by Betsy Pinnink
from the October 2011 issue of Medford Leas Life
It’s hard to tell who’s been busier this summer, the honeybees on our Medford campus or Corey Melissas, the beekeeper. Because our worker bees have been out foraging all day, there’s little activity around our hives until evening, when many of them congregate around the entrances.
Finding Corey has become more difficult, because she is actively tending her six beehives, five of them some distance from her home in Cherry Hill. Two of these are here in Beaver Meadow. Corey brought us the first one in April this year (see Medford Leas Life of June 2011) and the second one soon after. She had had to rescue this second one from its site near a meadow when a weed killer was sprayed there before the planting of a corn crop. Both our hives are thriving, says Corey, because “the bees are happy!” And producing honey! Corey has been harvesting the honey regularly and selling it to family and friends.
An “accidental beekeeper,” Corey discovered that Rutgers University was giving a course on beekeeping, and she decided to give it a try. She graduated in October 2008 and is now an active member of the New Jersey Beekeepers Association and listed on their web site. As a result she receives calls from people far and wide who want to find out how to get a hive. She is also listed as a swarm collector, prepared to catch bees that swarm outdoors in the spring because their hive has been disturbed.
As a member of the association, Corey also receives a yearly visit from Tim Schuler, the New Jersey apiary inspector. In August, Tim certified all of Corey’s hives as healthy. A reporter and photographer from the Philadelphia Inquirer accompanied him. The article and a video of the inspection of the Lumberton Campus hive can be reached from the apiary page at mlra.org
Beekeepers build their own hives. The pieces come in three different sizes, the deepest one being the brood chamber. (“Brood” refers to the egg, larva and pupa stages in the life of bees.) Corey orders the pieces for her hives and the frames for the bees from a woman in Cranbury, NJ. She assembles the hives and paints the outsides in bright colors. After that she sends away for a “nuc,” that is, a small working colony, consisting of a queen bee with workers and some brood.
When Corey was looking for good places for her hives, she immediately thought of Medford Leas, where her late father, Mickey Gray, had lived. One hive went to the Lumberton campus of Medford Leas in 2009, and the Medford campus now has two. Two others are at the Mill Creek organic farm. Six hives may not be enough for Corey. She is so enthusiastic about beekeeping that she is thinking of setting up several more.