Backyard beekeeping's popularity leaves one veteran of the hobby stumped

He's also blunt about what he thinks about people who embrace his longtime hobby.

 “They’re crazy,” Parise said. “That’s the truth. It’s an expensive hobby.”

The 83-year-old former teacher said he missed the recent story about Antoinette Pucillo, the Pittsfield Township woman who was stung dozens of times while checking her hives on Tuesday. But hearing about it, he opened a book of photos that included one of his own grandson’s swollen face after being stung.

He often brings observation hives to public events in order to conduct beekeeping seminars. And the veteran of World War II contributes his knowledge to Growing Hope, the Ypsilanti program that helps people to grow their own gardens and improve their access to healthy food.

Despite the fact that interest in backyard beehives has surged, Parise, a beekeeper for decades, doesn’t offer encouragement.

“For someone who’s just starting out, my advice is: Go buy your honey at the farmers’ market.”

He raises queen bees at his home near Saline and transports them to his 120-acre Fairview Farm in northern Michigan, where he said he keeps 35 to 40 hives.

A recent improvement at the farm was the installation of a solar-powered electric fence to keep bears from getting at the honey.

The farm has a licensed bottling room where he puts up the honey he sells at the farmers’ market.

The interest in apiculture started with a question asked by his son Stephen and a subsequent father-son trip to the library to learn about bees. Parise lived in Royal Oak in those days, and when the local police department received a report of swarming bees, he and the boy captured the swarm.

“We just dropped them into a bushel basket.”

The Parises established hives at a friend’s orchard and have been involved with bees and honey ever since.

Stephen went on to study apiculture at Michigan State University and today is the state of Vermont’s chief apiculturist.

Parise said he has witnessed the backyard beekeeping boom, but he couldn’t offer a guess as to what has driven it. However, he finds himself affected when he calls to order supplies and finds that his needs won’t be met for weeks.

Various sources attribute the hobby’s rise in popularity to the enthusiasm for locally produced organic foods and to the sustainability movement. Even the White House now has a beehive with 70,000 bees near the new kitchen garden. “There is a movement to try to bring this type of agriculture back into the cities,” said Roger Sutherland, president of the Southeast Michigan Beekeepers Association. Sutherland said he has seen “a dramatic increase” in the number of signing up for beekeeping classes. Several factors are at play, he said. One is “the great publicity we’ve had in the national press on colony collapse and disorder. There’s that kind of interest. So people are saying, gee maybe I can help out by starting beekeeping.”

And Parise concedes that people probably won’t heed his advice about avoiding the hobby.

“Good luck to them,” he said.