During a recent scorching evening, Peter Norman and I slipped into his downtown Baltimore backyard to watch his bees work.
Like many residents of Baltimore, these honeybees were out on their "front porch," the lower part of their hive, where the air is cooler, Norman said.
An estimated 50,000 to 60,000 honeybees reside in the 3-foot-tall hive, a squarish structure, ringed in handsome varnished pine. There is a hierarchy to the hive, he told me. The queen and nursery bees reside on the lower floor, or "brood"; the honey and its foragers can be found in the upper levels.
I was uneasy about standing so close to a boiling bunch of bees. But Norman assured me that if I behaved -- if I did not disturb their hive or get in their flight path -- the bees would not bother me. They had better things to do, such as gathering nectar and pollen, he said.
As my initial wariness dissipated, I became intrigued. Watching bees come and go from the hive was compelling, like sitting in a hotel lobby and watching people ride glass elevators, or watching planes take off and land.
The airport comparison is apt. When I stood a few feet from the hive and looked up, I saw a series of bees taking flight, heading somewhere within a 3-mile radius of the hive. One after the other, they shot toward the sky, each following a spiral pattern. An air-traffic controller would have been proud of them.
Norman, a nurse practitioner at the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in downtown Baltimore, said he keeps a hive in his backyard, not so much for the honey, as for pleasure.
"Bees are so cool," he said, ticking off a list of their attributes. Those included an intricate social organization, a great work ethic and an admirable attitude. "Bees do nothing that is not for the good of their community," he said.
Norman is one of the estimated 900 amateur beekeepers, or "hobbyists," in the state. He began caring for honeybees four years ago after taking a class at the Oregon Ridge Nature Center taught by Jerry Fischer, the state's apiarist. As a courtesy, Norman told his Bolton Hill neighbors of his plan before putting a hive in his backyard, which is enclosed by high brick walls.
While he was not certain how Baltimore's new Health Department regulations on exotic pets might affect his backyard hive, he said he and his bees have lived in harmony for years with his rowhouse neighbors.
