“If a bee comes close, just turn and walk
away slowly: don’t wave your arms.”
Those were the instructions of beekeeper Cera (pronounced
Sara) Malech of Paradise Valley, Morgan Hill, as she opened a
hive to show me the bees that she is keeping. She’s dressed in
full beekeeping suit with helmet and veil. “I hate to get stung,”
she said.
E
HONEY is light-colored and flavored
in the spring and dark-colored and
flavored in the fall. It all depends on what
flora the bees find to pollinate. Honey
helps relieve some allergy symptoms,
tastes good, and can even be used to
relieve the pain of bee stings.
veryone knows what role bees play in pollination and making
honey. We recognize bees as a model community: thousands of
individuals working together for the good of the hive; they teach
us that working in harmony, we can create wondrous things together.
Cera started keeping bees in 2012 and currently has fifteen hives
throughout South County. She started after her four daughters graduated
college, got married, and left home.
“Keeping bees seemed like a natural thing for me to do,” she said.
“I had allergies and heard that eating local honey could help. I start two
months before allergy season and have a teaspoon of raw honey a day. It
seems to help,” she said, laughing. “But I can’t say what dose is best or
whether it works for others. I grew up in rural San Diego County, back-
yard farms, and life centered around agriculture, 4H, and FFA.
And I earned a degree in Animal Science from Cal Poly.”
There are 16,000 known species of bees, of which seven are honey
bees. Honey bees have been cultivated for millennia, and depictions of
honey taken from a hive date back 15,000 years. Experts estimate that
one-third of the human food supply depends on pollination by insects,
birds, and bats, the majority of which is done by bees.
“I’m the kind of person who likes to just do things and learn on
my own,” she said. “My first hive was a top-bar hive that I built myself
from scrap wood, using plans my nephew sent me. I tried to capture a
swarm to populate the hive, but I didn’t know what I was doing. So, I
shadowed a local beekeeper for quite a while. He taught me about bees
and provided my first swarm.”
Laughing, she added, “Now, I watch a lot of YouTube, of course, read
a lot of books, and listen to podcasts.”
On her own two acres, she has four hives in a grassy field behind the
house. A yellow-billed magpie soars low across the field, over the fenced
garden plot, into the trees along the west side. A doe with her buff-
colored fawn glides through the brush between the trees.
“Bees thrive in urban settings because there’s so much landscaping
—zinnias, borage, rosemary, thyme, sage—but it’s crucial to keep bees
away from commercial farming because of spraying. Two years ago, I
lost half my hives, probably to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)—the
sudden disappearance of bees from a hive with honey still present. The
exact cause is uncertain, though it could be spraying, mites, viruses,
and/or parasites. “We’ve got to stop using Roundup,” she said. “It’s
harming bees, the environment, and people too.”
“I use local, feral bees acclimated to this area. A swarm that I catch
will be much stronger than purchased bees because they have to survive
on their own. For me, it’s kind of a survival of the fittest. I want my
bees to survive whether I check on them or not. I do check on them,
especially in the spring to see how they’re doing and to split the hives;
I visited seven hives today. This has been a very good year.”
I love getting more people excited about beekeeping and helping
them get started. Most of the people interested [are] women; I’m not
sure why.”
GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN
august/september 2019
gmhtoday.com
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