Let the mystery bee ~ September 21, 1995

David Heiller

Last Saturday I went out to my one bee hive to take their honey. I started the year out with three hives, but two of them died in a cold spell in late April. That was a sign of things to come.

Before I went to the honey bees last week, I made a side trip to a nest of yellow jackets. I discovered them when I was moving an old brush pile about a month ago. They came bub­bling out of the ground so fast I literally ran away.

Bees are a lot of work, especially in a bad year.

But with my bee suit on and a spade in hand, I dug them up on Saturday morning without a sting. I found their eggs and squished them between my fingers, and found the queen and squished her too, and I hate to admit it but it felt good. We play God all the time. It’s just more noticeable with bees and wasps.

It must be man’s baser nature that if it’s a threat to people, it has a lesser value. Those yellow jackets pollinate flowers and vegetables and apple trees just like the honey bees. They sting just like honeybees too. They just don’t make honey, and I just don’t want to have them around.

This is what those bees were supposed
to do for us, but did not in 1995.

Then I went to the bee hive. It had two boxes on top which I thought would be full of honey, after the wonderful summer we had. But I was disappointed to find that the boxes were almost empty. I ended up with just two frames of honey, when I should have had 15 or 20.

I don’t know why. A friend, Sandy Lourey, Moose Lake, had gathered 30 full frames of honey from her two hives the previous weekend. She extracted nine gallons of honey from them.

When I told Sandy about my situation, she asked how old the queen was. I told her three years. “Too old,” she said. She learned in a class that you shouldn’t even try to raise bees with a three-year-old queen. We both agreed we had to learn how to re-queen a hive. Maybe, someday.

Then I called Lee Anderson, who lives five miles away, to see how his bees had done. Maybe I was looking for bad news in the back of my mind. Misery loves company.

But Lee had mostly good news. The first thing he told me was that his son, Chris, age 16, got first place at the Carlton County Fair for a bee display that he made with a frame full of live bees in a plastic box. He went to the state fair with it and got a blue ribbon there. Lee and his wife, Karen, sounded pretty proud of their son, and rightfully so. Chris belongs to the Happy Hour 4-H Club of Kettle River.

Lee hadn’t extracted his honey yet, but he thinks it’s going to be a good year. When he and Chris were gathering bees for the fair display, they found that the frames were full of honey right out to the edges.

He figures his two hives should each yield 20 to 30 frames, depending on whether he kills them off or not. Killing a hive is a sad occasion, Lee said. He does it only when he needs the ex­tra honey, which he did during two recent rainy summers when the bees didn’t produce much and his supply dwindled. He kills them by vacuuming them up with a Shop Vac, then bury­ing them.

Not only is it sad to kill off a hive of bees that worked hard for themselves, and consequently for you, it can be counter-productive. If a hive makes it through the winter, it is healthier the following spring, and gets a head start on honey production, and therefore gives you more honey, unless the queen gets old. This beekeeping stuff is complicated. It’s a guessing game whether to kill off a bee hive, and a moral dilemma too.

One of Lee’s hives did bomb out, which made me feel better. He had put a new queen into a hive this spring, and she kept walking out. Lee stayed there for two hours, putting her back in the box, watching her come out, and putting her in again. Finally she stayed.

But Lee was suspicious of that queen. When his partner, Erv Prachar of Willow River, came out a month later, they checked that hive and found only 50 bees, when they should have found maybe 20,000.

“They hadn’t made one drop of honey,” Lee said with disgust.

Bees are interesting, even for a lazy beekeeper like me. I’m not serious about bees. I want to check them in the spring, put out a new swarm or two, check on them once or twice in the summer, add a box of frames if they need it, and take the honey in the fall.

It’s an approach that usually works. Usually I get honey like Sandy and Lee, enough to eat for a year or two, enough to give away a few jars to friends. Enough to justify the cost of a new swarm, which is about $35.

But this year the hobby didn’t pay off. It bothers me a little. But life is full of mysteries, and in this case I’ll let the mystery bee.

Some good old fair memories ~ August 18, 2004

David Heiller

It must be about 1963 that my Houston County Fair memories begin.

They are all jumbled together now, and I’m not sure how accurate they are. But a few things stand out that I’d like to share, in the hope that they strike a chord with you.

New blue jeans went hand-in-hand with the fair. The smell of new denim has ever since reminded me of the fair. Of course they were about four inches too long, a concession Mom made to the growth spurt that was sure to come before the jeans wore out.

I tried to roll the legs of the new jeans into a respectable cuff, but they never looked right. They were all wrinkled and bulky. It wasn’t cool, man, and already at age 10 I knew what cool was. Mom would work her magic on them and quickly get the perfect cuffs. Cool cuffs. Wearing those blue jeans was kind of like wearing two stove pipes. The legs were stiff!

We bought our tickets for the fair rides in advance at Bissen’s Tavern. They were a bargain, something like 12 for $2. Mom always gave me a little money too, so I was set.

Oh, the excitement of going to the fair in the big city of Caledonia on a gorgeous August afternoon. My sisters and brother and a couple friends and me, and Mom at the wheel of the blue 1958 Chevrolet. We always had a car full. It’s a good thing those old cars had so much room.

David (middle) and his brothers Glenn and Danny
 overlooking the river.

At the fair we would usually split up, Danny off with his cool friends, and me tagging along if I was lucky. My sisters would promenade around the midway, looking for the likes of Danny Holland and Bruce Dennison and Duane Thomford.

I would usually make the rounds with Mom and my sister, Lynette. It wasn’t a bad thing. Mom was a good companion in the vast fair-grounds. I could wander off here and there, and usually pick her out in the crowd. Her red hair came in handy. She liked the building with fish and wild animals, and I would drag her through the livestock buildings too.

We would go on boring rides like the Merry Go Round, which Lynette could handle. The Tilt-A-Whirl was a must too and the Ferris Wheel if we were lucky.

My brother or sisters would intercept us once in a while, like foraging animals, to check in and get money from Mom and do something with Lynette, who had cerebral palsy and could not use her arms.

I remember once a kid about my age stared at Lynette a little too long. I gave him a quick punch to the stomach when no one was looking. It felt so good! Now I feel a bit guilty about it. He didn’t know any better, and I don’t know if my lesson was the right way to make the point.

David with his dazzling bear, Nicky.

One of the fair booths offered prizes if you could throw a nickel and land it on a dot. One year I brought five nickels and made my tosses. One of them landed dead center on a dot.

The huckster at the booth wasn’t such a huckster after all. He gave us a long look, then told me I could have anything I wanted. I picked the biggest bear that hung from the ceiling. It was white, so white it was almost dazzling.

Lynette was even more excited than I was, so I made the difficult decision to give her the bear. We couldn’t decide what to call it, but Mom came up with the perfect name: Nick.

Nick stayed in the house for many years, although he gradually changed colors. White wasn’t such a good choice after all.

My fair memories have faded, and I’ll probably even be challenged on these.

Now that the Houston County Fair is this week. I hope you can relive a few of your own memories, and that your kids and grandkids can make some of their own.

Vacation is question of sanity ~ August 27, 1987

David Heiller

“I’m going on vacation next week,” I told people last week.

“Where are you going?” they asked.

I braced myself. “Texas.”

“Texas! Why in the world would anyone go to Texas in August?”

Mary Ellen and Emily, one half of the reason
for an August trip to Texas.

“You see, I have a sister there, and my wife is a teacher, so it’s now or never,” I answered with a nervous laugh.

“Oh,” they responded with an uneasy look, and edged away.

I discovered that people do not go to Texas in August. People who have been to Texas know that. It would be like people from Minnesota going to the Canadian wilderness in January to get away from the cold.

Even my sister, who I love dearly (remember, I’m going to Texas in August to see her), seemed a bit surprised to hear we were coming to visit. “What should we bring to wear,” I remember asking her.

There was Texas-sized cousin fun for this trek.

“Don’t worry about any cold weather clothes,” she answered simply. “A cold snap here is eighty degrees.”

That should have sounded warning signals.

I mentioned the vacation to Ed and Gloria Bohaty at the Willow River Mercantile. “Oh, we were in Texas in June to visit our daughter,” Ed said. “It was hot then.” He stopped short of saying the next obvious sentence: “And it’s even hotter now, you idiot.” But I could sense it in his voice.

Once my sanity was firmly established, the next question was, “You’ve flying, huh?”

“No we’re driving,” I answered, steeling myself again.

“Don’t you have a couple kids?” they asked. “How long a trip is it?”

“Yeah, we’ve got two kids, ages four and two,” I replied, “and it’s only a 20 hour trip. They live in the north of Texas, Dallas area.”

It is always good to hang out
with nieces and nephews, even in Texas.

“Well, have a good ‘vacation’,” would be the final reply. The way most people said the word “vacation” made me think they did not consider driving to Texas in August with two kids under the age of five much of a vacation.

Time will tell on that. But as you read this, don’t pity me. Because as I write this my imagination soars. All those wonderful images of Texas. John Wayne fighting to the death at the Alamo. Sure, it was hot and dusty at the Alamo. But what a great day in American history, fighting to defend a fort from land we stole from Mexico. Reminds me of Oliver North.

All that Texas heat and fun and family PLUS Malika got
 a new kitty to "love". 

And Dallas, the bright lights and big city captured on television for the last ten years or so. I’ve only seen the show one time, out of respect for my mother, who had me watch the opening episode last year. Bobby Ewing, whoever he is, was coming back from the dead, and sure enough, he stepped out of the shower, and not a bit emaciated. The viewer was then led to believe that Bobby had not been dead at all, that the previous year’s shows had been a dream. That was the last Dallas episode I watched, and the last for my mother too.

No. I have a feeling we’re enjoying this vacation. Like a true Minnesotan, I’m curious whether Dallas is fact or fancy, whether we can survive the car ride and the weather once we get there.

It’s a Texas-sized challenge.

A misty night on the cobble-stoned streets of Fez ~ August.8,1985

By David Heiller

The night was cool. A heavy mist, just short of a fog, hung in the air. Buildings seemed covered in a light, light gauze. The cobblestone street shined, slippery, reflecting light from shop windows, doorways.

David in Sidi Kacem, Morocco in the Peace Corps

The place was Morocco, the city of Fez, the year 1979. Four Americans walked up the steep street of cobblestone, streets so narrow an American car would barely pass through. But there were no American cars here, not even during the bustling days when horses and drivers would crash through, shouting “red bellick, red bellick!”—“look out, look out!”

Now, on this misty spring night, even the bustling crowds were gone, sitting in their homes, talking, or watching the single channel on Moroccan TV, eating hirara, the soup made from leftovers on Sunday night.

The four Americans had rendezvoused in Fez for some fellowship. Each lived in different parts of the country, in smaller cities. They taught English to Moroccan students. They spoke Arabic, after a fashion. They were glad to be together for a day and a night, glad to eat at a restaurant together, glad to speak English and act American.

A Moroccan street.

The damp Fez night gave them even more freedom. With the near-deserted streets, they could walk without stares, without kids pestering them for money, without shop owners crooking a finger and shouting out special prices, which were three times higher than what Moroccans paid.

The Americans had spent nearly two years now, living in this North African country, up to their eyebrows in Islam and its countless differences from their grass-mowing, Christian childhood. So much of this country baffled the Westerners. As teachers, they were treated with respect, and had ultimate control in the classroom. What the teacher said, happened. If it didn’t, students were booted out, sometimes flung through the door like a barroom brawl. Students knew their one chance at making it was to stay in school, pass their Baccalaureate exam, and get an education. Or join the Army if they failed. Or live below the poverty level crammed into a box in the city, or in a dirt-floored hut in the country.

A Moroccan girl running through the streets.

The poverty level was a relative term to these four Americans, as they wound their way up the narrow, misty streets of Fez. By American standards, they were dirt poor. Each earned $250 a month, teaching with the Peace Corps. Out of that came food, and rent, and everything else. But most Moroccans would have grinned and thanked Allah for a salary of $250 a month. Like the bricklayers who worked in the 110-degree sun for $3 a day. Or the men who rode their donkeys through town selling bottles of water gathered at a local spring, shouting “I-ma h-loo, I-ma h-loo”—“sweet water, sweet water!”

Then there was the bottom rung, the beggars. These four Americans had seen them in all shape and size. Some little kids who sucked the tourists in Fez, Rabat, Casablanca, Marrakech. Some toothless old ladies who had no family, who lived and died on the street, mumbling rough their gums for pennies and nickels, pleading with their eyes more than their words. Some without legs, or arms, some with polio, or disease.

Some who had used cooking oil that had been laced with jet fuel from leftover American supplies, and now had crippled wrists and feet. No lawsuits or government help for those peasants. The king could spend 40 percent of his budget on the military, but nothing for the poor. No welfare here, except for the kindness in the heart of the passerby.

The four Americans knew all this, as they trudged and talked their way up the shiny, misty streets of Fez. They knew it firsthand. They had seen enough beggars.

This little girls family was so poor they could not keep her. She lived with and worked for another family that could feed her. Her name was Haifida.

And they was another, up ahead, on the left. A man sat on the curb of the cobblestone, shrouded by the mist. He was huddled on his haunches, not sitting or kneeling, bit hunched like a baseball catcher. His eyes were downcast. He did not look at the four well-fed Americans as they approached, though he knew they were coming, could hear their shuffle and strange language. He could hear them as they turned their voices low, then off completely. But he did not look up. He looked down, at the baby he clutched to his chest with one arm. The other arm, bent at the elbow, palm up, asked for help. The man said nothing.

The four Americans did not speak either. They did not stop. The misty night again swallowed the man and his child. And the Americans continued on their way.