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Photo by Matthew Silfer
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Horry Electric Cooperative member Jerry Dickinson enjoys beekeeping at his home in Conway.
Photo by Matthew Silfer
When Jerry Dickinson moved to Conway about five years ago, he set about recreating the little garden he had enjoyed in his New Jersey backyard and noticed something strange.
“There were no bees around,” says Dickinson, 70, a member of Horry Electric Cooperative. “And I started asking questions.”
Dickinson’s questions took him to the S.C. Cooperative Extension, where he learned his area didn’t have an active beekeeping association. Today, Dickinson is the outgoing president of Blackwater Beekeepers Association, which he ran for more than three years.
Dickinson keeps eight hives and sells honey at festivals, though he and his wife, Marie, make sure to stash a few jars away for themselves.
This time of year, Dickinson knows to watch for the tiny blooms of the red maple, the bees’ first wild food of spring.
“That [makes] a fairly light honey. Then the flowers start to bloom,” he says. “I can sit by my hives and watch bees going in and out. You can see them bringing back pollen. If they’re moving fast, you know there is nectar flowing.”
The honey is great, but it’s having a front-row seat to the life of a colony that keeps Dickinson hooked on his hobby.
“It’s just fascinating,” he says. “If you’re gentle enough when you’re going to a hive, the bees will just keep on doing what they normally do. You can watch them on the frames, feeding the young larvae. The queen is laying eggs. There’s always something to learn.”
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