Sweet honey in the ... barn (unfortunately)

This is not exactly a history lesson, but our experience at the museum this week does illustrate an old-fashioned way of obtaining honey --- usually purchased now, processed and neatly bottled.

Our pioneer ancestors kept their eyes open for "honey trees" --- where swarms of our friends the pollinators had taken up residence in hollows and built their storehouses, using nectar gathered from Iowa's broad prairies. Later on, many farmsteads included a hive or two.

Anyhow, we've had bees in our bonnet --- er, the Pioneer Barn --- for about three years now. They took up residence in a void created when the building was reconstructed around a vintage pegged frame and the floors of the mock corn crib and oats bin were raised about a foot above the barn floor. We actually use the crib for stacked chair storage and the bin, to house garden supplies and tools.

Entrance was via an invisible hole at foundation level in the barn's west wall, apparently behind a batten, partly concealed by a big patch of phlox.

For the first two years of occupancy, the bees were good neighbors --- coming and going, fun to watch. But this year, for the first time, they began to emerge into the barn itself. And for a whole range of reasons we just can't have that.

So chief gardener Kay called Ray Dittmer, of Lacona, who at age 78 knows a great deal about bees, and he came down on Tuesday to see what he could do.

The first step was to cut away a section of the bin floor to expose the contents of this makeshift hive.

Once the combs were exposed, Ray used equipment that he'd built (you can find instructions for something similar on the Internet, Ray says) to gently vacuum as many of the bees as he could into a screened box. The box entrance was sealed once that process was complete and the bees were taken home to Lacona to be released into a hive where, hopefully, they'll take up residence and continue to pollinate and produce.

Ray took the "dirty honey" --- old combs --- home with him to feed the bees as they transition from one home to another. The new honey went to a good home in Chariton. He'll be back this morning to finish up the project and collect the stragglers.

No one got stung (honey bees are docile critters unless severely provoked). Ray was properly dressed, of course; the three or four of us standing around watching never felt threatened.

We're going to miss our bees --- and I know they're going to miss the big bed of lavender near the barn that they've been frequenting during the last few days. But sometimes nature and what passes for civilization collide and the best you can do is to deal with it, doing as little harm as possible.