North Idaho'sRenaissance WomanLiz Gollen

摘要

Liz Gollen is what could be termed a rural Renaissance woman: She's a beekeeper; a flower-farmer; a writer, artist and occasional film-maker; a chicken-raiser (for eggs); and, last but certainly not least, a full-time elementary school teacher. She and Archie, her husband of many years, inhabit a beautiful and sturdy hand-built log home on a wooded plot of family land in Sagle, Idaho.Bee-keeping is a fairly recent venture for Liz. She says she got into it just because she loves honeybees - always has. She likes the sound they make, their industrious nature, how they help flowers, and, of course, the tasty product they produce. She and her flower-farming partner, Peggy, started a couple of years ago with two nukes. A nuke is a starter bee box containing one queen and about 20,000 honeybees. Looking back, Liz laughs at their profound lack of knowledge when they started bee-keeping. "Peggy and I really had no idea what we were doing back then! We bought the nukes from a local guy, put the buzzing critters in the back of my car, and took the boxes back to my property. We set them up near our flower farm, and after that we figured things out on a day-by-day basis. Of course, we had to consult a lot of local experts along the way."