She’s got hives to keep her busy
By LINDA M. LINONIS
HUBBARD

Mary Brashen, a beekeeper for some 30 years, stands near one of her five bee hives at her home in Hubbard Township. Brashen, who puts the tag of "Merry Bee" on her jars of honey, recently was called to Hubbard Area Library to collect a swarm. .

Brashen uses a smoker to keep bees at bay as she inspects a frame filled with honey. Her beekeeping outfit is a white jumpsuit that zips because buttonholes would allow wayward bees in. .
For Mary Brashen, the buzzword is bees — honeybees, to be exact.
The 80-year-old Trumbull County resident has been keeping bees for some 30 years.
Brashen has had other hobbies, such as calligraphy and tole painting, but something about beekeeping intrigued her. Brashen first asked a neighbor who was a beekeeper about the hobby. He didn’t offer much help. “I think he thought since I was a woman, I wouldn’t pursue it,” she said.
That was years ago when she was working the night shift as a licensed practical nurse at Trumbull Memorial Hospital. One night, she happened to see information on adult-enrichment classes. She made a beeline to the beekeeping class. “It was exactly what I wanted,” she said of the learning experience.
“I put two hives together,” Brashen recalled about the prefab housing for bees. Using her artistic skills, she painted one white with yellow daisies and the other barn red with white daisies. “I had two beautiful hives.” But no bees.
The bees came after Brashen listened to a radio call-in program, and someone asked for help with a swarm.
Though she didn’t con-nect with that person, she called the station and broadcast her phone number. With the help of her beekeeping neighbor, she ended up collecting two swarms. “He became my teacher,” she said.
At one time, she had 30 hives; now she has five. Colony-collapse disorder has affected her hives like so many others. The problem hasn’t been pinpointed, but Brashen said she thinks it’s a combination of insecticides and diseases.
She has one hive behind the garage at her home, another near a shed and others in a nearby family-owned field.
“I have to walk to the hives ... up the hill, but exercise is a benefit,” Brashen said. A nearby swing provides a nice vantage point to watch the bees come and go.
Brashen gained her knowledge about the care of bees from books, practical experience and as a member of Trumbull County Beekeepers Association.
“First you need to learn about bees,” Brashen said. “Dress safely and just be careful.”
Brashen said understanding bee culture is imperative. “There’s one queen in the hive, and she’s in the brood chamber,” Brashen said. That part, located at the bottom part of the hive, is where the queen lays eggs. Week-old bees are the nurse bees, tending to newborn bees in this chamber.
For a month, they are house bees, part of the construction crew in the hive. “They have chores like cleaning empty cells, providing air-conditioning by flapping their wings to make sure the temperature stays at 92 degrees and standing guard at the hive door,” Brashen said. Their last job is as field bees, gathering nectar and pollen to make honey. Worker bees are all female and live two to three months; the queen lives about five years.
The term “busy as a bee” aptly describes their work-filled lives, she said.
Each level of the hive is called a super, where Brashen puts in frames that form a foundation for the bees to build honeycombs. That’s where the honey is.
Brashen has explained beekeeping in many presentations at schools, youth groups and Hubbard Public Library. Recently, police called her to the library, where a swarm of bees covered a curb.
Swarms occur when an older queen bee is replaced by a younger one, and the older bee, accompanied by half the bees from the hive, leaves the nest to start another colony.
“I had a swarm box ... a bee RV ... and I got them all in it. It took an hour,” she said. At her house, she made them feel at home by feeding them sugar water.