In Beekeeping, Learning Curve Is Steep, Stinging

ROBERT SIEGEL: Meanwhile, out in the field, beekeepers are going about their business trying to keep their hives happy and the plants that will end up on our dinner tables pollinated.

MELISSA BLOCK, Host:

Commentator Bill Harley is among them. In addition to being a song writer and a storyteller, he watches over a beehive in Massachusetts. And he has fond memories of his fist foray into beekeeping.

BILL HARLEY: I took the package of 10,000 bees hanging down in a clump from the top of the box. I don't know what I'm doing, I said. You're fine. You're doing fine, my friend, the midwife, said. It sounded like she had said that before. I smacked the box down on the ground once - bump. The bees fell to the bottom and their buzzing modulated up a step and a half.

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(SOUNDBITE OF BUZZING)

HARLEY: A week later, a friend of mine came over and watched from a distance as I opened the hive to check on the queen. How'd you get them in there, he asked. It's easy, I said. I'm an idiot.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

BLOCK: Bill Harley is a storyteller, songwriter, author and beekeeper in Seekonk, Massachusetts Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.