All About Bees

Tommy Bailey, a member of the Beekeepers’ Club of Gwinnett County, talked to the Rotary Club of Lawrenceville at their June 24 noon meeting.  He introduced himself as a Lawrenceville native whose father had honeybees.  He has 75-100 boxes of bees located over an area from Dacula to Jackson County with 40,000-50,000 bees in each box. He joined with others who shared his interest in beekeeping to form the Beekeepers’ Club, which has 215 members on roll and meets monthly at Hebron Baptist Church. According to him, beekeeping connects people to the rural roots of Gwinnett County, enables families to share a hobby or activity, and provides a fascinating look at the complex and ordered life of bees, in which he sees God’s hand.  He talked about the difficulties for the few native bees to survive in our urban areas.  There are several ways to create a beekeeping business:  sell the honey (his is available at Brownlee’s Feed Store), sell the bees, or raise queens to sell.  Fielding questions from the audience, he described the life cycle of the bee, the care in feeding them, the threat from African bees, and the certainty of getting stung.