Police chief says bees take sting out of reality

CARL JUNCTION, Mo. -- Pardon the pun, but it's safe to say things are buzzing around the Kitch home.

Bees -- about 100,000 of the yellow-and-black striped stingers -- are currently housed in three hives outside the Carl Junction home of Tommy and Debbie Kitch.

Besides being the police chief of nearby Carterville, Tommy Kitch is an apiarist, or beekeeper. The American Beekeeping Federation in Jesup, Ga., estimates about 125,000 beekeepers nationwide.

The Kitches have three hives now, but expect that number to reach up to 10 this spring.

Tommy Kitch said he was never fond of bees as a child, but got into beekeeping about two years ago to help relax.

"It takes a lot of concentration," he explained. "You don't think about work. You have time to relax, but you have to keep your mind on what you're doing. It takes your mind off reality for a while."

But reality can have quite a sting if you're not careful with bees.

Kitch said he once was pulling a frame, which holds the hexagonal cell structure bees live in, out of a hive. The frame was covered with bees when it slipped out of his fingers and dropped only about a quarter-inch.

He wasn't wearing a helmet or veil to protect his head. He was rewarded by several stings around the face and neck.

Asked what Debbie Kitch's reaction was to her husband's idea of being a beekeeper, Tommy Kitch described the look on her face as one of disbelief.

"She wasn't too thoughtful of the idea initially," he said.

But Debbie Kitch now helps out by attending monthly meetings of the Southwest Missouri Beekeepers Association in place of her husband. The meetings are held at Neosho High School on the first Tuesday night of the month, the same night Tommy Kitch attends the monthly city council meeting in Carterville.

29 quarts from one hive

For the work the Kitches put in, the family is repaid with a sweet by-product: honey.

Honey is simply the nectar and sweet deposits from plants as gathered, modified and stored in a honeycomb by the bees. The most common form is liquid honey, but also comes in a whipped variety that spreads easily. Cut comb honey includes chunks of wax honey comb, which are also edible.

Kitch said the color of honey can range from a light gold, which is sweeter, to dark amber, which has a sharper, fuller flavor.

One of the hives at the Kitch home produced 29 quarts of the sweet stuff.

Kitch says the bees sometimes do not want to part with the honey, but he sees it as payment for the work he puts in to give them a home.

Besides providing them with a place to live, bees at this time of the year are fed sugar syrup as a replacement for the natural nectar in flowers, and medicated against Varroa and tracheal mites, hive beetles and wax moths.

And don't be surprised if someday Kitch ends up putting bees to work for him at the police station.

A crazy idea, you say?

An article Kitch read in a police trade magazine said bees are being trained by scientists with the backing of the Pentagon to detect residues from explosions. The bees are trained to ignore the scent from flowers and focus on other smells, the article said.

And just imagine warning a perpetrator that instead of releasing a drug dog, a swarm of bees would be let loose instead.

"I thought that was weird," he said. "I wouldn't even know how to train a bee to sniff out for bombs and dope. I have no intention of teaching a bee to do anything other than flowers."

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On the Net:

The American Beekeeping Federation: http:ww.abfnet.org