raising honeybees
German immigrant finds U.S. the bee’s knees
FARRAH MAFFAI Gary Behnke pumps smoke over the comb honeybees constructed inside a frame at Gee Bee APiaries, Jackson. The smoke keeps the bees calm and prevents them from stinging the beekeeper.
Beekeeper recalls events that led to career
raising honeybees
By Joyce Blay
Staff Writer
JACKSON — In the Lilliputian world of the honeybee, family is everything.
It is a life lesson that was learned well by Jackson beekeeper Gary Behnke, 67, a German immigrant whose family found refuge in the United States after World War II.
"I was 9 when my family became refugees after the Soviet army [invaded Germany]," said Behnke, who was born in Mauenfelde, a village in the East Prussian province of Germany. "The first [place in] Germany that the [invading] Soviets entered was the [place where] I lived. We packed everything we could on a horse and wagon and fled west, like a wagon train."
In 1942, the Soviet Union successfully repulsed the invading forces of Adolph Hitler in the Battle of Stalingrad. Hungry for revenge, in January 1945 Stalin’s forces launched a punishing offensive against the remnants of Nazi Germany in a bid with the Allies to end the war. The Soviet army took the battle onto German soil through the eastern border while the Allies entered through the west.
No one in the path of the invading military was safe, said Behnke, as ground-based artillery attacks and overhead air strikes pounded troops and civilians alike. The young boy and his family fled for their lives along with 2 million other Germans as the Nazi regime began to crumble. His family didn’t get far, said Behnke.
"We crossed a frozen bay where my father was conscripted into the Nazi army to replenish its forces," said Behnke.
To make matters worse, said Behnke, the bridge the remaining family members had to cross had been bombed out.
"We abandoned the horse and wagon and took whatever we could carry," he said.
The family took what Behnke described as a ferry, or cutter, to the next harbor city to wait for a larger ship that could transport them farther west — but not to America.
"We had no plans to escape to the United States," said Behnke. "We just wanted to escape the Soviets."
Their hopes were renewed when a ship arrived and took on wounded German soldiers. There was also room for refugees, and among those who boarded were Behnke and his family. The fare for their voyage was a bargain — nothing at all.
"There were no passengers anymore; everybody was a refugee fleeing for their lives," he said.
The ship got as far as Kohlberg in the German province of Pomerania before the Soviets overtook it and the refugees were forced to disembark there. The situation went from bad to worse, according to Behnke.
"They were bombarding us with artillery," said Behnke. "We went to the harbor every day, looking for a ship to [board]."
One day a ship finally arrived, but it did not dock there. People were forced to take whatever water transportation they could find to reach the ship since it could not come to them. When it was full, said Behnke, the ship departed west. "We got as far as Swinenemuende, where [Nazi] rocket scientists had performed their experiments which eventually enabled the United States and the U.S.S.R. to begin space exploration," said Behnke. "At the harbor, we were put on cattle cars full of refugees."
The refugees wandered about the countryside, with no plan on where to go since no place was safe, he said. Sporadic gunfire and intermittent bombing punctuated his family’s journey until they eventually ended up back where they started, in Pomerania. Life under the occupying Soviet army was just as challenging as flight from it.
"We stayed one year under Soviet occupation, nearly starving to death, before fleeing west to Berlin, which was occupied by the four Allied nations," said Behnke.
Once there, the family was reunited with Behnke’s father, who was free from his conscription with the defeat of Hitler’s remaining forces. However, the family continued to live in barracks along with other refugees liberated from Eastern European countries, which he said were given first preference in being relocated. Finally, after two years, their turn came.
"My father had a brother in Freehold, N.J.," said Behnke. "My father didn’t want to go to my mother’s relatives in Canada. ‘It’s too cold there,’ he said. So we finally arrived here on Jan. 26, 1955."
Behnke was 19. The previous year he had finished his apprenticeship in making measuring instruments, the German equivalent of a machinist.
Despite his training, Behnke worked on his uncle’s farm before applying for a job as a machinist through an employment agency in Englishtown.
Once he found a job he liked, he also found a wife. In 1966, he married Frieda Lampe, a Jackson woman who spoke German and worked as a legal secretary. She was four years his junior.
"We built this house on land her family gave us," he said. His wife, however, died of breast cancer 14 years after they were married.
Behnke’s attention eventually turned to beekeeping. Stung by a wasp years before, Behnke became too ill to work. He had heard that bee sting therapy was a way to acquire immunity from the debilitating effects from which he suffered. It worked.
"That’s what decided me to raise honeybees," said Behnke. "After I bought my first hive, I took a three-day course at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. That gave me the fundamentals. From there, I read books and learned all I could."
Behnke pursued his hobby with the same focused attention he paid to his studies in NC programming, manufacture engineering, and tool design, even while he continued to work full time.
Today Behnke owns 40 hives stationed throughout Ocean County. He keeps seven of those bee colonies on his 4.75-acre property in Jackson, where he makes honey that he sells directly or to health food stores in Lakewood. He also takes his bees, which he describes as being "very gentle," to fairs for the public to see that they are not aggressive. Asked if the bees will come if he calls them, Behnke smiled and said, "No. They’re busy." However, the apiarist himself is not too busy to teach others the craft of beekeeping.
"In 1984, when I [was attending] the Eastern Apicultural Society (EAS) convention in Morgantown, W.Va., I met a beekeeper from Haiti … and he invited me to visit him there," said Behnke. "He tried to teach the poor people [of his country] how to be self-sufficient, [so] I went a few times and taught him a few tricks about beekeeping."
Behnke’s work in Haiti led to his participation in the government sponsored Farmer-to-Farmer program in Bangladesh, where he taught beekeeping to Asians who were also seeking a better life.
"It feels good to help," said Behnke, who also works part time for the Forest Research Education Center in Jackson. "It’s relaxing; it’s soothing. You use your physical and mental strength."
But Behnke learned as much from his bees, he said, as he has taught others about them.
"I’ve learned to live my life the way I interact with my bees," he said. "It’s a profitable hobby."
Anyone interested in knowing more about bee sting therapy, opening an apiary or obtaining further information about bee products or beekeeping may call Gary Behnke at (732) 928-0082.