PUYALLUP, Wash. — When Joseph Bowers found a hive of hundreds of thousands of bees on the side of the house he was renovating, he had a choice. Well, two choices. The first was whether or not to run, as his mother had been allergic to bees. The second was whether to get rid of them the easy way or what he considered the right way.
“A couple of people were like, ‘Why don’t you exterminate them?’” Bowers said, “I did a deep dive and started the slippery slope of Google and started researching how important they are to the ecosystem and how they affect your day-to-day life.”
From pollinating fruits and vegetables—the hay, grass, and alfalfa that feed livestock—to the plants that make our clothes, he learned their importance and the critical point the honey bee population is currently at across the nation and the globe.
“Such a small creature has such a big impact, so I decided to make sure that we do the right thing,” Bowers said.
The right thing meant calling Michael Pernorio III of Pernorio Enterprises. One of the several hats Pernorio wears is beekeeper and contractor, giving him the unique skill to remove the hives that lie under the roof and above the walls of the home that was built in 1938.
“I’m able to legally and ethically pull apart a house and then put it back together,” Pernorio says.
This hive was as established as they get, Pernorio said. The whole journey began last year. At that time, Pernorio pulled five boxes of bees, each containing up to 80,000 bees each from the home.
This one is probably the biggest one I’ve worked on." Pernorio said. " I was filling box after box."
Last week, Bowers called him again. The bees were back, this time in the tens of thousands. Pernorio jumped into action.
“Once I opened all [the roof] up, and got all the comb out, got the queen in the box, they then pick up her pheromones and are like, ‘Hey! Our queen’s not in there, but she’s in there.”
Pernorio estimates that at least 300,000 bees were pulled from the home in the two jobs, now living and creating honey on his farm.
For Bowers, he says removing the bees was a $10,000 job versus the $1,500 he expected it to cost to exterminate them. “I live my life by integrity. Do the right thing even when it’s hard.” Bowers said.
That mantra is something Bowers has taken from his late football coach at Curtis High School outside of Tacoma, Doug Cowan.
“Men of integrity commit to excellence,” was what Cowan always told his teams, Bowers said. Cowan died in March,
Cowan died in the spring, though Bowers has made sure his lessons live on with the football teams he now coaches. He gives challenge coins to players who go above and beyond and show heart.
“I live my whole adult life by that,” Bowers said of the slogan, “Kids will hear you, but they’ll watch your actions and live by your actions more than your words, so you have to live what you preach.”
The intentionality Bowers showed, Pernorio hopes others take as well, as bees become more active in the warmer months. He says, there’s nothing to fear with honey bees, just be and let bee. And give your local beekeeper a call when you need a hand.
“When they’re in a swarm, they’re looking for a home. These guys here had already found a home, we just needed to move ‘em.”
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