Many people are afraid of bees but one senior, Joseph Albrecht, is so fearless that he keeps bees as a hobby! For Joseph’s whole life, he has always been fascinated by bees and recently while fishing with his friend, he finally decided to take his interest in bees to the next level and bought himself a beehive. After waiting so long for its arrival, he set up the beehive at his uncle’s farm and now runs a successful colony.

The best moment he has had with the bees is when they finally started to repopulate after two consecutive weeks of not being able to. Joseph says it is one of the most relaxing things he does in his free time.

As said before, a lot of people are afraid of bees, but Joseph shares, “If you don’t mess with the bees, they will not mess with you, and if you do this for a long time, the bees will start to recognize who you are.” Bees are one of the only few creatures in the world that will know who you are by facial recognition. The bees only purpose is to protect their hive as well as their queen. Joseph said, “When the bees arrived at my house, the queen was in a different cage. Therefore they will not harm you because they haven’t started working.” Because of this, he was able to move the bees into his beehive without being stung.

If you try to move the bees out of their hive after they have started working to protect the queen and produce honey, they will get mad and most likely attack you. You are supposed to wear a protective suit when collecting and checking the honey, but Joseph actually says that he is so comfortable that he doesn’t need the suit. He has made sure that they are in a comfortable environment with trees, plants, shade, and sunlight, so the bees do the same for him and don’t attack him.

“Bees are the best pollinator in the world. Because of this, we all need to take care of bees, and by doing that we can save our planet. We can help the bee population by owning a beehive ourselves.” The number of bees has decreased significantly in the last 20 years. About a million bees would pollinate a year, but that number just keeps on decreasing because of the way that we treat our environment.

Part of Joseph’s experience in high school was taking his friends to see the beehive at his uncle’s ranch. He has made a lot of friends by showing his peers his beehive. Joseph will be able to use the honey that the bees produce when they are done using their honey to prepare for winter hibernation. Hibernation for bees means staying in the hive, eating honey, and protecting the queen.

Joseph would like to go to college in Flagstaff, but it is difficult to keep bees in the cold, so that is a complication. Joseph also says that he checks on the bees about once a week, and stays there long enough to make sure that the bees are producing honey, growing the population, and are safe. One time he saw an Africanized beehive near his bees and if he did not destroy it, they would have taken over his beehive and started a new corrupt colony.