CAPE MAY - Honeybee populations may be shrinking around the world, but that wasn't the case at Victoria Clayton's circa 1866 house, where a bee expert spent much of Thursday removing a huge wax honeycomb and 30,000 of the buzzing creatures from an attic crawl space.
Clayton and her boyfriend, Richard White, with whom she owns the former bed-and-breakfast on Washington Street, noticed an unusually large number of bees in their well-tended flower and herb gardens this spring. They also spied a constant stream headed toward a third-floor laundry vent.
After doing some research - and finding that honeybees are the "good" bees essential to pollinating many of the world's food crops - the couple decided to get help in herding their industrious visitors to a new home.
Clayton's infestation may be unusual in a global environment where a syndrome known as Colony Collapse Disorder began to worry scientists six years ago. Entomologists estimated that between 50 and 90 percent of the world's feral honeybee population had disappeared. Theories for their demise included the effects of decades of urbanization, pesticides, and parasitic mites.
But almost as soon as the word went out that bees were in trouble, environmentally concerned members of the public responded by becoming beekeeper hobbyists. Many established backyard apiaries, especially in Cape May County, said Tim Schuler, state apiarist for the New Jersey Department of Agriculture.
Thanks to a beekeeping course taught statewide by the Rutgers Cooperative Extension Service and sponsored locally by the Jersey Cape Beekeepers Association, the number of people who propagate bees in the county grew from 20 five years ago to more than 100 now, Schuler said. Statewide about 1,000 individuals belong to the New Jersey Beekeepers Association, double the membership of three years ago.
Clayton and White are not apiarists, but they have a close-up familiarity with the area's fauna.
"This old house just seems to attract wildlife, so it's good that I really love animals," said Clayton, 52, who regularly sees raccoons and possums, as well as hundreds of tiny black birds - known colloquially as "chimney sweeps" - that swarm her house at dusk, then dive-bomb single file down her dormant brick chimney to roost overnight.
What would you do in a situation like this? Would you continually live in a house like this? Would you leave the insects alone? Please use complete sentences and don't forget spell check!
