LINCOLN - In a small auditorium in a corner of Davies Career & Technical High School, a diverse crowd of about 60 watched enthralled as two queens battled to the death, workers in tow. Amid the eerie screams of the fighting queens, Betty Mencucci reminded the audience of the reason for the spectacle.
"Remember, when the queen gets too old and stops producing enough eggs, the workers will create a special egg case for a new queen," she said, summarizing sections of the movie "Honey Harvest" that she edited out of her weekly lecture on beekeeping.
The large audience - a mix of 20-somethings, elderly couples and a few children - represents a trend in Rhode Island beekeeping that has the apiculture community buzzing with excitement. More and more people who've never dabbled in beekeeping before are excited about starting their own apiaries.
Mencucci, a former technology instructor who has been teaching her class on bees for 17 years, said she has seen an unprecedented level of interest in beekeeping in recent years.
"For many years, beekeeping was in a decline as mostly older people did it and as they aged or died there was no younger people taking it up," Mencucci said. "In the last five years, the popularity has increased and my class has grown larger and larger."
Mencucci said her class had about 20 to 30 students until about 2003, when interest started growing. Class sizes jumped to about 50 in 2005, and last year drew over 80 participants. This year, interest was so high - more than 110 people have registered - that another section was started at the University of Rhode Island.
The classes, which meet on Wednesdays and run until the beginning of April, teach beekeepers old and new the basics of maintaining bees, either for collecting honey or for the medicinal benefits that bee enthusiasts say comes from bee venom. "Honey Harvest" includes a close-up shot of a honeybee's barbed stinger pulsing venom into the arm of a beekeeper, as the narrator touts the venom's purported curative effects for diseases like multiple sclerosis and arthritis.
The popularity of beekeeping classes comes at a convenient time for North America's bees. Colony Collapse Disorder, a largely mysterious phenomenon whereby bees inexplicably vacate their hives, has afflicted colonies in as many as 35 states. Though no cases have been reported in Rhode Island as of June 2007, the phenomenon has cropped up in Massachusetts and Connecticut, according to an Aug. 14, 2007 report commissioned by Congress. But even without CCD, Mencucci said keeping bees alive during the winter - when bees hole up in their hives - is challenging because of mites and disease.
"It is much harder to keep bees than before because of the all the mite problems," Mencucci wrote in an e-mail. "Without beekeeper intervention, hives die. Some people get frustrated over these losses and give it up. Others become determined and try harder."
And try harder they do. John Gardner, a contractor who attends Mencucci's lectures, said the loss of bees to CCD and mites is a large reason he pursues beekeeping.
"Without bees, you are not going to have pollinators to produce food," Gardner said. The congressional report estimates that honey bees contribute about $15 billion to the U.S. economy as commercial pollinators for crops as diverse as alfalfa, broccoli and cantaloupe.
"As a contractor, I can appreciate the importance of what bees do," he said.
And then there's the sweetest reason for the popularity of apiculture: the honey. All the students interviewed for this story cited the liquid candy as one of the class's strongest draws.
"Honey's expensive and (beekeeping is) a good hobby," said John Martin, a student at Community College of Rhode Island at Warwick, who drove 45 minutes to attend Mencucci's lecture. "I can use my tax refund for something useful, instead of for beer or whatever."
Despite the noble or culinary ambitions of the participants, the class mostly focuses on the day-to-day work of raising bees.
Amid technical talk of "swarming," "deep-frame bodies" and "drifting," Mencucci gave students practical advice about where to place their hives and which bees to purchase.
"Keep the front of the hive facing the sun in winter, so the bees can get out and go to the bathroom," Mencucci said.
The class also serves as a networking opportunity for bee buyers and sellers, who take two long trips to the south each year to purchase hundreds of caged "packets" of bees and bring them to New England.
Mencucci also touched on the delicate subject of bee diplomacy.
"Bees like to drink from swimming pools," she said. "This is a problem if all of your neighbors have pools. You should provide your bees with an alternative water source." She also suggested painting hives green, so that neighbors expecting to see white hives will be fooled.
"Or you can always give them honey," Mencucci added. "That seems to always make things better."
