Bee Zaagar - Apiary and Beekeeping News

It's big bees-ness

By Maggi Newhouse
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
July 6, 2005 - Bees make the difference between large, full strawberries and their smaller misshapen counterparts. Their honey is rich with the flavors of whatever is in bloom and can pack as many antioxidants as spinach or bananas. Yet when it comes to honeybees, beekeeper Bob McMillan said most people are thinking one thing: They sting, right?

"'Those things sting. You're crazy.' I've heard that before," said McMillan, owner of McMillan Apiaries in Wampum, Lawrence County. "There are some misconceptions, but in the busy season, you don't have time to do public relations."

With the season's first batch of honey ready to be extracted from the comb, beekeepers in the Pittsburgh region this month are as busy as, well, you know.

Local honey is big business for even bee hobbyists, whose products -- ranging from honey to beeswax moisturizers -- can be found at farmers' markets, small markets, health food stores and some supermarkets. "It's a hobby, but it's nice that it's self-sustaining at this point," said Tom Owczarzak, who sells his G & T Apiaries honey to several stores and markets in the city.

But many beekeepers say the job that continues long after the honey is packed away in jars is that of educating the public about their charges. "Anything that flies is considered to be a bee to them. They think it's a bee that goes into your pop can during a picnic," said Owczarzak, of Blawnox. "One of the big functions of a beekeeper is to educate the public."

Jim Fitzroy isn't going to lie -- the bees in the backyard of his Verona home do sting. And as he eased out frame after frame of combs filled with honey from the wooden box hives on a sunny Tuesday morning -- hundreds of bees swarming around him -- one bee decided to prove him right and planted a stinger into Fitzroy's hand.

The bees, after all, had a right to be mad. Fitzroy was checking the amount of honey packed away in the beehive -- he planned to extract the surplus honey the next day. "When you steal their food, they get pretty aggressive," he said. It's a little like coming home from work and discovering someone taking food out of your refrigerator. "They are completely nonaggressive when they are away from the hive," Fitzroy said.

Each colony, which can range from 30,000 to 60,000 bees, fills a stack of wooden boxes made up of "brood chambers" and "supers." The brood chambers are where the queen bee lays eggs -- any honey produced in this box is kept for the bees.

The supers are added on top of the brood chamber. As one super fills with honey another super is added; this is the honey beekeepers gather.

The state produces about $3 million worth of honey every year, said Dennis van Englesdorp, with the state Department of Agriculture, and the bees provide about $66 million worth of pollination services.

Mike Guthrie's family initially started using honeybees to pollinate their raspberry crops and sold the honey as a side venture. The honey proved so successful that they dropped the raspberry production and focused on keeping bees at Maple Valley Farms.

Guthrie, of Ross, now has about 100 colonies in bee yards scattered throughout western Pennsylvania.

Maple Valley produces seven different varieties of honey, ranging from the light and mild clover honey to the dark, strongly flavored buckwheat honey and sell the products at local farmers' markets and stores like the East End Co-Op and McGinnis Sisters. "If you go to Giant Eagle and buy a typical jar of honey and then buy a jar of our honey and put them down side by side, you'll find that they're not the same," Guthrie said.

Mass-produced honey often comes from sources from as far away as China or South America. The honey is heated prior to packaging, which can cause it to lose some of its flavor and nutrients. Local beekeepers' honey is often called raw honey because it has not been heated or processed.

Fitzroy's honey took home first place this year from the Pennsylvania Farm Show in January. He's able to make back whatever he spends on his hobby in honey sales, but said he's content with just watching the bees in action. "It's pretty amazing," he said. "Sometimes you can just sit there and watch what they do as they go in and out."

Honey facts

A worker bee will produce 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.

Worker bees travel 55,000 miles and visit two million flowers to produce one pound of honey.

There are more than 300 unique kinds of honey in the United States, each originating from a different floral source ranging from alfalfa to tulip poplar trees.

About one-third of the human diet is derived from insect-pollinated plants; honey bees are responsible for 80 percent of this pollination.

A colony contains one queen, 500 to 1,000 drones and about 30,000 to 60,000 worker bees.

The first evidence of beekeeping appears in the paintings of ancient Egypt dating from around 25000 BC.
Source: National Honey Board

Maggi Newhouse can be reached at mnewhouse@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7997.