SAD 40 secretary keeps real ‘beesy’

WARREN – By day Jean Vose works as a secretary amid the hum of the SAD 40 superintendent’s office.

In her off hours, Vose keeps busy – as a hobbyist and bee school director for Knox-Lincoln County Beekeepers.

And even though there’s snow on the ground these days and not much pollen, Vose has plenty to do.

The Knox-Lincoln County Beekeepers will offer a six-week adult education program, “Beekeeping A to Z,” starting at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 3, at Medomak Valley High School in Waldoboro.

Vose, 59, has been beekeeping for 18 years. She and her husband, Dick, are avid beekeepers.

“I love beekeeping almost as much as I love gardening,” Vose, a Master Gardener, said.

Now, besides tending bees for pollinating purposes, she also keeps them for the honey they produce. Last year, one hive yielded 80 pounds of honey.

A lot has changed since the days when a person could order beekeeping supplies and bees from a Sears catalog, she said.

There’s an art to caring for and managing bees, which starts with “a good bee school,” Vose said. Whether a person uses bees to pollinate vegetables, plants and flowers or to make honey, “the major difference is management,” she said.

The beekeeping program will teach hobbyists where to buy equipment and bees, how to get started, how to set up a hive, identifying and treating bee diseases, and what to do if stung by the insects.

In the winter of 1996, mites decimated the hives, Vose said, noting there was an 88 percent kill rate in New England hives from the reddish, ticklike parasites.

Vose, who keeps bees on her 10-acre property in Nobleboro, said, “there’s people keeping bees in downtown Augusta.”

All you need are some trees, grasses, flowers or field around to keep bees busy and happy.

The initial cost for minimal protective equipment, hive and bees is $300 to $350, Vose said, but, “it’s like any hobby, you can spend a ton of money on it” or make your own.

“We don’t advise people buy used equipment,” she said, because of a spore disease called “foulbrood,” which requires killing all bees and burning hives.

Bees are usually bought by the pound. A 3-pound package harbors 50,000 to 60,000 bees, according to Vose. At the peak of the season – around the Fourth of July – a good strong hive has 80,000 bees.

Come fall, all males “get kicked out the front door” of the hive. No males are allowed to winter in hives.

There’s one queen bee to a colony, and the rest are female workers, who do all the chores.

In April or May, the queens are busy laying some 1,000 eggs a day, Vose said.

During the third and fourth weeks of the six-week program, master beekeeper Rick Cooper of Bowdoinham will talk about tending bees, and in the fifth week, state bee inspector Tony Jadczak will discuss diseases, pests and medications.

For anyone interested learning more about bees beforehand, the Knox-Lincoln County Beekeepers’ annual meeting is at 7 p.m. Thursday at Friendship Street School on Route 220 in Waldoboro. The cost of the six-week program is $35.