JOHN HARVEY

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THE BEEHIVE

When we would be at the La Bonita Ranch, sometime my Grandfather had to build fences near the Nueces River. We would be about 15 miles from the ranch house and 15 miles to the nearest town, Artesia Wells. After the camp was set up, my Grandfather would say, “Let’s go and see if there are any bees”. We’d walk along the river bank lined with big trees, about three feet in diameter. And he’d look around. He could tell, he’d say, “I think up in that tree there’s some bees.” So he’d say to one of the slim guys, like Mexicano, “Do you want to climb up the tree and see if there are bees?” So he’d go climb up and look and he’d call down, “Oh yeah, there’s a big honeycomb like two feet across, big, full of honey, full of bees, never been disturbed.

My Grandfather said, “Okay, let’ build a little fire down here. What way is the wind going, okay, let’s build it over here.” The wind carries the smoke up there and then the bees fly out, they don’t like the smoke. He’d light up the fire and then put on green wood, it would smoke more. The smoke would be going up and you’d see the bees flying around getting away from the smoke. He’d say, “Okay, I think they’re probably gone by now. They’d put a big tub down underneath the tree.

Mexicano would put on gloves and a hat. He’d climb up and he’d say, “Yeah the bees are gone.” He’d put his hand in there without the glove and he’d pull out a big chunk of honey comb and he’d drop it down from the tree into the tub. He’d be way up there as high as a telephone pole, maybe 20 – 25 feet high. And the river would be flowing by. We’d keep the smoke going so the bees wouldn’t come back. They’d be flying around the area there but they wouldn’t come back because of the smoke. He’d drop down piece after piece until he would get most of the honeycomb. The big tub would be halfway full of honeycomb and honey. Then he’d come down, we’d put the tub in the back of the pickup truck. We’d put out the fire. The bees would come back and say, hey, where’s the honeycomb, what happened.

I never saw anybody get stung by the bees. I saw them do that 4 or 5 times. Then we’d drive over to where we had camped out. They would squeeze the honey comb and squeeze the honey out of it and fill up jars. Then it would just leave the beeswax. I would take the beeswax and chew it. They would fill up lots of jars. Each guy had their own jar of honey. So when they got home in Encinal, they’d take their jar of honey from bees over on the Nueces River. That was real nice.

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THE BEEHIVE