the lecture we would explore the museum, the exhibits, the art, paintings, sculpture, and  a science exhibit of how thing worked. But, most intriguing to me was an observation hive of honeybees tucked in a corner  of the children’s section of the museum. Here I would watch in amazement bees bring in nectar and pollen. Bees dancing to communicate their source. The queen laying her eggs. The young bees emerging from their protective capped cell.

A year later I built up my  nerve to question some of the museum staff. Who cared for the bees? I was introduced to an 80 year old retired engineer who took me under his wing and introduced me to beekeeping. I drove my parents crazy. I joined the Essex County Beekeepers Society. My mother trekked me all over the state of New Jersey. We went to meetings and visited  apiaries.  I built an observation hive and placed it in my bedroom  window. I built a Langworth hive for the backyard.

I purchased a package of bees from the Walter Kelly Company. One day in the early Spring, I received a notice from  the post office my bees have arrived!  I remember the look on the inner city’s  postmaster’s  face as he handed the screened  package of thousands of  buzzing bees to me. His two index fingers barely making enough contact to lift the cage. I nonchalantly put the package under my arm, smiled at him, and paraded out the door. He was bug eyed!  Well, that summer the hive in the backyard  of the city of Newark was started. Unheard of at that time. That was one nasty hive of bees. I was just a young boy and every time  I opened the hive  those things would sting me 2 or  3 times.  The bees would climb up my arm, into my shirt,  climb up my pants. I’d have welts all over.  I guess I was kind of tough growing up in the city. I did not give up.

I am amazed, at how calm the bees are, that I now have. Today, I hardly ever get stung. Honeybees are generally gentle. Recently I was told by my brother, my old childhood hive was a great attraction in the neighborhood. The neighborhood “Wise Guys” would pelt the hive with rocks until the bees emerged in anger! Then the children would run away in laughter… European Honeybees are gentle unless provoked.

That winter December 1966 my father gave me a new record album for Christmas. He told me the man at the record store said this was a new trend setting album. The album was “Wild Honey” by the Beach Boys. The man was right. The Beach Boys took their style and morphed it into a creative new sound. Still the Beach Boys, but different and new. They started a trend together with Beatles and others that brought us the Psychedelic Rock age of the late 60’s and early 70’s. The album cover portrayed a stained glass window picturing colorful flowers, a Bee, and the words “Wild Honey” that inspired our label.

I truly hope my Wild Honey is as good on your palate as the Beach Boys “Wild Honey” music was and still is to my ears.