FROM THE BEGINNING
Welcome to Hood Brook Apiary/Hood Brook Honeybees! My name is Bob Donovan, a 65-year-old man with disabilities who has always been a HUGE Nature Lover. To pass the time, I decided to dabble in the world of beekeeping. Yes, raising honeybees.
As a child, I grew up in the suburbs of a large city outside of Boston. We were lucky because my parents bought a house in the most un-city-like part of the area! It was a quiet dead-end street surrounded by hundreds of acres of forest and a large lake which is the reservoir for the next city over. We had woods to play in, wild blueberries to pick, and more. So, I took an interest in honeybees.
At about 10 I knew I LOVED Honey! So, I decided to be a beekeeper. I got a big glass jar and some smaller jars. The small jars were for catching the honeybees and the big jar was their new home after I put them into it. Well, it turned out I was doing more killing of bees than keeping. So, that idea faded to something else.
Four years later I got accepted into Essex Agricultural High School. An actual working farm that was also a school about a 45-minute bus ride away. There I studied Animal Science which included Horse Management, Dairy Production, Poultry, and several other minors. As a farm, it had herds of cattle and cows, thousands of chickens and turkeys, sheep, pigs, and lots of pasture and crops. Just so happens, that one of the workers at the school in the poultry department was Bill Linderman. He was the assistant of Mr. White, the Poultry Teacher. Billy loved honeybees too! They allowed him to keep a couple of hives at the school in the poultry area and near the small animal building. That is where I started to take an interest and learn proper beekeeping.
Living in the city just outside of Boston, there wasn’t really anyplace I could raise bees. So, after graduation, I pursued other interests including the music industry. The music industry kept me busy around Boston for 10 years and then it took me to LA/Hollyweird, CA. and Phoenix, AZ. For another 10 years before returning to New England.
I returned to the Northeast and moved in with my brother to help him open some land he bought for a Flea Market. It was 6 years before I got around to buying a hive and some bees to place on his property in Southern New Hampshire. It was my learning period. In 4 years, I produced very little honey, never enough to sell. I did give away a lot! I also lost my hive a couple of times over 4 years due to pests. After working the bees for 4 years at my brother’s, I relocated a couple of times, but always had bees as a hobby as I was still learning.
In 2015 I returned to my mom’s house where I grew up to care for my elderly mother until her passing in January of 2020. While there I had a few hives in her yard in the city. I asked neighbors on either side and across the street and everyone was fine with me having bees. At the end of each year, I gave all 3 neighbors a pound of raw honey each. Everyone loved it! In fact, the neighbor across the street was an avid gardener and another neighbor in the neighborhood had a fruit tree. They both said everything produced much better with the bees in the neighborhood!
