Rutherford, a journeyman carpenter who works in building maintenance, is one of a handful of mid-Peninsula beekeepers. He is one of those who exterminators call when they find a beehive. He responds to calls in several South Bay cities. He also keeps hives on private property in Los Altos Hills, Cupertino and San Jose, where his bees produce honey. These bees are the foundation of a business the Rutherfords hope will grow and sustain their family.

His wife, Jo, fields the calls. She finds out the type of bees by asking questions about such things as their flight pattern. She finds out how long the hive has been there, its location and approximate size.

Not surprisingly, people tend to overestimate how big a hive actually is.

"I'll ask them to estimate the size," Mike Rutherford says. "I'll say, 'Is it as big as a quart jar or a football or a basketball?' They'll say, 'A basketball.' I'll get there, and it'll be so small"--indicating the size of a large softball.

Once he knows it's a honeybee hive, he goes into action. He zips himself into a thick canvas suit, adjusting the tight elastic at the wrists and ankles. His wide-brimmed hat has a mesh band that covers his face. The entire contraption zips onto the suit. Thick gloves complete his ensemble.

Despite the bee suit, Mike Rutherford says he has been stung a few times. This is a problem because he is allergic to bees. Fortunately, his reaction is not the systemic type, which can be fatal. Instead, he experiences the less serious, but still painful, Arthus reaction, which is characterized by a delayed onset of swelling that can last for several days.

Mike Rutherford hasn't always been allergic to bees; the first time he had a reaction he was taken by surprise.

"A couple of years ago I was taking apart a hive that someone had abandoned over in Los Altos. The thing was rotted out: there was honeycomb everywhere; it was a real mess and the bees were real mad," he says. "I got stung a couple of times and took some Benadryl to be on the safe side. I didn't give it another thought. Almost a week later, my skin had tightened and become hard--I couldn't make it wrinkle. I knew something was wrong, but I really didn't associate it with the stings. The doctor knew immediately what it was and told me I needed to take Benadryl every day. Now when I get stung I immediately take a few Benadryl and then quickly drink coffee or a Coke, whichever I can get my hands on first, to help the medicine get into my system quickly."

Once he is zipped into his suit, he goes to work. If the hive is in a tree, he climbs a ladder and trims some of the branches surrounding the hive so he can get to it.

His container for transporting the bees is a simple cardboard box punctured by nail holes. He places the box around the hive and shakes the hive into it. Sometimes he puts a few of the trimmed branches into the box. This is because the branches contain the scent of the hive, which helps the bees who are not in the hive find it. He helps them along by setting the box on the ground and waiting a bit.

He prefers to do hive removal in the late afternoon or early evening when outside temperatures have dropped a bit. That's when bees return to their hives, and the number left behind is minimal. The beekeeper doesn't believe in leaving any behind if he can help it. Honoring the extremely social nature of honeybees, he says, "I try to make sure they're all in and safe with their hive."

Once he collects a hive and stray bees have been lured in, he tapes up the cardboard box and takes it to one of his several host sites. Host sites can simply be in the backyard of someone the Rutherfords know, like Gail Hugger of Cupertino. "She likes bees," Mike Rutherford says.

He adds, "Bees won't hurt you if you don't bother them." He says they can actually become people's pets.

Mike and Jo Rutherford were introduced to the craft of beekeeping in 2000 by Wayne Spigner, a deacon at the church they attended at the time. The Rutherfords share a deep spiritual faith and believe this introduction was a timely blessing.

"Mike has genetically inherited macular degeneration," Jo Rutherford says. "He's going to have to retire on disability soon and won't be able to drive, but he'll still be able to work,"

The couple, who have two children--Robbie, 5, and Tommy, 3--are hoping to move back East eventually. They'd like to own and operate a small farm. "We see [beekeeping] as an opportunity to develop usable skills for that endeavor," Jo Rutherford says.

Her husband began accompanying Spigner on his beekeeping rounds while she researched the subject online.

"I'd generally do a search on Google and then look for the information that had 'edu' attached to it," Jo Rutherford says. "Information connected with those sites tends to be research-oriented, educational and useful." Armed with information and practical experience, the couple eventually struck out on their own.

Mike Rutherford is a gentle man. He speaks of the bees he cares for lovingly, almost paternally. But this wasn't always the case.

"A friend of mine and I used to play a game we called 'bomb the bees.' We'd find beehives, and then we'd go and bomb them, throwing boulders, breaking the hives apart. The bees would get upset, and we'd run away with the bees chasing us. We'd be yelling, 'AAHH, BEES.' It's kind of ironic now, the things I used to do to harm the bees, and now I spend all this time caring for them," he says.

Keeping a colony of bees alive and healthy takes quite a bit of work.

"It's a real trick," Mike Rutherford says. "Bees catch colds and viruses the same way humans do." He says that there's a disease called the American foulbrood that doesn't go away for 30 years. It destroys the brood chamber and the hive dies off. "You need to add medicine to the hive for that every six months both before and after the honey season," he says. There are also pests and mites that can plague a hive and there's a medicine for that, too.

Even the weather can create difficulties for a hive. The recent cold weather in the valley has caused the honey flow season to end early. This is a problem because generally the queen lays eggs for bees that will live 45 to 50 days, but toward the end of a season she'll lay eggs for bees that will survive for 155 days or so. The reason for this is so she will have enough bees to care for her in the winter.

Summer and winter, the bees around the queen keep the temperature in the hive an even 98 degrees. When the weather is unseasonably cool, the queen doesn't produce as many eggs. She needs about 10,000 bees around her in order to keep the temperature steady. If she doesn't have that number, she'll get cold and die.

Should the queen bee die, leaving a full brood of eggs, the bees can take the royal jelly from the honey and feed that to particular eggs housed in the comb to produce a new queen. In the absence of a queen, certain workers can lay eggs, but these are not nearly as plentiful or as healthy as those the queen lays. This can keep the hive going for a little while, but eventually it will fail since such bees are incapable of producing a queen on their own.

The Rutherfords' hives are whitewashed boxes that stand on small tables. The legs of the tables rest in coffee cans containing an oily mixture, designed to keep ants from climbing up into the hive's chamber. Inside the foundation box are 10 removable 14-by-8-inch frames. The bees build their comb within these frames. A smaller box on top of the foundation box is called the super. When the bees have filled the brood chamber, they continue to work, filling the frames up above. It is from these frames that Mike Rutherford collects his honey.

The Rutherfords share an encyclopedic knowledge of both the life and habits of bees and also of the virtues and uses of honey and beeswax.

Jo Rutherford says honey has medicinal properties and uses. She says some people consume locally grown honey to mitigate their allergies during allergy season. "It quiets coughs and soothes sore throats. Nearly every culture cooks with honey and then, of course, there's honey mead," she says.

She explains that honey mead is the oldest known fermented beverage and that its knowledge and use was discarded when cane sugar became readily available. However, a renewed interest in the Renaissance has made mead popular again.

Jo Rutherford cautions that honey should never be given to infants. It can contain clostridium botulinum, a bacterial spore that can be fatal to infants.

Uses for beeswax are even more numerous than those of honey. The most predominant use is for candles. The wax is also used in cosmetics, soaps, lotions and furniture wax.

Jo Rutherford boils the wax to rid it of impurities and then adds lavender, shaping the mixture into a small cake, which can be used to clean the brownish marks off of an iron. She has plans to branch out into other beeswax products as well.

The Rutherfords package and sell their honey and wax products themselves. They've even looked into conducting business online. "We were trying to put the phrase 'hometown honey' in the title. When we typed that phrase in to the computer, you can only imagine the types of websites that popped up," Jo Rutherford says with a laugh.

For now, the Rutherfords use a thermal method to extract the honey from the comb. Collecting honey this way can be an arduous task. Mike Rutherford removes the frames from the supers and then cuts out the combs and foundation. He places these in big pots over heat. He is extremely careful when it comes to regulating the temperature of the pot's contents. If there's too much heat, he says, the molecular structure of the honey will change and the taste will be affected. The right amount of heat causes the wax and any impurities in the honey to rise to the top of the pot, where they can be strained. The process is time consuming and messy.

Mike Rutherford looks forward to the day he can buy an extractor that uses centrifugal force to collect the honey.

"It's a great little machine," he says. "You put the frames right in it, and the honey comes spinning out. There's even a spigot, so the jars can be filled right then, easy as that." He smiles and brushes his hand over an empty super.

Looking toward the future, he says, "It'll be sweet."

To contact the Rutherfords, call 650.938.7458 or email mikeshoney@ wmconnect.com.