Beekeeper to Be

“Pakis, this is Dave Fruchtenicht calling.  I placed my order for bees and included two packets for you and your neighbor.  They should arrive in mid March.”  With that message, beekeeping crossed over from a topic of idle conversation to a new reality.  Pakis grew up around beekeeping, and his father had taken it up after Pakis and his brothers had moved to the city.  Going into it here in Durham  had been an interest for years, and sometime last summer we realized that our neighbor, Jennifer Sosensky, shared it.  We all went to the Durham Farmer’s Market one Saturday to talk to talk to Dave Freuchtenicht about it.  We had a fun conversation but totally failed to follow up, so the answering machine message came as quite a surprise.

And today the two packets arrived on Dave’s pickup truck, driven from his supplier in Goldsboro, who drove them up from Georgia yesterday.  I’d been wondering what “packets” of bees look (and sound) like.  Here they are!

 

Note to followers:  Sorry if this topic seems like a totally random from teaching and education-related topics.  The bee thing is just too interesting to ignore!  It’s fun to observe a learning process up close without responsibility as either teacher or primary learner.