wood bee pins — Beekeeping How to

These 1/2 inch wood bees are perfect to pin new beekeepers. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

Beekeeper Bee Pins

Have you ever wondered when someone becomes a beekeeper? I have. Enough so that in our bee club one doesn’t get to call themselves a beekeeper until they have successfully helped at least one bee colony through winter.

There are people who “have” bees; the beekeeping community even refers to them as ‘‘bee havers,” people who for whatever reason get bees and then get sidetracked.

To be a bee “keeper,” you are learning a new language, quickly becoming an amateur biologist and trying to merge yourself into the world of bees. One doesn’t dictate to bees; to be a successful beekeeper, one learns to take cues from our bees. And it’s a continuous learning process. No two years of beekeeping are the same.

During the 2020 COVID quarantine, the one thing we heard repeatedly from club members was that they had successfully helped their bees through winter and were wondering when they would get “pinned.” Not knowing what the pandemic future would bring, we mailed the bee pins that year. The one Kathy Krupp is wearing on the left side of her shirt is on an embossed tag so that it didn’t get damaged in the shipment. Some people choose to wear them together, others will just wear the half-inch painted wooden bee pin alone. Regardless, it’s fun to watch people looking at shirt collars at club meetings to see who has a pin.

New “beekeeper” Kathy Krupp now coaching other potential new beekeepers. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

The wooden bees themselves are shipped already painted. I add glued tie tacks to keep them secure. To make them more friendly-looking, I will also spend a few minutes painting in eyes, sometimes looking in various different directions.