Caden Eagle got his first taste of beekeeping in 6th grade, at his teacher’s family farm. At first he was scared of the hives that his teacher kept, but after helping tend to the hives he decided he wanted bees of his own. At the time, though, his parents said no.
“Four years later, I went to the (Wenatchee) library and started looking for information about beekeeping,” said Eagle, now in 11th grade at The River Academy in Wenatchee. “I was still pretty interested, so I decided I would ask (my parents) again — and they liked the idea.”
Eagle said he read everything the library had on beekeeping, from building your own bee boxes to taking care of hives. (“The Backyard Beekeeper was my favorite!”) He also talked with a librarian who did backyard beekeeping. He even made purchase suggestions for beekeeping books that the library didn’t have. Caden built his original beehive from scratch from plans in a library book he checked out.
Since school is currently closed due to COVID-19, Eagle has been busy preparing to expand his bee hives this spring. He is also working on a native flowering plant garden for the bees, and has started a new hobby — woodworking.
“If the library was open right now, I’d be there looking for woodworking books!”
While our libraries are closed and you can’t check out physical materials right now, we do offer online resources that can help you learn more about beekeeping. The Backyard Beekeeper and several other beekeeping books are available for download right now on Hoopla!
Did you learn a new hobby or master a new skill from library resources? Share your story with us! Send an email to mmcniel@ncrl.org and we may feature you in a future blogpost.
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