You know, six months ago if someone told me I’d be suited up in a white beekeeping outfit on my roof at seven in the morning, I would’ve thought they were crazy. But there I was last Tuesday, checking on my two hives while my neighbor Mrs. Patterson watched from her kitchen window, probably wondering if grief had finally made me lose my mind completely.
It started because of my granddaughter Emma, honestly. She’s the one who got me thinking about all this environmental stuff in the first place. Last spring she came over after school and found me throwing away another bag of wilted lettuce and moldy strawberries – I still buy groceries like I’m feeding two people even though it’s just me now. She didn’t say anything judgmental, just mentioned this project they were doing about pollinators and how bee populations are collapsing everywhere.
“Grandma, did you know that without bees we wouldn’t have most of our food?” she asked while I scraped fuzzy raspberries into the trash. “Like, a third of everything we eat depends on them for pollination.”
I didn’t know that, actually. Growing up in Worcester, bees were just something that buzzed around my mother’s flower garden, nothing I thought much about. But Emma had all these statistics about how bee colonies have been dying off, something called colony collapse disorder, and how it’s threatening the whole food system. Made me realize I’d been taking these little creatures for granted my entire life.
So I started reading about it online – took me forever because I’m still not great with the computer, but I’m stubborn when I want to learn something. Turns out the situation is pretty dire. Pesticides, habitat loss, climate change, disease – bees are getting hit from all directions. And here I was complaining about the few bees that visited my backyard tomatoes, shooing them away like they were pests instead of realizing they were helping my plants produce fruit.
The more I learned, the more I felt like I needed to do something. At my age, I can’t exactly join Greenpeace or chain myself to trees, but maybe I could help bees in some small way. Started looking into urban beekeeping, which I had no idea was even a thing. Figured it was something only farmers did out in the countryside.
Boy, was I wrong about that. There are beekeepers all over Boston – rooftops in Back Bay, community gardens in Roxbury, even some office buildings downtown have hives. The city actually encourages it as long as you follow the rules and register with the health department. Who knew?
My first beekeeping workshop was at the community center on a rainy Saturday morning. I expected to be the oldest person there by twenty years, but actually there were folks my age and older, plus young families, college students, even a few teenagers. The instructor was this woman named Janet who’s been keeping bees in Somerville for fifteen years, started with one hive and now has six.
Janet explained that urban bees actually do pretty well because cities have diverse flowering plants blooming at different times – street trees, parks, gardens, even weeds provide nectar and pollen. Plus there are fewer pesticides than in agricultural areas. Made sense when I thought about it. My neighborhood has plenty of flowering trees, people’s flower gardens, the park two blocks away. Probably more variety than bees would find in a monoculture farm.
The workshop covered the basics – bee biology, hive management, seasonal care, safety procedures. I took notes like I was back in high school, filled up half a notebook. Found out that honeybees are actually pretty gentle creatures, not aggressive unless they’re defending their hive from a real threat. The bees you see visiting flowers are worker bees collecting food, and they’re too focused on their job to bother with humans.
Janet brought in frames from her hives to show us what the inside looks like – thousands of hexagonal wax cells where bees store honey and raise babies, absolutely perfect geometric patterns. “They’re better architects than humans,” she said, and she wasn’t exaggerating. The precision is incredible, like nature’s own engineering marvel.
I signed up for the mentorship program, got paired with an experienced beekeeper named David who lives in Cambridge. He’s been doing this for eight years, started because his wife wanted local honey for her tea and now he’s got hives all over the city. David came over to look at my roof and help me figure out if it would work for beekeeping.
Turns out my roof is actually ideal. Gets morning sun but has afternoon shade from the big maple tree in the backyard. Protected from strong winds by the house next door. Good access for me to get up there safely – though David did make me promise to always tell someone when I’m going up to work with the bees, which seemed like sensible advice for a woman my age living alone.
We ordered two hive boxes from a supplier in western Massachusetts, along with all the equipment – smoker, hive tool, protective suit, gloves. When the boxes arrived, I felt like a kid at Christmas. David helped me set everything up, made sure the hives were level and positioned correctly. The bee suits make you look like an astronaut, but they’re necessary. I’ve only been stung twice so far, both times because I was careless.
The bees themselves came from a local supplier who raises queens and establishes new colonies. David and I picked them up on a warm April morning – thousands of bees in screened boxes, buzzing like tiny engines. Honestly, driving home with two boxes of bees in my backseat was terrifying and exciting at the same time.
Installing the bees into their new homes was like magic. David showed me how to gently pour them into the hive boxes, how to place the queen cage so the worker bees could release her after a few days. Within minutes they were exploring their new space, some flying out to scout for flowers, others starting to organize the interior. Amazing how quickly they get to work.
The learning curve was steep, I won’t lie. Had to figure out when to add more boxes as the colony grew, how to inspect frames without disturbing the bees too much, what to look for to make sure the queen was healthy and laying eggs. Made plenty of mistakes those first few months. Once I accidentally left a frame out too long and came back to find it covered with hundreds of confused bees. Another time I forgot to light the smoker properly and had to retreat when the bees got agitated.
But David was patient, answered all my questions, even came over a few times when I panicked about something. The local beekeeping association meets monthly, and I started attending those meetings too. Learned from other people’s experiences, shared my own trials and errors. It’s a supportive community, people genuinely want to help each other succeed.
By midsummer, both hives were thriving. I could sit on my back steps in the evening and watch bees coming and going, their legs heavy with bright yellow and orange pollen. Started paying attention to which flowers they preferred – they love my neighbor’s linden tree when it blooms, go crazy for the clover in the park, spend lots of time on the wild asters that grow along the fence.
The impact on my garden was immediate and obvious. My tomatoes produced more fruit than I knew what to do with. The cucumber vines went crazy, the pepper plants were loaded. I’d always had decent luck with vegetables, but this was different. Having active pollinators right overhead made everything more productive.
My neighbors were curious at first, some concerned about safety. Mrs. Patterson worried about her grandkids getting stung when they visit. I invited her over to watch me do a hive inspection, let her see how calm the bees are when you work with them properly. Now she asks me about them regularly, even brought me some flowers from her garden because she heard bees like variety.
The Kowalskis across the street started planting more flowering plants after I explained how urban gardens support bee populations. Their teenage son did his science fair project on pollination, interviewed me about urban beekeeping. Small ripple effects, but they add up.
I harvested my first honey in September – just a few frames because I wanted to leave plenty for the bees to get through winter, but still ended up with nearly thirty pounds. The taste was incredible, complex and floral, nothing like store-bought honey. I could taste the linden trees, the wildflowers, the neighborhood gardens. Liquid sunshine with the flavor of my own block.
Gave jars to neighbors, my daughter, Emma’s family. Everyone said it was the best honey they’d ever tasted. Started me thinking about the industrial food system, how we’ve lost connection with where our food comes from. This honey came from my roof, made by bees I take care of, from flowers I can see from my windows. You can’t get more local than that.
The environmental benefits go way beyond my garden though. Those two hives contain about 60,000 bees during peak season, and each bee visits hundreds of flowers per day. That’s millions of pollination events happening because I decided to become a beekeeper. Every fruit tree, vegetable garden, and wildflower patch in a three-mile radius benefits from their work.
Plus, urban beekeeping helps counter the decline in overall bee populations. My colonies produce new bees, some of which will form new colonies or strengthen existing wild populations. It’s like making a small deposit in the account of biodiversity, trying to pay back some of the debt my generation accumulated through decades of pesticide use and habitat destruction.
Winter beekeeping is mostly about leaving them alone and hoping they survive. I wrapped the hives in insulation, made sure they had enough stored honey, reduced the entrance size to help them maintain temperature. Spent anxious months checking for signs of activity on warm days, listening for the hum that means the colony is still alive.
Both hives made it through, thank goodness. Spring inspection showed healthy populations, new eggs, stored pollen. The relief was enormous – I’d gotten emotionally attached to these bees, worried about them like pets. Silly maybe, but when you’re responsible for thousands of living creatures, you feel the weight of that responsibility.
This spring I’m expanding to four hives, splitting the strong colonies to prevent swarming and increase my bee population. David is helping me with the process, though I’m much more confident now than I was as a beginner. Planning to harvest more honey this year, maybe even sell some at the farmer’s market to cover the costs of equipment and supplies.
Emma loves coming over to help with hive inspections. She’s not afraid of the bees at all, asks endless questions about their behavior and life cycle. Makes me happy that she’s learning these skills young, understanding how food production really works instead of taking it for granted like I did for most of my life.
The whole experience has changed how I see my neighborhood, my role in the local ecosystem. I notice flowering plants everywhere now, pay attention to bloom times, think about how to support pollinators through the growing season. Plant flowers specifically for the bees, avoid pesticides completely, encourage neighbors to do the same.
It’s also connected me to this larger community of people working to make cities more sustainable. The beekeeping association does education programs at schools, advocates for pollinator-friendly city policies, supports research on urban agriculture. Small individual actions but part of a bigger movement toward cities that work with nature instead of against it.
At my age, becoming a beekeeper seemed like an unlikely adventure. But it’s given me purpose, connected me to my community, and helps address environmental problems that seemed too big for one person to tackle. Every time I watch my bees heading out to forage or coming home loaded with pollen, I’m reminded that even small actions can make a real difference.
And the honey doesn’t hurt either.
