Hi my name is Axel. I'm a high school biology teacher and got into beekeeping back in 1975 when my father retired and was looking for a hobby to take the place of his work. He was a pattern maker from the old country and had changed to cabinet making when we immigrated to Canada. A friend introduced him to beekeeping and he looked at the hive equipment and said, "It's all wood. I can build all this." I was in university at the time getting my biology degree and when he asked me if I would like to get into beekeeping with him, the answer was obvious. So I kept bees with him and then also for myself for about 20 years. But then I moved to Vancouver when I got married and could not keep bees in the city at the townhouse complex where we lived.
I still love bees of course, and anytime I teach the insect section of my courses, my students get lots of "free" bee stories in addition to the regular curriculum. One day a student asked, "Why don't we have bees at the school?" I said, "I don't know if we can, but I'll ask." So I put a presentation together and made the case to our board of school trustees. Times have changed, fortunately, and every politician wants to be "green" these days, so they all voted for the idea. I now have an apiary of 4 hives on the school roof and I'm happier than............a bee with honey
