(bees humming) - I love the hum.

The fascination of such a dynamic thinking organism.

They have this collective intelligence and ways that they act and react.

When I open a hive, I don't care whose hive it is.

For me, it's literally like I'm looking at the hand of God working.

But that's my type of experience when I open a hive.

And that's probably why I will keep bees until the day I die.

- Beekeeping is wicked addictive.

These are the most fascinating creatures in the world.

And if you're gonna start keeping bees, just be aware that, chances are, you're not gonna be happy with one hive.

You're gonna have to have two or three or four.

Just because that's the way it is.

It's my 43rd year.

I started keeping bees in 1980.

I don't recall, in the 43 years I've done this, that I've ever had a bad day in the bee yard.

It's always good to be out here with the bees.

- They're really important to our ecosystem and to our food production.

Bees are great pollinators.

They provide you with honey.

You get bees wax.

You can get propolis, but also, you can just set up a lawn chair next to the entrance and watch bees while you have lunch.

You can listen to their hum and their buzz while they're working.

I think they're really calming, to just watch the bees and see where they're going and what they're doing.

This is a male bee and they don't sting at all.

And they're there to mate with new queens.

There's only a few males in each colony.

Most of the bees you see are all females.

- They're all her daughters.

They're all, at minimum, half-sisters.

And they all get along.

There's our queen, right there.

There she is, right there.

Try to encourage her to come back up this way.

There she goes.

See her long abdomen?

And it's all one color.

She's not used to being out in the sunlight.

This is very unusual for her to be out here in the light like that.

She could go to the other side.

The other side was in the dark side.

So she doesn't wanna... She crawled over to get back into the shade.

Gives you to stop and think she spends the entire three or four years of her life in the dark, inside the hive.

Yep.

They're all nurse bees.

They're all taking care of her.

What they're doing is they're touching her and getting her pheromone, her scent.

The scent of a queen on their antlers.

And then, they go and they pass it on to everybody else.

So that every bee, in the hive, comes in contact with that pheromone every 40 minutes.

This is a frame of brood.

This is all new babies underneath the cappings.

Here's one that's just hatched out.

Here's one that's just now hatching out.

You see the antennas and stuff at the top.

Coming out of the hole.

She's trying to chew her way out.

(light folk music) - We just came up from Georgia where we brought 500 packages of mated queens and three pounds of bees to give to beekeepers in the state of Maine, who are looking to start their apiaries or expand them.

- Oh, my goodness.

We have a Flow Hive that we got for Christmas.

It was a Christmas present for our family.

- This is our second year beekeeping.

Of course, there's a little bit of honey extraction but we mostly do it as a learning exercise and for pollination.

- That's how the plants get pollinated and produce fruits, which is not important just for people, but it's just important for the life on Earth.

- If we didn't have bees or pollinators, we wouldn't be able to eat food and none of us would be alive.

So... - Save the pollinators.

- [Michael] We're doing our part.

- [Brian] These are the packages the bees travel in.

And so, this is a little over three pounds of bees and a tin can of sugar syrup to keep them fed on the trip.

And, inside the biggest cluster of bees is the mated queen.

And they all cluster around her and keep her warm 'cause she is the center of the colony.

And when people get these, they'll open up the packages and install them right into their hives.

- Typical package of bees, roughly give or take 18,000 bees, plus a queen in there.

Pry your cover off.

(wood cracking) The can's gotta come out.

(can tapping) Tap down.

Okay.

Queen's in there.

The queen is residing.

She's in there doing her thing inside the cage.

The other end is full of sugar.

So, which end do we take the cork out of?

- Sugar.

- The sugar end, right.

Do not take the cork out of the other end or she'll be over there in that tree somewhere flying around.

You'll have to go get her.

We're gonna wedge this frame over.

Far enough that we can slide that down in there.

Like that.

Okay, I like to put that just below the top of the frame.

The bees have room to crawl up in there.

Get in there and chew that sugar candy.

All right.

18,000 bees.

We gotta get them inside the hive.

(bees buzzing) (box rattling) Those bees will be able to smell the queen that's in here.

They'll be able to run up in there.

By night fall, they'll all be in here joining up with this one.

Inner cover.

Bee school people, notch goes up, right?

(crowd agrees) It's what we taught you.

Okay, nice, easy.

Get it on there.

Start swirling it gently.

Lowering it down softly as you go.

And there you go.

Package is all installed.

(guitar strumming) - Some people say sometimes bees are aggressive or you get an aggressive hive, but bees are only defensive.

If a bee stings you, that bee is going to die.

She leaves her stinger embedded into your skin and dies.

So, she's decided that you were a threat worth killing herself for.

And bees don't take that lightly.

Yeah, they're just insects, but they wanna live.

They wanna support the hive and keep on collecting resources for the hive.

They don't want to sting you.

- Just relax.

Just let everything flow.

- Just relax.

- Don't get uptight.

They know that you're scared of them.

Just take a deep breath and relax.

It's the most meditational hobby you could ever have.

- We're both members of the same organizations of the Kennebec Beekeepers and the Knox-Lincoln group.

Can't advertise joining a club enough.

- And every county in Maine has a bee club.

And I encourage everybody to join their local bee club and also join Main State Beekeepers Association.

- [Brian] Beekeepers are super friendly and a great resource.

So, you can go to your local bee club and find a beekeeper in your area and do a ride along.

See what they do, get exposed to bees.

And also, it's gonna make it much easier for you to be successful If you do decide to keep bees on your own.

- I think it's important to have bees but if you are not managing Varroa mite properly, then I would prefer you not have bees.

You need to manage Varroa mite.

You need to treat for Varroa mite because you're infecting everybody else.

And if you're not gonna do that, then don't have bees, get a cat.

(Bob chuckles) - [Brian] I think it's super important to teach people about bees and pollination.

And just how important they are to a lot of different aspects of our life.

- Good hive of bees in Maine, in the summertime, will give us 60 pounds of honey that we can have for our own personal consumption.

You don't stop and, "Well, 60 pounds of honey."

"That's great."

Well, no, that's a five gallon pail full.

That's an awful lot of honey.

So, yeah, this is a pretty good reward for what little bit of work we have to do to keep these bees through the summer.

(whimsical music) (graphics ringing) (mouse clicking) (light piano music)