Doebel is a biology professor at George Washington University. He is in charge of the school’s bee lab, which recently added several hives that produce honey for the Founding Farmers restaurant. Do bees have any personality?
Yes, they do! And I do not have the latest wisdom on them, but there are some bees that feel you intruded [on them] and once you’re done with the work, they can follow you for hundreds of feet, still buzzing around. Others, you can just have crawl on your fingers and watch them, and they are truly docile and happy and don’t show any of that stuff.
What’s the best part of beekeeping?
Being up there with the hives, opening the hive and all of a sudden, that rush we always have in our lives comes to a crawl, because you really move so slowly not to squish a bee, because that could cause an alarm. I call that my yoga up there. You have to be really focused, and you don’t even think about anything else anymore, and I like that a lot.
Do people ever get stung?
Well, maybe the little bit of a show-off professor gets stung once in a while, because I do not always put on my suit. I do not allow my students to do the same, but as you can imagine, people are just a little bit leery about coming close to the beehive because everyone is kind of afraid of bees. … I’m very careful and open the hive, take out a frame with honeycomb, and I am there with my T-shirt and my shorts and don’t have any other protection. I’m pretty lucky most of the time — most of the time, but not always.
What’s the most time you’ve ever gotten stung doing that?
Three times in a row; one was right above my eye on the eyebrow. I started with an open eye and ended with an almost-closed eye.
Betsy Woodruff
