Y O U R O T H E R L I F E House Calls for Hives |
|
Photo by Will Kirk |
Clad in a white suit that features a five-point star and
reads SHERIFF/BEEKEEPER, Jef Boeke puts on a mask made of
netting and gets to work. Somewhere near 100,000 members of
the species Apis mellifera — that's European
honeybees — buzz inside and around two hives on the
front patio of his home in north Baltimore. They're the
latest batch of nectar-sucking, honey-making creatures
Boeke has raised in the past 20 years. "When I was an undergrad at Bowdoin College, I wanted to do something related to natural history, but I got excited by the young professors who worked on molecules," says Boeke, 54, a professor of molecular biology and genetics at Johns Hopkins' School of Medicine. Years of being sidetracked ended when, as an assistant professor, he took calls from fire and police departments and private citizens about swarms they'd located. From those swarms began a busy-as-a-you-know-what operation that made 185 pounds of honey last year. "It's a great way to pay off jittery neighbors," says Boeke (pronounced BOO-kah) of the jars of sweet goo worker bees create with the aid of nectar from black locust and London plane trees.
Why the suit of white? "You don't want to wear a black wool
sweater around bees," Boeke (who gets stung five or 10
times a year) says with utter solemnity, "because they'll
think you're a bear." |
The Johns Hopkins Magazine |
901 S. Bond St. | Suite 540 |
Baltimore, MD 21231 Phone 443-287-9900 | Fax 443-287-9898 | E-mail jhmagazine@jhu.edu |