As a child, bee stings spelled trouble for Kevin McGovern, Director of Support Services at Hendricks Regional Health. “The first time I was stung, my foot swelled to the size of a sledgehammer,” he recalled. “A second sting swelled my hands to the size of baseball gloves. This is how we discovered I was allergic to bees.” Kevin started wearing a medical alert bracelet and received monthly allergy shots.

He never envisioned a life in which he would consider bees friends. So you can imagine his shock when, five years ago, his wife, Debbie, who works in Hendricks’ Population Health department, gifted him a beehive. “I seriously wondered if she was trying to kill me!” Kevin joked.

At left: It didn’t take long for Kevin McGovern to become fascinated by his beehive. “It’s a highly organized and efficient universe,” he said. “Every bee has a job, and they work together for the good of the hive. It reminds me so much of how we operate at Hendricks.”

Debbie’s gift came from a place of love. Over the years, she had watched Kevin grow more interested in bees, especially honeybees. They watched documentaries on beekeeping and bonded over the idea of producing their own honey. “There are studies that show how calm people feel in a hive, surrounded by that constant buzzing and watching the bees work,” Kevin said.

“Having a hobby that puts me in a good spot mentally and physically has been a real gift.”

Last year, Kevin had the incredible experience of catching his own swarm of bees. “When a colony outgrows its hive, the queen and some worker bees leave to start fresh,” he said. “That’s what swarming is – a new beginning.”

Catching a swarm is delicate, but once safely housed, the bees adapt and become part of something larger. “In a sense, they’re adopted, given a safe place to grow, thrive and produce honey,” he said. Adoption is close to Kevin and Debbie’s hearts. All of their children are adopted.

Kevin nurtured his new swarm through the winter, and this spring, noticed signs of a strong queen laying eggs – what he calls a “bee explosion” in the making. Soon, the worker bees will be busy harvesting pollen and making honey. “A single worker bee only makes about 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime,” he said. “To produce just one pound of honey, bees must tap nearly 2 million flowers.”

Kevin sees beekeeping as a daily reminder of how small contributions, trust and cooperation create something much bigger than any one individual. “Bees have taught me a lot about work ethic and resilience,” he said. “It’s a lot like working at Hendricks, just with a bit more buzzing.”