You have got to let bees be bees.
That’s the philosophy of beekeeper Daniel Sullivan, who has just brought his life’s passion to the Snoqualmie Valley, with four hives in Snoqualmie.
“If I could put beehives everywhere, I would,” said Sullivan, a banquet manager for a hotel in Seattle who is entering his second year as a beekeeper.
Each hive carries about 30,000 bees, for now.
“I can tell you how many there are because these are new hives,” Sullivan said.
Come summer, the bee eggs will hatch to the tune of 2,000 new bees a day.
By October, the bees will have produced hundreds of pounds of honey, Sullivan predicted. He built his own hives and bought his own bees.
“These are the Salish Lodge of honey hives,” said John Murphy, general manager of Salish Lodge and Spa. “These are really cool.”
Murphy said the business would use the honey in its restaurant, in its spa, in its baked goods and also sell it by the bottle. The lodge also wants to make beer out of it, he said.
“It’s all about the experience,” Murphy said. “We want to enhance the experience of our guests coming here.”
Murphy said he toyed for a year with the idea of making honey. Greg Roper, the spa’s director of sales, knew of Sullivan and made the connection.
A cool spring like this year’s is not the best for honey-making, Sullivan said.
Still, Sullivan and Murphy remain optimistic that come June the sun will shine and his “girls” — as Sullivan calls his bees — will spring into action.
“These are really amazing creatures,” said Sullivan, a self-described “sucker” for honeybees. “Thirty percent of what we eat every day has to be pollinated by honeybees. If we lose the honeybees, we’re in deep water.”
The beehives are in a fenced, locked area near the spa, located so sunrise hits the hives directly.
Since they sit in Snoqualmie, odds are something else will hit the beehives sooner or later, he said.
“I don’t know to what extent, but that’s actually silly, because there’s no ‘to what extent’ when it comes to a bear,” Sullivan said.
Bees get a bad rap, he said.
He said it can be a bit unnerving to open a hive and see thousands of angry insects fly at once, but it’s just part of being a beekeeper.
“I try to be as nonintrusive as I can with the honeybees,” he said. “All I do is manage the space as effectively as I can for them, and then I just get out.
“When I open the lid and start poking in there,” he added, “I imagine someone opening the lid up on us and poking around our couch. ‘What are you doing with my TV?’”
Sebastian Moraga: 392-6434, ext. 221, or [email protected].
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