Overall-clad Wayne
”
Bubba Clause
”
Pitts intermingled with his colony of bustling honeybees before
selecting one, then grasping it gently between thumb and
forefinger.
With his other free hand, Pitts rolled up a pant leg.
Overall-clad Wayne “Bubba Clause” Pitts intermingled with his colony of bustling honeybees before selecting one, then grasping it gently between thumb and forefinger.
With his other free hand, Pitts rolled up a pant leg.
“Bee venom is good for arthritis,” he said, planting the tiny creature on his bare knee.
Agitated from being manhandled, the insect inserted its stinger into the exposed flesh.
Without so much as a flinch or wince, Pitts, who didn’t wear a protective suit but sported a baseball hat with a smiling bee logo, explained he only does this for demonstration purposes.
“Because every time, I have to kill a bee.”
Just an hour with Pitts unlocks a door to the intimate practice of apiarists, or beekeepers.
The owner of Uvas Gold Apiary, Pitts has been president since 1998 of the Gilroy Beekeepers Association that meets twice a month at the Gilroy Grange Hall at 8191 Swanston Lane. He’s also a part-time software tool integrator for Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Sunnyvale, as well as Gilroy’s Christmas parade Santa Clause five years and counting. Before moving near Mt. Madonna Inn on five acres of unincorporated land on Hecker Pass between Gilroy and Watsonville, he lived in Gilroy for 22 years.
His wife is allergic to bee stings, so the one hive on their property visited by 15,000 to 20,000 of the insects is Pitt’s pet project.
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Santa Clara County as it turns out, is home to a buzzing subculture of bee enthusiasts – as many as 500, Pitts estimates. His own hives are sprinkled throughout the region in areas such as Monterey, Palo Alto, Los Altos and the observation exhibit at Gilroy Gardens.
“Your next door neighbor might have bees, and you don’t even know about it,” he said. “That’s how gentle they are.”
Using a tin canister stuffed with pine needles, Pitts pumped puffs of smoke into the air. He explained bees communicate by smell, so smoke inhibits them from releasing their banana-scented alarm pheromone.
As smoke filled their hive, a vibrating hum reverberated from the bees’ dwelling: Three vertically stacked wooden boxes housing rows of removable frames. Here is where the bees tended their brood, created wax and produced honey.
“Go ahead,” said Pitts, carefully sliding a frame out and holding it to the sun.
It sparkled yellow in the morning light as the bees, seemingly undisturbed by the movement, continued their work.
Like cracking the burnt sugar veneer on creme brulee, Pitts instructed everyone to poke a finger through the yellow wax, then taste.
The fresh-off-the-comb flavor was as good as he promised.
Watching the cluster of creatures crawling over and around each other, Pitts compared the narrow slits between each tray, called bee space, to “being on a bus in Hong Kong.”
He said every hive has one queen, whose sole purpose is to eat royal jelly, a nutritious secretion, and lay eggs. The rest of the hierarchy progresses from nurse bees, housekeeping bees, guard bees and foraging bees.
After six weeks, they die.
“There’s the queen,” he said, pointing to a particularly large individual with a swollen abdomen. “It’s full of ovules. She can lay an egg per minute.”
Be it bottling fresh honey for sale, harvesting beeswax for homemade candles, enhancing a garden or pollinating acres of orchards, there are a number of reasons folks such as Pitts from Hollister to Morgan Hill have dipped their fingers in the golden microworld of the honeybee.
Apiculture seems like a niche industry, but Peter Van Dyke of Van Dyke Farms in Gilroy pointed out the relationship between apiarists and farmers is crucial.
“They’re pretty important little creatures,” said Van Dyke, who pays to have bees hives implemented in his orchards several times a year. “We have to have the beekeepers come in now. There are hardly any indigenous bees left in California.”
February, Pitts explained, is a big month for pollination apiarists transporting beehives to almond orchards in time for blooming.
Such is the case for farmers like Dan Carroll, an almond grower and proprietor of Bonnie Bee Farms in Morgan Hill. Carroll owns 700 hives and rents to local cherry and almond growers.
“We’re like cattle wrestlers,” he joked. “We work at night time. The bees go to bed, then we pick them up and move them to a new location.”
Macon Sammons of Garbis Apiaries in Gilroy has hive yards in Hollister and Aromas. He agreed burning the midnight oil is the best way to transport bees, calling it a “sneak attack.”
Like Pitts and Carroll, Sammons reflected there’s something poetically organic about the work of an apiarist.
“Financially it’s rewarding, but it’s rewarding to me,” he said. “Watching the bees … and enjoying the honey afterward.”
Paula Joiner, a 55-year-old grandmother and avid gardener, is a docent at the Gilroy Gardens bee exhibit. She began keeping her own hives a year ago and sings praises of raw honey and its homespun goodness. She said a spoonful of unheated honey – not sugar – is medicinal magic packed with antibacterial properties and healthy enzymes.
“It’s actually really interesting if you research the medicinal qualities of honey,” she said. “A teaspoon of honey with lemon and fresh ginger root – it just knocks the cold out in a day or two. It’s unbelievable.”
She asserted the stigmas surrounded bees are largely undeserved.
“People get stung by wasps, and they correlate the honeybee with a wasp,” she said, maintaining bees are nonaggressive unless their hive is being tinkered with.
Lowering his hand to where one of the insects was crawling, Pitts, who said he’s now immune to the stings, coaxed a wandering bee onto his thumb.
“C’mere girl … c’mere!”
True to the light in which Pitts and Joiner had painted them, the bees appeared to be docile, purposeful creatures.
Pitts held his hand at eye level.
“See how she’s sticking out her tongue? She’s licking the honey off my finger.”
