Paul Mallory

Beekeepers across the Mid-South moved their bee hives an inch this week in the Old English custom of notifying the bees of a death in the family. The Memphis Area Beekeepers Association lost a dear friend, Paul Mallory, a beekeeper for 68 years. Almost every Short Course in Beekeeping held annually by the MABA began with Paul’s tale of following a young beekeeper driving a pickup truck overloaded with bee hives. Paul related that every few minutes, the truck pulled to the side of the road; the driver got out, beat the hives with a stick, and then continued driving. When the truck reached its destination, Paul asked the young man why he was banging on the hives. The explanation was simple: he had a ton of bees to carry in a half-ton pickup truck, so it was necessary to keep half of the bees flying. Paul introduced new beekeepers at the local association’s annual Short Course in Beekeeping with the most understandable explanation of why a person would want to become a beekeeper. After his brief presentation, a few attendees were relieved to understand that handling stinging insects was not for them; others knew exactly why they wanted to learn the art and science of beekeeping.

Once, a swarm of honey bees moved into the MABA’s storage shed and built a huge nest behind a stack of hive equipment. I assisted a group of association members to expose the feral nest, cut out the combs, and band them into two deep hive bodies. However, we could not find the queen. At the end of the lengthy operation, Paul, sitting quietly, suggested that we look into the opposite corner of the room where a number of bees were posed with tails high and wings fanning. There, we found the queen. Paul’s picture and other stories of his significant beekeeping career can be seen at http://peacebeefarm.blogspot.com/2010/02/beekeeping-short-course.html. Flowers celebrating Paul’s life, like today’s groundsel, are seeded on roadsides across the Mid-South.

--Richard

Beekeeping Short Course

The Memphis Area Beekeepers Association held its Forty-Fifth Annual Short Course in Beekeeping today. One hundred thirty-nine people attended the one-day overview into beekeeping. Such programs are being conducted in local beekeeping associations across the country at this time of the year. New beekeepers are planning their hives in advance of colonies of honey bees becoming available in the spring. Interest in beekeeping is widespread. Paul Mallory is shown here as he began his portion of the program by asking, “Why would you want to keep honey bees?” Paul has been keeping bees for 66 years. He began his career as a queen breeder and producer of packaged bees in 1944. Paul was engaged in one of the early efforts to lessen the effect of the spread of Africanized Honey Bee genes as the aggressive bees moved across South America toward the United States. As part of a team committed to breeding European Honey Bees and exporting them to the affected region of Mexico, Paul bred nice, gentle queens. However, exporting honey bees to Mexico presented a problem. To get the bees through customs at the Mexican border, Paul passed the queens to nuns who carried the queens in their habits.

Paul Mallory served as president of the Memphis Area Beekeepers Association and the Tennessee Beekeepers Association. I am proud to have followed in his footsteps in both organizations, myself. Today, I followed Paul on the program. I gave a brief introduction into Integrated Pest Management strategies for beekeeping. I suggested the new beekeepers consider the trend of moving toward more chemical-free beekeeping. It was a pleasure for me when I made the nomination of Paul which resulted in his receiving an award from the Tennessee Beekeepers Association for a lifetime of service to honey bees and beekeepers. Paul’s charming manner is so disarming. I can’t think of anyone else who could entice nuns to smuggle bees in their habits.
--Richard