BY JAN SWOOPE

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Call it whimsical thinking, but it seems the honeybees at Mark and Keri Lewis’ apiary in Mayhew have plenty to be abuzz about this spring — especially after moving into newly-decorated digs. The Lewis’ bee yards are bursting with color, thanks to a creative partnership with Heritage Academy art students.

It all began last autumn.

“I’d earlier seen in some of the national magazines how other beekeepers had gotten involved with school art classes,” explained Mark, a land and timber broker and owner of Mississippi Land Co. He and his wife, Keri, began beekeeping in 2010, with three hives. Mark is now aiming for 60, and laughingly dubs it “a hobby that’s gotten out of hand.”

When Mark floated the idea of student art and bee boxes to a few area art teachers, Visual Art Instructor Cary Haycox at Heritage Academy in Columbus responded with enthusiasm.

“I thought it sounded great, like a lot of fun,” said Cary, a Marine Corps veteran and Mississippi University for Women alumnus.

On the scene

The art instructor visited with Lewis at his Prairie Blossom Farm in Mayhew. (The beekeeper also has hives in Steens and the Delta.)

“If I was going to tell the kids about it, I thought I’d better understand what we were talking about,” said Cary. “Going out there was very informational for me.”

By late January, the newly-constructed bee boxes were ready to be transported to Heritage.

“I built the boxes, bought the paint and delivered everything to the school, and they did their thing,” said Mark, adding that the distinctive colors and designs can actually help bees identify their particular hive.

Students in eighth through twelfth grades came up with their own ideas for the sturdy cypress bee-homes. One of the very few stipulations was to avoid using black, which holds heat, and a shade of fuscshia that tends to attract a pesky species of beetle.

Designs ran the gamut — from team logos and swimming fish, to honeycombs and curly-tailed pigs.

“I really like the idea of nature, God’s creation, and how pretty it is, so my design was flowers,” said ninth-grader Taylor Moore. “I did a couple of bees to get them interested in the box — and I wanted to use bright colors,” the 15-year-old added.

For eighth-grader Grant Belhumeur, 14, the project was “kinda cool.”

“I don’t like sitting down and drawing on a sheet of paper; so I figured this would be fun,” he stated.

The art instructor was pleased to serve up an unusual assignment

“I think a lot of them were excited about coming up with their own plan and style,” said Cary. “This was real-life application and use of art in a non-traditional way.”

Many of the finished boxes were on display for Heritage’s February Open House, before Mark took them to the farm, to await their new tenants when the time was right.

Prairie blossom

Mark’s interest in bee farming was first piqued by a sister’s organic farm in Missouri, where she kept some of the honey producers. But after the Mississippi State University Extension Service offered a two-day beekeeping seminar, he “was on fire” with enthusiasm. “And it’s just gotten worse since then,” he smiled.

Spring is a hectic time for apiaries.

“It’s been c-razy, c-razy,” he admitted. There are hives to split, the new boxes to set up, mowing, weed-eating, ant-eradication.

“In some bee yards you might have 20, 30 or 50 colonies, but for me, eight to 10 colonies is a full yard,” said the part-time bee man. “After fooling with that many, I’ve had enough, and they’ve had enough of me when I get through.”

April heralds swarm season, when new colonies in the wild are formed. Bees swarm when a queen bee leaves an established colony with a large group of worker bees. They’re unwelcome guests for most homeowners, often settling in trees, or in hollow, protected places.

“Mark enjoys getting calls and going out to see if he can capture a swarm and give it a new home with us,” said Keri.

She’s Prairie Blossom’s record keeper, from receipts to hive notes. She takes the photos, runs the blog (prairieblossombeefarm.blogspot.com), helps inspect hives and has gotten “pretty good at spotting the queens.”

“I’ve also become that person who tells people more than they wanted to know when they ask about bees at a dinner party,” joked MSU’s news coordinator in the Office of Agricultural Communications.

She willingly leaves heavy work to the “big guy,” who has to lift honey supers (bee boxes filled with frames, bees, honeycomb and honey) that can weigh in at 80 or more pounds.

They’re excited about the prospect of producing honey in about a month, their second annual harvest. It will be available on their blog.

Pick a favorite

The couple is pleased with the inaugural bee-art project and appreciate all the students’ efforts — so much so they’ve created a survey for the public to select a favorite out of 10 finalists. Cash rewards will go to the top vote-getters.

To make your pick, go to surveymonkey.com/s/JVW5TYB.

As their yards expand, Mark and Keri hope to collaborate in future with more art classes. After all, there’s no reason bees, like people, can’t become art connoisseurs.

But for now, Mark will look forward to the day the spring pace of his fascinating hobby slows a bit.

“It’s nice to sit out on a day when they’re actin’ nice, and look through them and learn about them,” he mused. “They’re like a lot of things in nature that seem simple, but the more you study them, the more you realize you’ll never know it all.”

ON THE WEB:

n surveymonkey.com/s/JVW5TYB

n prairieblossombeefarm.blogspot.com

Jan Swoope is the Lifestyles Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.