“Bee love you become really attached.” That’s what Robyn Holman of Auburn and her daughter Muriel Schwinn, 18, say about why they do what they do.

The phrase, bee love, is used among beekeepers to describe the connection they feel to the bees. Holman began keeping bees in 2001, and her daughter, a senior at Edward Little High School, joined her soon after.

“I’m her assistant,” says Schwinn, as she holds the smoker used to calm the bees down before the pair begin to do what is called “supering,” or adding a layer onto the hive when the bees are ready to make the honey. As each one chimes in seamlessly to the other’s comments, it is clear that they know their bees.

Holman would love to study entomology someday, in addition to her full time work as director of exhibitions and curator of the art gallery at USM’s Lewiston-Auburn College. “Bees travel as a unit,” Holman says, referring to when a swarm leaves the hive in search of a new home.

“Some bees can travel as far as 3 miles,” Schwinn adds. “Some people say that they consider bees to be one organism. They have no sense of their own self (They have) the well-being of the hive as a whole.”

The mother-daughter team seem to have bee psychology figured out.

“Bees are really quite calm and peaceful,” Holman says. “The reason for the smoker is that bees think with smoke, there is a fire. They fill their bellies (in preparation to leave the hive) and then they can’t fly as well. So it is easier.”

Schwinn continues her thought, “Bees are happier in the sunshine when it is hot and sunny.”

Taking turns explaining about the queen bee, Holman and Schwinn say, “Bees need a queen. If one dies, or they decide that the queen is too old, they will make a new queen by feeding young bees with royal jelly and then let them duke it out and the strongest one survives. The old one will leave and sometimes take half the hive with her in a swarm. Contrary to what many people think, they are not aggressive then because there is no hive to protect.”

Holman continues, “When a hive is queenless, it is said that it sounds like a baby crying. When we had one without a queen, I lifted the cover of the super, and it was just like a baby crying.”

“Bees have taught me respect, even for the smallest animal, an insect,” says Holman. “And, a single bee will make only teaspoon of honey in her life, but a couple of hives with about 80,000 bees will produce about eight gallons of honey a year.”

Schwinn adds, “They’ve taught me responsibility. Mom will medicate the bees (giving them sumac in the smoke to prevent mites) and worry about them.”

Summing up their interest in bees, Schwinn and Holman agree that life without bees would be hard to imagine. “It’s peaceful. Even without the honey, I’d still do it,” says Holman as she hugs her daughter and adds, “We’re bee buddies.”