I pulled up to the St. Petersburg retirement community in mid-February and told the guard on duty I was there to see a woman about some bees.
Oh, the bees. Follow the roundabout, she said.
I was working on a story about Florida’s bees. A tip from a resident worried about pollinators and their food sources after the freezes this winter had turned into a multi-week journalistic endeavor.
Beekeepers told me their greatest plights were habitat loss and hurricane woes, not so much freezes. And it wasn’t just honeybees that were struggling; Florida’s native bees were also in trouble.
My editor enthusiastically agreed that there was more work to be done.
So that was how I found myself tucked inside a bee suit.
Stephanie Ramthun, owner of Tampa Bees, allowed me and photographer Douglas R. Clifford, (also suited up), to follow her as she checked on one of her honeybee hives.
I was nervous. I’d never been stung by a bee before. A tiny voice in the back of my head said, “What if I was allergic?”
I did a little Googling before I left. It seemed that if I was stung, and I was allergic, there would be enough time for an ambulance to come before I went into anaphylactic shock.
Comforting.
So with that, I went forth toward the hive.
The bee suit covered me from head to toe in cottony material. My face was the only area that was vulnerable. The suit’s head cover is partially mesh, and doesn’t have enough layers to stop a bee sting. Keep your head back, away from the mesh, Ramthun told me.
Don’t have to tell me twice.
Ramthun pulled the top off the wooden beehive nestled near a garden in the community.
The bees were instantly irritated. Their angry buzzing sounded like zooming racecars. They landed on me, on Doug, on everyone.
Ramthun and her fellow beekeeper, Drake Elting, were busy inspecting frame after frame to check on the health of the bees.
And while the sheer number of bees was overwhelming at first, it’s easy to fall into absolute wonder of the little creatures. They had built an entire community inside a few boxes.
I did what I was there to do: observe. Taking in the smell of the woodsy smoker used to calm the bees. Of the queen, with her elongated and deep amber body, ambling around one frame. Of a baby hatching on another frame.
After Ramthun was satisfied, she and Elting put the wooden hive back together, steering straggling bees back into a small circular opening.
We all made it out, not a sting among us.
Ramthun was off to check on more of her St. Petersburg hive. And I was off to find more people who’d chat about bees.
For more on how my reporting on bees is panned out, read the story. I gathered together a few other stories, like surprising facts about native bees, and how to attract the pollinators to your yard.
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Editors note: A version of this story previously ran in the Tampa Bay Times’ Rundown newsletter. To sign up for the Rundown and other Times newsletters, go here.