There’s a buzz at Betterbee as the pollination season begins. WAMC visited the nationwide beekeeping equipment and education supplier in Washington County and has this story.
Hidden up a steep hill off State Route 29 in Greenwich, New York, is the nation’s third-largest beekeeping supplier. Founded in 1979, Betterbee started on the family farm of Bob Stevens where he raised his own bees and sold retail bee supplies. The farm was also home to the first meadery in the United States, where Stevens produced his own honey wine.
Today, David Peck is the Director of Research and Education at Betterbee. He has a PhD in honeybee health and biology. Did you know that was a thing? Peck, who has been with the company for four years, says bees on the farm also have a home in South Carolina.
“So, these are bees that have recently come up from a vacation in the south but they're still New Yorker bees. It's just that they were down there for a nice, warm winter, and so they're up here. But we don't just take them and then sell them right off to customers,” Peck said. “We make sure that our team of experienced beekeepers inspects every one, that somebody's gonna get exactly the colony that they want.”
With them taking a vacation down south, does that change any of their pollination or the way it tastes, or anything?
“So, the honey that's produced in a particular region is unique to that region,” Peck said. “The flowers that are blooming in maybe a one- or two-mile radius around any particular beehive at any particular time will determine the honey that they produce, because the honey is ultimately derived from the sugar that those flowers are producing. So that means that, you know, any of the honey that these bees have got from South Carolina or is that's going to taste like Carolina honey, whereas any honey that they produce this spring up here is going to taste like New York honey, because it is.”
Before winter, beekeepers must prepare their hives. As cold weather strikes, bees cluster together, leaving the entrance of their hive unmanned, so adding a mice guard is recommended. Peck says it’s best to consult experts before taking on a hive of your own.
“Don't stick your head in the sand. Talk to experts, talk to knowledgeable folks, talk to people who had good survival. If you had poor survival, figure out what they did differently, and then try to emulate them,” Peck said. “If you're a non-beekeeper, I think the best thing to do is to make sure you're buying local honey so that that honey is, you know, your money that you spend on that honey is going to go to help those beekeepers buy medications, you know, do whatever it is that they need to keep their bees as healthy as possible this year.”
But not all is sweet in the hive. Honeybees are currently experiencing widespread die-off and researchers aren’t sure why.
Peck says it could be a slew of issues — a harsh winter, stress, pesticides, and poor nutrition. Peck says on average, keepers are losing up to 70 percent of their colonies.
“However, it's entirely possible that there's also something new. You know, we talk about pathogens, viruses and bacteria that could you could make a colony sick,” Peck said. “Well, there could be some new virus or bacterium that has come onto the scene, and we simply don't know until we go out and look for it. And that's why there are labs all over the country who are studying this.”
Peck says beekeepers and farmers growing bee-dependent crops are working together to ensure their yields don’t take drastic hits.
Head beekper Anne Frey described what beekeepers look for when examining the colony.
“There's one really easy to see symptom on adults, which is that their wings are all crumpled up, and the brood, they don't have wings yet. They just look like little, little white grubs, kind of so that the symptoms are very different,” Frey said.
And the finished product on store shelves has humble beginnings, too. At least that’s what educator Elizabeth Warner says…
“Honey is really just a bunch of bee vomit passed back and forth between their sisters and then dehydrated in the hive,” Warner said.
Peck says honeybees are all sisters, as the queen and worker bees are all female.
“The only male bees are the drone bees, the reproductives, and their only function, they're very much like human males. They don't clean up after themselves, they can't really feed themselves, and all they're interested in is sex,” Peck said. “So, they spend their entire lives being taken care of by their sisters. They fly out to try to meet a queen, a newly produced queen from another colony, catch her in the air and mate with her, and they actually die in the process.”
