I've Created a Monster

It always starts small and innocent doesn't it?

Dad would help out here and there, picking up heavy supers and holding frames as I pulled them from the hives. Then he started working on the second hive. Eventually he announced that he too was a beekeeper and my partner for our honey business.

Next thing I knew the second hive became "his" hive.

But that was just the tip of the iceberg...

"What are we going to call the company", he asked. "We need a company name for when we sell the honey."

"I've already registered the hives under my business name," I said, "before you came on board."

"We need a label then for our jars too."

"I know and I will make one."

"We need a label now."

"I will make one but in the fall when I have more time. For now if we have extra honey we'll sell only to family and friends."

That seemed to placate him.

Then we extracted honey from my hive. Dad declared that he was going to keep all the honey from "his" hive.

"You're not going to share it with me?" I asked.

Long pause.

"You have your own hive," he said.

But when we finished extracting 30 lbs of honey from my hive Dad looked at that pail filled with the fragrant amber liquid and asked, "Could I have some?"

"But you said you were keeping all your honey for yourself. That means this is my honey."

He'd caught himself on that one. Decision time. "His" or "Ours". He opted to call all the honey ours and he got his jar filled to take home.

Then I informed Dad that the honey from both hives would be blended once we started extracting the supers from his hive.

"Would that be okay?" I asked.

Long pause.

"I guess so."

We ended up with 103 lbs of honey from the two hives (3 1/2 medium supers) and we were tired.

The honey is delicious. I'm glad the bees didn't mind sharing. We didn't get a single sting or act of aggression while we took the supers.

"We have lots of honey to sell," Dad said.

I sat there feeling like Croesus with all his precious gold. I was appreciating all the hard work the bees had done. I didn't want to part with the honey. Not just yet. "I don't think there's enough to sell. We can eat all this honey."

"Oh no, this is more than we can eat. We just need a label for our jars."

Yes, I've created a monster.