The dwarf who built top bar hives

** warning – this post is nerdy **

On November 23rd, 2004, I was in line with over 10 thousand people at a fry’s electronics store in Orange county for the release of the world of warcraft. I played that game for a couple years.  Although I started with a large group of friends, my then girlfriend and I found ourselves making new friends through the game.

The concept of making friends online is more common now than it was back then.  However, anyone who has played an MMO for an extended period of time knows that you spend so much time talking to these people over the internet that you form actual friendships.

Pani and Bimcha (character references for anyone who played with us) ended up in the guild “afterlight” and we became good friends with a dwarf named Frozz.  As the years passed, one by one we left the game to pursue “the real world”.  I graduated from college and started a web design company in Riverside, the girl completed law school and through the beauty of facebook, I now know that Matt (the dwarf friend of ours) is a bee keeper who not only keeps bees but has a whole business around bee keeping supplies.

Bee Keeping Top Bar Hives?

I asked Matt what a top bar hive (the product he sells) is, and he explained it as such.

A top bar hive is a horizontal or vertical box or set of boxes in which the bees build their comb as they desire from simple top bars laid across the top. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but the two most common designs are the Kenyan Top Bar Hive and the Warre hive. They are a cost-effective alternative to the most common design known as the Langstroth hive, as they don’t require costly extracting machines or a myriad of other tools and accessories to manage. They also require little to no heavy lifting of honey-laden boxes. The bees build their own, natural comb without any assistance from the beekeeper, unlike the Langstroth hive in which machine-fabricated foundation and wires are used to direct the bees comb construction.

Although I am not a bee keeper and will never fully understand how important this kind of hive vs other kinds are, finding out about the offline “real” adventures of someone I had run around dungeons with is really exciting.  Although I have not had a chance to visit Matt in Portland yet, It has been really cool getting to know the player behind the character.

Turns out I know a bee keeper!

Most of the time when I tell people I was addicted to an online game, the reaction is a combination of surprise and sympathy.  Yes, I did spend hundreds of hours playing a game, but I made some awesome friends in the process.  How many of you can say you know a bee keeper who sells top bar hives?

That’s what I though!