Meet Jeff: Georgetown's Main Bee Man

My name is Jeff and I live amidst the students and retail activity on the West side of Georgetown.  I’ve been called the Bee Guy, The Main Bee Man, and that Georgetown Beekeeper.  Jeff suffices.

What transforms a real estate development executive into a sideline beekeeper?  Certainly the economy played a large role as development opportunities in Washington, DC dried up and the entire sector contracted (coincidently freeing up my time).  But I am also an avid cook, which led me to gardening and the adjuncts that support a vigorous crop.  In my own experience I was having troubles in my home garden getting peppers to fruit and I was directed to the pollinators, or the lack thereof in the District.

So I bought a simple hive, found a supplier of bees, and began my grand experiment.  On my roof.  With nothing more than a fearlessness of bee stings to guide me.   I was more brawn than brains at that point, channeling my inner bee whisperer.

Those early days were neither easy nor sting-free, but they did teach me a bunch about beekeeping, the most important tidbits being that it wasn’t that difficult, it did not require much time, and it was addictive.

Like any good addict I needed to find other similarly focused bee-junkies, but DC was a desert of bee organization so one had to enter the dreary suburbs to find beekeeping support groups.  So in a fit of frustration (probably magnified by a few glasses of wine) I determined to create my own mission-driven organization, DC Honeybees, to address this dearth of urban beekeepers.  We (I) strove to educate the public about the importance of these pollinators to sustainable agriculture, become a PR spokesperson for this misunderstood creature, and propagate more urban bee colonies (to future fellow addicts).

I had a goal of establishing five new hives in the District by spring of 2011.  And while my management radius has expanded, I am happy to say I am responsible for the establishment of 53 new colonies in this area, with 25 in the District alone.

On April 16 I drove to Baltimore to pick up 51 packages of bees that had been freighted up from Georgia the night before, each package contain 13,000 bees.  I then spent the next three days installing all those bees into hives on rooftops, community gardens, organic farms, churchyards and backyards.  Now I mentor these new “beeks” as they learn this fascinating hobby.

Going forward, like sands in the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.  I hope you care to join me as I help our new urban beekeepers, as I continue to experiment with and learn from the bees, and frankly, get a real job.

Jeff.