Perfect Planning

Perfect planning. 

Except it wasn’t planned. 

On the last day of a two-day advanced workshop  on "The Technique of Instrumental Insemination,” taught by bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. UC Davis, bees from one of the hives began to swarm. 

It was perfect for one of Cobey's students, Ventura resident Bill Weinerth, a veteran beekeeper and retired Lutheran minister. He films documentaries, so he was delighted to video-tape the swarm. 

The bees headed for a nearby tree. Cobey, manager of the Laidlaw facility, smoked them to calm them down before shaking the bees loose and into their new home: an awaiting hive.

Weinerth loves working with bees.  “I’ve had bees all my life except for 10 years when I was going to school (master’s of divinity),” he said. 

“When I was 12, and living in Burbank, my neighbor kept bees. I’d look over the fence so much watching what he was doing that he gave me a hive.” 

It's been a bee-loved passion every since.