Hobbyist extols the beneficial nature of bees

Counter-clockwise from upper left, Ernie Garcia smokes his bees to settle them down, pulls the comb and displays the honey. Barehanded, Ernie Garcia lifts a frame writhing with bees from one of the hives in his Lewiston backyard. It is early September, and the hive is still in high gear. For him, it's a harmonious picture that inspires awe even after 37 years of beekeeping.

"See this one doing that waggle dance?" he asks, pointing to a bee moving about swiveling her abdomen from side to side. "She's telling the others where and how far the nectar is, and how to get there."

He continues to point out the dynamics of life in the hive. Drones: Compared to industrious worker bees, they do nothing but eat until it's time to impregnate the queen — but then again they die immediately after. Workers: They forage about two miles for nectar and pollen, and do all the other work of the hive. The Queen: She lays up to 2,000 eggs a day.

"I have been so humbled by keeping bees," Garcia said. "One-third of the food we eat is related to pollination. It's the only insect that produces food for humans, other than insects that are food."

"They actually are a boon to the entire ecological community," he said.

It's one of the reasons he likes to work with kids and share his passion. He is pleased that his 14-year-old daughter, Petra, has shown an interest and often works the bees with him.

"If you don't learn something about these creatures," he said, "how can you respect them?"

Garcia, a recently retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist, has kept

bees as a hobby and sideline

since he was a student at Humboldt State University in 1972.

Moving to Lewiston with his wife, Nina Hemphill, about five years ago, he continues his beekeeping.

Garcia refers to himself as a "sideliner"; his beekeeping is more than a hobby, less than a business although he is working to grow it. He now has about 50 hives with 40,000 to 60,000 bees in each. So far he has sold his Hemp Hill Honey, named for wife Nina, to individuals. This year he plans to offer it at local markets.

Garcia had hoped to pull 3,000 to 4,000 pounds of honey from the combs last year, but smoke, fire and drought which affect plant blooming took a toll and he only got 150 pounds. Drought is also taking a toll this year; he got about 300 pounds.

Although production is low so far, Garcia sees marketing potential for honey produced in Trinity County based on relatively low use of herbicides here. Public agencies largely honor a resolution by county supervisors urging alternatives to herbicide use.

Garcia sometimes works with Daphne Van Ooy of Douglas City, who sells her Trinity Alps Honey locally.

In February they teamed up to put some of their hives to work pollinating a commercial crop — almonds — for the first time.

"Most of the income for beekeepers comes from pollination," Garcia said.

Garcia figures beekeepers have an important part to play by having their bees keep plants pollinated and producing until wild bee populations decimated by Colony Collapse Disorder recover.

Their plight has been in the news recently as bees worldwide succumb to the disorder, leaving their hives and never returning. There have been many theories as to what causes the disorder that has hurt crops and beekeepers -- everything from viruses that affect the bees' equilibrium to mites, cell phones and pesticides.

Garcia points out the queen bee. Garcia loses a few hives every year and has seen some of his hives dwindle — although not a wholesale abandonment of the hive.

His love of bees is not dimmed by the occasional sting. Well, actually, he's been stung thousands of times.

He takes the precaution of wearing a veil and using a smoke-blowing device on the hives before he handles them. The smoke causes the bees to get busy gorging on honey in preparation for a possible fire evacuation. Smoke also masks the alarm pheromone a bee produces if it is crushed.

Although he has full bee suits available for demonstrations, Garcia wears no bee suit or gloves himself. It's easier to avoid crushing them that way, he says.

This is actually pretty tame stuff compared to some of Garcia's past bee episodes.

Ernie Garcia holds a jar of his Hemp Hill Honey from his bees. In his college days, Garcia came across a large colony in a tree cavity and decided to rob a few combs to build his apiary. He admits to getting greedy and deciding not to involve a beekeeping buddy.

Alone, torso inside the tree, flashlight in his mouth, he tore off a large piece of comb.

"The bees went crazy," Garcia said. "They completely covered my veil. I could smell the alarm pheromone. And then they got in the veil."

It gets worse.

Garcia got stuck in the tree. He remembers, "I'm trying to wiggle out of there and I'm thinking, 'My God, I'm gonna die here.'"

He managed to get free and made his way home, swollen from about 200 stings. The piece of comb he got had no eggs, no queen — just mean bees.

Later, Garcia would spend 12 years climbing trees on the island of Puerto Rico, where endangered parrots were further threatened by Africanized honey bees which invaded the birds' nesting cavities. These hostile bees were lured into traps laced with attractant pheromones and killed.

"I got quite a few stings that way, too," he said.

But in general, Garcia said, "bees get a bad rap" and are often the victims of false identification when people get stung by the more aggressive wasps, hornets and yellow jackets.

As winter nears, the bees and Garcia are getting ready. Drones won't be needed until spring, and they have been driven away to die of exposure.

"The first cold night, they boot most of them out," Garcia said, to reduce the demand on honey.

Life in the hive slows down in winter, and the queen stops laying eggs. The population drops sharply. On colder days and nights the bees will cluster and "shiver," keeping the inside of the hive warm.

"I try to leave them 50 pounds of honey per hive to over-winter with," Garcia said, adding that this year the bees didn't make enough so he's supplementing their diet with sugar water.

The bees will venture from the hive for "cleansing flights" as the weather picks up.

"You never want to hang your sheets on the first day of spring," Garcia advised.

Over the winter, Garcia will check on the bees' honey supply and work on his beekeeping equipment, preparing for a busy spring of helping the hives regain their vigor.

He looks forward to it.

Garcia said, "Honey bees, as with native pollinators like mason bees and bumble bees, when collecting nectar and pollen, are some of Earth's gentlest and most Earth-friendly creatures."