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5sssbarafesssi 5 ijwe i saturday sept 6 2003 23 economist sun suntribune diversions swee ucc with 25 million to watch over joe melber is as busy as his bees by joan ransberry staff writer joe melber knows a thing or two about bees he knows a bee has four wings and nearly 600 worker bees are needed to make a pound of honey he knows a honeycomb cell is sixsided and bees fly the equivalent of an aroundtheworld trip to create that pound of honey the whitchurchstouttville resident oversees 200 bee colonies at glover leaf honey farms on mccowan road north ofstouffvilleroad each of mr melbefs colonies con tains about 120000 bees in total he looks after 25 million bees thats a lot of bees and a lot of honey june to september is harvest time mr melbers operation produces 6200 pounds of honey each year his unpas teurized honey is put into containers then bottled and sold at the farm on weekends for the past 20 years he has also had a booth in a toronto farmers market mr melber met his first swarm of bees as a 14yearold in his native hungary that was in 1944 my father was a cabinet maker by trade but kept bees and sold the honey mr melber said ive been around bees for many many years one of the first things he learned was they dance but not just for fun bees communicate by dancing telling other bees where to find nectar and pollen when the family left hungary after that countrys 1956 revolution a young mr melber settled in switzerland it wasnt long before he was living among bees when he came to canada in 1968 to spend the next 20 years working in the hosiery business bees continued to be part of his life i started keeping bees in 1970i- started with three colonies he said now retired from a sales career mr melber has spent 12 years tending a honey operation with their two sons raised and gone mr melber and his wife klara enjoy life together and bees are their friends move the bees and they love me back he said while working in the staff photosjoerd witteveen see love page 24 joe melber of whitchurchstoufleville shows off a hive full of honey as his son tibor works to clean wax hives at their honey operation on mccowan road near stouffville road entertainment small theatre bigger better than ever by roy green staff writer for years it has been known as litde theatre but in this area its anything but small in fact the 200304 community the atre season consists of 35 productions over nine months in venues from markham and richmond hill to tottenham cookstown and lake simcoe its big in another sense as well with area stage companies last season nomi nated for 55 thea awards from the association of community theatres central ontario winning in 15 cate gories including best director and best actress and the new season features a spec tacular variety of plays from bigcast musicals historical dramas melodra mas costume epics and of course doorslamming bedswapping farces area stage companies nominated for 55 thea awards last season first off the mark was newmarkets intimate 50seat theatre on main which opened with the canadian come dy about a toxic waste dump and a wor ried mayor the perils of persephone sept 4 on sept 10 markham little theatre also opens with a comedy the man with the plastic sandwich at the markham theatre for performing arts richmond hills curtain club which won 10theas last year opens its 50th anniversary season sept 11 with the frothy nurse jane goes to hawaii and theatre aurora stages the housekeeper on sept 12 some of the more notable produc tions this season include the queensville players production of camelot in november south shores one flew over the cuckoos nest in october and south simcoes musical version of the tom hanks movie big see yorks page 24 i a smwxbbigswjsswmmjimiimlillmss