Warm Winter Keeps Hives Busy as Bees

The buzz about the seasonably warm winter apparently includes actual buzzing.

More bees are surviving this season, partly because the warmth has "allowed weak hives to keep living," Norfolk beekeeper Ed Karle said today.

Beekeepers are working on their hives more now than during a typical winter, he said.

"The queens, in a lot of cases, are still continuing to lay," he said.

Karle will be in Sharon on Sunday for the Sharon Friends of Conservation and the Sharon Garden Club's showing of "Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?", at 3:30 p.m. at the .

Admission is free to the event, which includes a question-and-answer session.

The film looks at the loss of 30 to 90 percent of beekeepers' colonies during the fall of 2006, according to the production's website.

"On a pilgrimage around the world, 10,000 years of beekeeping is unveiled, highlighting how our historic and sacred relationship with bees has been lost due to highly mechanized industrial practices," the site says.

Karle said beekeeping's popularity has grown in recent years.

There were 15 people in his bee school class about seven years ago.

About 90 people have signed up for the upcoming six- to eight-week bee school offered at Norfolk County Agricultural High School in Walpole, he said.

The mainstream media promoting awareness of beekeeping has been one factor, Karle said.

Also, there's a "general awareness of what's in our food, and what's going on in our food," he said.