CIO stays busy as a bee

People often say they’ve been ‘bitten by a bug’ when they take up a hobby. The expression has a literal meaning for Greg Georgeff, the ex-CIO for the Province of Ontario who raises bees in his spare time.

Georgeff’s passion for bees emerged on his three-acre hobby farm in Acton, Ont. He’s owned this bit of country life for almost 20 years, and has tended to it in tandem with a busy professional career as a senior IT executive with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Noranda and OMERS.

There eventually came a time when it was necessary to scale down the farming operation, he says, and get rid of the chickens, turkeys, and goats that his children once tended. Alas, the children grew up and went off to university. Serendipity intervened, however. Six years ago a nest of bees made a home in his composter, and Georgeff decided to make the residence permanent.

“Bees have fascinated me ever since I was a kid,” Georgeff says. “They are so interesting from both a biological and organizational perspective.”

Their mating habits are particularly intriguing, he says. “Only about 20 per cent of the hive is male, and they hang around all summer, eating honey, and getting in the way. They’re only kept around in case the hive needs a new queen. If it does, the virgin queen will fly 80 feet in the air, and only the fastest drone gets to mate with her — but then he dies. So it’s better to be a slow drone.”

A beekeeper is a position to be both an observer and a part of the busy hive. During the summer, Georgeff admits beekeeping is a low maintenance hobby. “You do have to make sure they have room, that there are no ant infestations, and you have to give them medication against bee diseases,” Georgeff says. “It’s ever so relaxing to look after my bees.”

The pace picks up in the fall at honey-harvest time, when the bees get busy as — well — bees. Extracting honey is a chore, he admits, “but I always say that I run a housing and Medicaid program for my bees. That’s why they reward me with honey.”

Georgeff waxes philosophical when comparing the altruism his bees display with the human behaviour he’s observed as a seasoned senior executive and people manager.

“It’s interesting from an organizational perspective to think about some of the hive activity — the way bees always do what’s required. If they need to defend themselves against wasps, they band together even though they don’t have a real boss,” he says.

Georgeff’s hobby is not just a personal interest. It’s also a way to spend time with his wife. In the summer, the two take courses, such as needlepoint and bird carving together at the Haliburton (Ontario) School of Fine Arts.

“It’s a way to make time for family and draw closer. I even tried cross-stitching one summer,” he says. “If you’re in faraway places like Stockholm — which I frequently was as a consultant — with nothing to do in the evenings except watch Swedish television or go to the bar and drink expensive beer, needlepoint is a good way to relax when you’re stranded.”

Georgeff says any hobby that exercises other parts of your brain and helps tune out IT matters is energizing. “I do highly detailed wood carvings. It means I absolutely have to concentrate, and when I do, the rest of the world fades away. I like doing things with my hands because, all day long, I work with my mind.”

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

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