Originally published Saturday, May 29, 1999

By JON HAHN  
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

Interviewing a semi-retired Boeing engineer in Normandy Park can be a pain in the neck ... if he happens also to be a beekeeper.

In 20-odd years (and they have been that) here, I have been slimed by slugs in Port Townsend, pecked by ostriches in the Skagit Valley and of course pooped on by Seattle sea gulls. But I avoided bee stings until straying upon the Normandy Park Honey Co.

And therein lies the tale of the two bee tails lodged in my neck just below the beard line.

Frank Fitzpatrick, sole proprietor, beekeeper with a sort of Doc Brown "Back to the Future" brilliance of eclecticism, convinced me that I must don one of his almost-bee-proof suits to watch him remove some bees from an active (you bet!) hive. Seems he was going to a Show & Tell session in the Midway Elementary School classroom of his daughter/teacher Deirdre Fitzpatrick.

Barehanded, Frank had plopped about two dozen drones (stingless males, a sort of bee redundancy) into a Mason jar and was about to delicately grasp the queen when I discovered I was not alone inside the bee suit. A pair of angry little female worker bees shared my uncomfort zone. And like a lot of working women, these bees apparently had taken a self-defense course and were armed.

Times like this do not allow for lengthy soliloquies on two-bees, or to un-bee. Maybe the kids in Miss Fitzpatrick's class have time to conjugate the verb to be, but I sweated, swatted and finally smooshed the invaders into the past tense. But not before they each served up a couple of barbed comments.

Susan Fitzpatrick, the clinical registered nurse who is Frank's full-time wife of some 30 years and part-time honey jar washer, said bee stings are the reason she no longer helps with his beekeeping. "They're fascinating, and I've enjoyed learning about them, but the close-up stuff I can do without. . . . After being stung a number of times, I said, 'NO MORE!'"

Frank knew she'd say that. "She does, however, give me honey-do lists. Currently, she expects me to put a railing on the deck and to remodel the kitchen and to finish remodeling the addition. But as you can see, I'm busy with bees."

Susan also requires Frank to disrobe entirely -- at the back door -- if he's been working with active hives, during which the bees must be driven from the hive with a butyric acid compound that smells like a very-unattended rest-stop facility. "The smell pretty much stays with you," Frank conceded.

I'm not sure how much time Frank puts in at Big-B, but this is the time of year he's on the road again, hauling his 100 hives everywhere from Monroe to Grayland's cranberry bogs on the coast. "It's when he hauls them up into the mountains (for fireweed honey) that scares me," said Susan. And it's not so much the bears; it's having to drive a big truck loaded with full hives along some of those logging roads that scares her.

Frank's beekeeping began at a garage sale down the hill 10 years ago when he acquired his first hive. That first swarm was a tad unfriendly, but Frank bee-bopped his way from a single hive to 100 as quickly as he could build the hives from scrap lumber. His basement workshop and a goodly part of his grounds are a testament to his eclecticism, which some people might call Dumpster diving. Frank finds good stuff.

But that is another story. Frank was just another laid-off electrical engineer in the aerospace industry back in the late 1960s when he was hired by a German firm. He and Susan lived in Germany for 10 years, where their daughters, Deirdre and Heather, were born. "And then one day, my German boss said: 'How would you like to work in Seattle?'" Frank said. "I remember it rained solid for the first two days we were here; then it got better."

They bought their home overlooking the sound on Marine View Drive Southwest 20 years ago, and Frank added about 3,000 square feet with the help of an architect friend and a substantial amount of recycled or just plain salvaged construction materials. A particularly beautiful wood staircase is made of hardwood from one of those appliance and electronics megastores.

As far as the government is concerned, Frank the Beekeeper files a Schedule F tax form as a farmer. And like a farmer, there are risks and gambles in beekeeping. This cool and wet spring has taken some of the buzz out of his business, Frank conceded, although some of his hives already are placed among the blueberry bushes in Bellevue.

"Honey in the spring is mainly from (pollen of) maple trees and dandelions . . . and some blueberries, things like that," Frank explained. "The first of next month, I'll be taking 50 hives out to the cranberry growers near Grayland. And some will go into the mountains for fireweed honey."

That's where the risk comes from Br'er Bear, who dearly loves those easy-to-open hives that can hold 400 pounds of honey and bee brood. And it costs Frank about $100 each to rebuild the hives, which is why he also tries to surround his woodsy hives with an electric fence.

But the Lord also giveth. Frank, also a bee and wasp exterminator, was called to nearby Sea-Tac Airport when a shipment of honeybees got loose in a jetliner's cargo hold. With a special bee vacuum that looks like the Death Ray machine used by Ming the Merciless, Frank was able to suck the bees off the airliner. "Half of them had died, but I kept some and gave some to beekeeper friends," he said.

Once he had his drones and the queen safely contained in a briefcase-size hive, Frank drove off to school in his vanity-plated van. The plates, given by one of his daughters as a holiday present, read: BEESRUS.

Normandy Park Honey Co. honey can be found at the Rainbow Grocery, 417 15th Ave. E. on Capitol Hill and the Macrina Bakery-Cafe, 2408 First Ave. in the Denny Regrade.