Excerpt:
I was stung on the eyelid by a nasty yellow jacket as a young child. It was, as you might guess, a very traumatic experience. I remember lots of adults fussing about me and having to take blue medicine by the spoonful and I’ve been terrified ever since.
As a young(er) adult I avoided bees and wasps at all costs, actually nearly breaking my back on a fireplace pit as I stepped away in panic. Bees, as you might guess, wouldn’t be my choice of pet, companion or live-in guest. Or neighbor.
So, how exactly has this librarian become a beekeeper? Or perhaps, the wife of a beekeeper who happens to keep honeybees in OUR yard?
My beekeeping days began as a total skeptic. For one, I figured that my hobbyist husband would give up on his rather strange interest in raising honeybees. Golf, birds, photography, gardening – did he really need another obsession? Secondly, I figured that his wife (me) would never actually OK the idea. However, given time and knowledge, and my insatiable desire to feed my family’s reading needs and support their causes, here we are ... saving the world.
