Texas Public Radio | By Brian Kirkpatrick

Brian Kirkpatrick / Eighteen-year-old Cashlyn Varnon was selected as this year’s festival Honey Queen.

Uvalde brought back its Honey Fest tradition this weekend to celebrate the local industry, little more than one year after the Robb Elementary School shooting that left 19 students and two teachers dead. It was cancelled last year because of the tragedy.

The bees that produce the region’s honey and the townspeople both share a strong sense of community.

“They are tough, and they are going to do everything they can to survive. They work together, and they all pull their weight. And it’s all about the hive,” said local beekeeper Linda Williams.

Brian Kirkpatrick / Beekeeper Chianne Delacerda at the Uvalde Honey Fest on June 9, 2023.

Fellow local beekeeper Chianne Delacerda liked the comparison, too. Delacerda operates Deer Valley Apiary just outside Uvalde.

“The community still tries to come together,” she said. “We still try to stay cohesive as a unit. Everyone kind of supports each other through everything.”

Festival manager Gloria Reza agreed.

Brian Kirkpatrick / Bees at work at the Uvalde Honey Fest on Friday, June 9, 2023.

“We are one big beehive. We’re a bunch of worker bees, and we will find a way to pick up the pieces,” she said. “Not just from this tragedy, but from anything that has happened to us.”

It’s clear the residents of this farm and ranching town will always remember the shooting victims.

Eighteen-year-old Honey Queen Cashlyn Varnon was asked if the festival is a step toward a new normal. “A little bit. It’s definitely still different,” she said.

Brian Kirkpatrick / Honey Fest in Uvalde on June 9, 2023.

The festival was held at the town square in the heart of Uvalde. There were all sorts of vendors, including those selling honey, made by the area’s bees.

At the park’s center, however, remained the wooden crosses with the names of those who died, along with photos and mementos from their lives.

Brian Kirkpatrick / Wooden crosses remain at the center of the Uvalde town square, where Uvalde held its 2023 Honey Fest.

And in the countryside around the town, bees were busy collecting nectar from wildflowers dotting the landscape, including from Guajillo brush, which produces what one beekeeper called a light, sweet, beautiful honey.

The beekeepers explained that honey has healing properties for humans — a quality Uvalde treasures more than ever before.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: ‘We are one big bee hive:’ Uvalde festival celebrates honey’s power to heal wounds and soothe souls | TPR

The Princess keeps bees at Anmer Hall, on the Sandringham estate, where each batch of honey has its own distinct flavour

By Patrick Sawer,

The Princess of Wales is photographed wearing a bee suit.

An invitation to one of the garden parties at Buckingham Palace has always been regarded as quite the hot ticket.

But the invite will now be all the sweeter, following revelations that the honey being served to guests as part of the refreshments may well have been produced by royal hands.

To mark World Bee Day on Saturday May 20 and promote the importance of bees to the biodiversity of the planet, the palace released a photograph of the Princess of Wales busy tending to her hives in Norfolk.

The Princess of Wales keeps bees at Anmer Hall, on the Sandringham estate, where each batch of honey has its own distinct flavour depending on where the beehives are situated at time of collection, including lime from the trees which line the roads, or heather and lavender.

She brought a jar of the honey from the hives for schoolchildren to try on a visit to the Natural History Museum’s new biodiversity hub in June 2021.

The firm’s founders Brian and Pat Sherriff had previously designed military uniforms, but turned to making beekeeping equipment after setting up South Cornwall Honey Farm in the mid-1960s, which now has 400 colonies.

World Bee Day aims to raise awareness of the importance of bees, the threats they face and their contribution to sustainable development.

Apiary enthusiasm runs in the family

The Princess of Wales is not the only royal happy to don a beekeeper’s jacket and protective hood to gather the sweet harvest.

The Queen is also a keen apiarist, and keeps bees at Raymill, her six-bedroom retreat in Lacock, Wiltshire, 17 miles from the King’s Highgrove home.

During a visit to Launceston, Cornwall, last summer Queen Camilla met honey-producers selling jars in the town square, and told them she was a hands-on beekeeper and had only lost one colony during the previous winter.

King Charles in Argentina wearing a beekeeper suit for a visit to see bee keeping at Buenas Ondas organic vegetable garden CREDIT: Tim Graham

Honey produced by the Queen’s bees is sold at Fortnum & Mason to raise funds for charity. This year’s recipient is Nigeria’s first sexual assault referral centre, which the Queen supports as patron.

She is also president of Bees for Development, a charity training beekeepers and protecting bee habitats in more than 50 countries.

Buckingham Palace itself is home to four beehives on an island in a lake in the garden, and there are two hives in Clarence House’s garden.

These hives produced more than 300 jars of honey last year for the palace kitchens, which is frequently served to guests in honey madeleines, as a filling for chocolate truffles or in honey and cream sponge.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Princess of Wales tends her beehives in keeper’s suit (telegraph.co.uk)

To find Jim Hodder, owner of Eden Valley Honey, drive east on Haystack Butte Road about a mile and a half, then turn right at the big cottonwood stump.

Beyond the stump, about a dozen white-faced ewes — lambs in tow — are loose among a maze of corrals and outbuildings.

Hodder, 78, sits down on a diamond plate toolbox to take a load off and explain how he built a premium honey business in Sweetwater County over the past 50 years.

A bum lamb nibbles on a piece of orange bailing twine at his feet, reluctant to leave his side. In the background, a tiger-striped barn cat dives into a pile of straw and comes out with a fat mouse.

Hodder is a friendly fellow, but he’s lukewarm at best about being featured by Cowboy State Daily. That’s because every drop that comes out of his honey processing plant (aka, the honey house) is already spoken for.

Publicity is the last thing he needs.

Fine Honey Is Like Fine Wine

“Honey is a little bit like wine,” he said. “Not everyone’s palate is the same, but most people like the lighter-colored, sweeter honey. Some honey tastes sweet, but it will have an aftertaste. We don’t get that here and that’s one reason why our honey is so popular.”

Hodder started propagating bees in the early 1970s because he wanted to be more self-sufficient. Most of what he eats and feeds his family comes from his farm. He also raises laying hens, raises and butchers his own beef and lamb, and grows vegetables in a greenhouse.

Another important factor that sets Eden Valley Honey apart is the roughly 2.4 million bees working overtime to haul in the nectar from alfalfa and sweet clover in this part of north Sweetwater County.

For 50 years, Jim Hodder has been producing his Eden Valley Honey. (Cowboy State Daily Staff)

Better Bees

In more temperate climates, bees have months to do their work. But at this elevation (6,580 feet) the season is short, and plants only produce nectar for about six weeks. When nighttime temperatures drop below 50 degrees, plants don’t produce much nectar, Hodder said.

The bees must be in good shape when they arrive because they don’t have much time to complete their important work.

In his first year, Hodder said he had three hives that yielded about 200 pounds of honey. Over the years his production has increased to about 20,000 pounds a year.

Honey production correlates with bee reproduction, and when hives reproduce too fast it causes the bees to swarm. When they swarm, that means they have outgrown their hives and they go looking for a new place to live.

The best queen bees will produce up to 3,500 eggs per day. For optimal honey production, the hives ride a fine line that means the bees need to be in good shape, but not too good, he said.

“If your bees aren’t in shape when they get here you don’t get a good honey crop,” Hodder said. “You need your bees at full strength, but not too strong or they will swarm. To make them strong you manipulate. If you have a weak hive, you even them up by moving some bees in.”

Hodder further explained that some queens are better than others, and as a beekeeper it’s important to select queens that can acclimate to their environment. That makes buying queen bees similar to buying bulls for a cattle operation.

Hit The Road

The “getting here” part is another fascinating aspect of bee propagation. The hives that produce the golden Eden Valley Honey spend most of the year in other states. They only live in Wyoming from the end of June to the middle of October.

Hodder said in mid-October the hives are loaded on trucks and hauled to a storage facility in Blackfoot, Idaho. At this point they will check the weight of the hives and provide syrup as a supplemental feed if needed.

TJ Honey in Blackfoot is a business that boards about 20,000 colonies for honey business owners from throughout the Intermountain region every winter. It’s a huge, air-conditioned warehouse that holds the hives at about 42 degrees.

The warehouse is air-conditioned because the hives produce a lot of heat, Hodder said.

“If kept at 42 degrees they are almost in suspended animation and they don’t have to move too much,” he said. “If it gets too cold, they eat a lot of honey and fan to keep the nest warm, which creates a lot of heat.”

On To California, Then Oregon

In mid-January the bees are hauled to California’s San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys, where they go to work pollinating almond orchards. Hodder said almond growers pay beekeepers for this service, but  almond trees produce a limited amount of nectar that keeps the bee colonies alive but doesn’t yield much, if any, honey.

When the bees go into the pollination cycle in California there are 6,000 to 10,000 bees per hive. By the time the hives reach full strength the following summer their numbers will have increased to 60,000 bees per hive, he said.

In April, the hives are loaded up again and trucked north to Oregon, where they’ll pollinate prune orchards. While they’re in Oregon they’ll make some honey on blackberry and vetch nectar, but Hodder said the hives are reproducing fast at this point and consume most of the honey they produce.

Back To Wyoming

Then in late June the trucks are loaded again and the two-day, 1,100-mile trip back to Eden Valley begins.

Hauling bees on semitrucks is a time-sensitive endeavor, Hodder said. They make stops along the way and wet the hives down with water to cool them and give the bees a drink. They also cover the loads with mesh tarps to help prevent losses.

Parasitic mites are one of the biggest challenges with bee propagation. Hodder said bee numbers peak in July and begin to drop after that. They treat the hives with an antibiotic, but as bee numbers drop as part of their natural life cycle, the mite problem multiplies.

Colony collapse disorder is another concern for the bee industry. Hodder said scientists have been studying the problem and looking for solutions for the past 20 years, but they’re still uncertain of the cause.

Finally, The Honey

After harvest, the honey is put through an extractor to remove wax, then it’s heated to about 125 degrees and bottled. Too much heat turns the honey dark. Raw honey is heated to 90 degrees before bottling and it contains some pollen.

Hodder added that he only eats raw honey because its better for you from a health perspective. His theory is the pollen in raw honey works like a vaccine against allergies and he has customers that seek it out for that reason.

Hodder said it’s difficult to hire people to work with bees because stings are frequent and working with bees swarming around your head can be unnerving.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/05/07/50-years-of-sweet-success-for-wyomings-eden-valley-honey/

Alicia Devine

Bees were buzzing as they were getting acquainted with their new bee boxes in the apiary built by Leon County Jail inmates.

Dustin Nixson, an inmate, was eager to learn how to care for the thousands of bees in the four bee boxes as part of the Leon County Sheriff’s Office Ecology and Reentry Training Hub (EARTH) Haven.

He suited up in a beekeeper suit before gently blowing smoke into a bee box under the guidance of Sgt. Daniel Whaley, who cares for his own apiary outside of his day job.

The program has been up and running for about a week and Nixson is excited for what the future holds.

He’s looking forward to teaching his wife and children everything he learns through the EARTH program and turning beekeeping into a business to support his family when he goes home.

“We get a hive to take with us, the suits and basically everything we need to start,” said Nixson. “It’s going to be cool.”

Inmates who participate in the six-month program can earn a beekeeper apprentice certificate from the University of Florida.

If they don’t complete the program before they are released, they can choose to finish it and receive the certificate on their own.

Following the apprentice certification, inmates could choose to further their education and become master beekeeper, which would allow them to travel, inspect other beekeeper’s hives and help them better their apiaries.

“I’m definitely trying to take this all the way,” Nixson said with a smile. “It’s a very positive program. I see this one succeeding big time because everybody’s into it.”

There are currently three inmates working with the bees. Whaley hopes to grow the program to include 15-30 at a time over the next few years.

“It’s unlimited what you can do with honey, beeswax and the comb itself. It’s pretty amazing,” Nixson said. “You can make soaps, lip balms, and all kinds of candles.”

Nixson plans to focus on honey production as he gets his apiary off the ground and then getting his wife in on the business with the soap and candles.

EARTH Haven will offer other skills and trainings as well as possible certifications in pesticide application, arboriculture, landscaping, and horticulture.

This program is 100% funded by the Inmate Welfare Fund, in which monies are self-generated, non-taxpayer funds used to improve the transition of inmates back into the community.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Leon County jail reentry program trains inmates in beekeeping, business (tallahassee.com)

Annabel Keenan

Bruce Gifford of Cultured Bees tending to the beehives on the roof of the Brooklyn MuseumCourtesy Brooklyn Museum

Brooklyn is buzzing. Sitting on top of the Brooklyn Museum are two beehives, each housing between 10,000 and 50,000 honey bees that travel an average of three miles in search of nectar, pollinating local flowers in the process.

The beehives are part of the museum’s sustainability initiatives, which also include an internal Sustainability Task Force, as well as programs, events and exhibitions related to environmental justice and climate change. Installed and maintained by beekeeper Bruce Gifford of Cultured Bees, the hives are part of a growing movement to use cultural spaces to support local ecosystems.

The Brooklyn Museum began its green initiatives in 2022 to promote socially and environmentally conscious change within the institution and community. “We developed a ‘social action framework’,” says Adjoa Jones de Almeida, the museum’s deputy director for learning and social impact. “This framework proposes a sustained, multi-year commitment to two key issues reflecting broad and urgent global themes with serious repercussions for Brooklyn and our world: climate change and mass criminalisation.”

To address these issues, the museum has been taking small steps, such as phasing out single-use plastic bottles, along with making larger structural changes, including updating gas and electric equipment to reduce operational carbon emissions. The museum is also supporting the work of local social and climate justice organizations and sustainability initiatives through partnerships and community engagement.

Emblematic of this local outreach are the thousands of bees that descend from the museum’s roof and pollinate the surroundings, including the adjacent Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. An individual bee pollinates around 1,000 flowers per day, so each colony may be pollinating 50 million flowers daily. While bees are self-sufficient, Gifford assists the initial growth, feeding new hives sugar water at least once a week until they support themselves by foraging for nectar. He monitors the bees throughout the spring and summer, visiting every few weeks to check overall health and add layers if needed. He harvests surplus honey in the fall and leaves enough for the bees to survive the winter.

“Providing bees a safe space to build their colonies while learning about their society and social structure is fascinating,” says Gifford. “I love observing the structure of a hive–their democratic decision making–and the crucial role bees play in our ecosystem. All are opportunities to spark productive conversations and provide a lens to ponder human societies.”

Beekeeping was legalized in New York City in 2010 when the municipal board of health voted unanimously to lift one of the only bans on the practice in the United States. The first museum beehives in the city were installed shortly thereafter at the Whitney Museum of American Art in its former Upper East Side location. Moving downtown along with the museum in 2015, the bees now pollinate the High Line and are maintained by beekeepers Chucker Branch and Christine Lehner.

In addition to the Brooklyn Museum’s beehives, Gifford installed and maintains two rooftop hives at the Museum of Arts and Design (Mad). Constructed last spring, the hives pollinate Central Park and are also home to up to 50,000 bees each, including two queens: Queen Aileen, named after Mad’s founder, Aileen Osborn Webb, and Queen Toshiko Takaezu, named for the famed ceramic artist and museum supporter.

This spring, the Museum of Modern Art (Moma) is working with Gifford to install four beehives of its own. Additionally, for the first time since 2015, Moma will exhibit its renowned Pierre Huyghe sculpture Untilled (Liegender Frauenakt) (2012) beginning in June as part of a contemporary art installation in its sculpture garden. The work features a concrete nude female figure whose head is made of a beehive structure, wax and a live bee colony that is maintained by a specialised beekeeper unrelated to Gifford. While the sculpture is separate from the rooftop hives, the bees will support local pollination.

Through all these initiatives, visitors can see firsthand how a museum impacts the local ecosystem. “Cultural institutions are keenly aware of social and environmental issues and are eager to help affect real change in the world,” says Gifford. He adds that, by hosting beehives, “Institutions become producers, as well as caretakers of the city.”

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: The museum bees pollinating Brooklyn (theartnewspaper.com)

Maintaining natural wildlife is one of the pillars of saving our planet. Many insects, such as bees, are overlooked for their contribution to the natural landscape of the world.

Cross-pollination is when the pollen from one plant get transferred over to the pistils of another.  This action allows flowers to mix their genetic information, evolve, and survive in the wild. Without cross-pollination, new plants can’t grow and feed the wildlife surrounding them.

When bees land on a flower, they pick up some of its pollen and then fly to another. Cross-pollination occurs naturally from the bees transferring particles from one plant to another.

With an increase in pesticides used by farmers to ‘preserve’ their crops, every year there is a 40% decrease in surrounding bee populations. Without the insects, humans have to manually cross-pollinate, which is less efficient.

A Hollywood Legend Steps In

(YT)

One household name, Morgan Freeman, heard about this wildlife crisis and wanted to help. When he’s not in front of the camera, Morgan spends a lot of time on his ranch in Mississippi. He owns a sizeable piece of land, roughly 124-acres large and wanted to dedicate some of it to saving the bees.

Morgan imported 26 bee hives from Arkansas to his ranch. He works daily to feed the bees a mixture of sugar and water. This is necessary because when the hive moves, the bees lose track of where their food source is. He and his team have even planted bee-friendly plants such as magnolia trees, lavender and clover.

When speaking to Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, Morgan said he has a special relationship with the bees. “What I’ve discovered is that I don’t have to put on a bee suit or anything to feed them.” He said, “They have the outfits for people who can’t resonate.”

At the core of Morgan’s new hobby is a mutual respect between himself and the insects he cares for. The bees are socially aware enough to understand that he brings the food source and poses no threat. “I’m never gonna get stung,” he said.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: https://www.goalcast.com/morgan-freeman-sanctuary-bees/

From beekeeping to crochet, these hobbies passed down through generations form lasting bonds

Clea Skopeliti

It’s fair to say Alasdair Friend didn’t always picture himself as a beekeeper. But when a diagnosis of motor neuron disease meant his father was no longer able to tend to his hives, Friend resolved to carry on his passion. He was not without doubts at first: “I remember driving back with this actively buzzing box of 40,000 bees and thinking, what have I signed up for?”

Now the proud owner of no fewer than 10 beehives, Friend, 57, who is a teacher in Edinburgh, still has the descendants of the bees he brought home two years ago. “Although they are pretty feisty at times and cause me moments of panic, I love carrying on with his traditions,” Friend says. “Each year I take the hives to the Cairngorms to collect heather honey to exactly the same place he brought his hives.”

How we spend our free time matters: research suggests that having hobbies can enhance mental and physical wellbeing and offer greater life satisfaction. From team sports to crafts classes, they can also be a means to meaningfully connect with others. And for some, having an interest in common offers a way to feel close to a loved one, whether or not they still practice it together.

Friend says his father seems “really pleased” that he has carried on with his hobby. “He’s still very interested – there’s an element of him doing it through me. I’ve met some great people and I’ve had a lot of fun, as well as moments of extreme discomfort when I’ve been stung and moments of terror when they start swarming.”

“It’s great to feel he’s passed on this bee baton to me and I’ve run with it. There are lots of things I’ve shared with my dad – he taught me how to love the hills and climbing mountains. Keeping bees is another thing later in life

To read the entire article go to; ‘He passed the bee baton on to me’: people who inherit hobbies | Hobbies | The Guardian

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: ‘He passed the bee baton on to me’: people who inherit hobbies | Hobbies | The Guardian

• By Margaret Hetherwick | Examiner staff writer

Beekeeper Kevin McKean pulls a frame partially filled with brood (larvae) from his backyard hive.

Craig Lee/The Examiner

When people asked Kevin McKean what he was going to do during retirement, he always said the same thing: “I’m going to have pigs and bees.” The pigs didn’t work out — it’s not easy to raise hogs in San Francisco — but the bees became his life.

Apiarists, or beekeepers, who raise bees in urban spaces are not in it just for the honey or a means to an end in crop production. When a city is your pasture and your livestock is a critical part of the food chain, you become a combination of farmer, conservationist, educator and occasional public safety officer during swarms.

The San Francisco Beekeepers Association is a growing community of apiarists dedicated to serving honeybees and the people who manage them in San Francisco. As ambassadors for local pollinators, their work is instrumental in maintaining the biodiversity of The City, but most

“People always think that you can’t keep bees in The City, but I think it’s actually a lot easier,” said Taylor Capozziello, president of the SFBA. The SF beekeeping community is quite large, she explained, which might surprise  some. “You end up figuring out that people in a few blocks’ radius are beekeepers as well.”

Agriculture in cities is becoming more common, and for good reason — growing your own food presents a direct path to food equity, is healthier and reduces emissions that would be used to truck fresh food in from farms. However, it is predicated on having space, time and capital to host plants or animals, which is not a reality for some, especially in San Francisco.

Bees are different, said McKean. They’re low profile, and they have their own agenda.

“It’s a lot like having a flock of sheep, except there are 50,000 sheep instead of 100, the sheep are the size of a marble, or tinier, and they’re completely wild,” he said. “People manage bees, we put them in hives, and we can mostly persuade them to stay there. The truth is that they manage themselves.”

McKean got started with SFBA in 2014. It takes a fair amount of capital to invest in beekeeping: suits, frames, boxes, various tools, smokers and a class to learn about bee care can run you between $400 and  $650, plus subsequent fees in the hundreds every year to restore supplies.

Joining a local beekeeping guild like the SFBA can offset some of the initial costs with gear discounts, and having new members join an organization incentivizes responsible husbandry, noted Capozziello.

Part of that is understanding your role as a beekeeper, explained McKean.

“You are there to guide, make suggestions and try to influence what the bees do. But ultimately the bees will do whatever they’re going to do, as we discover again and again every day. They make crazy choices.”

Once a colony gets going, it goes through a boom-and-bust seasonal cycle. Right now, honeybees are slowly beginning to reopen their hives (literally — bees close off the hive’s entrances in colder months to conserve heat) after a long winter spent in a survival cluster. Springtime is spent rehydrating honey stores, building the population back up and expanding honeycombs.

Happ-bee New Year — A bee’s New Year is in the fall, according to experts, because its condition at the end of summer after the gathering seasons greatly affects its prosperity the following spring.

Bees can thrive indefinitely with proper care, but they are still fragile, and often colonies collapse. Keepers in the U.S. lose about 30% to 40% of colonies annually to any number of causes: parasites, disease, pesticides, extreme climate or poor management. Any of these can smite an entire colony in a matter of weeks.

“Every new beekeeper goes through the agony of losing their first colony,” said McKean. “We’ve joked in the club about needing to offer grief counseling. It’s almost like losing a pet — they’re not going to curl up with you and watch TV, but people have an emotional bond with bees.”

In San Francisco, the health of the local pollinator population is greatly affected by the resources available to it, said Capozziello. That means the plants in nurseries, the trees on the streets of The City and flowers in backyards are potential vectors. So far, the honeybees have proven to be resilient and adaptable.

“We have lots of speculation on it,” she said. “For a while it was getting pretty rough. Now it seems like more bees are surviving the winter than before. Maybe our methods are getting better, maybe we’re breeding more mite-resistant bees. Maybe there are less pesticides in our plants. So at least we’re hopeful.”

But not all pollinators have the benefit of a shepherd. There are 1,500 species of native bees in California, 81 of which live in the Bay Area. Most live alone, which reduces some of the dangers of disease or pest transmission, but the impact of pesticides is often lethal. Capozziello said that as stewards of bees, it is the SFBA’s imperative to help all of them — which means planting a wide variety of native plants and creating places for the native bees to nest.

“I think a lot of people have started to realize that (saving the bees) is not just about the European honeybee, which people usually first get excited about, but a lot of different pollinators,” she said.

Among other urban spaces, The City is uniquely qualified to achieve that goal. It’s fairly mild, and even the most dense industrial or built-up neighborhoods are not far from a green space.

“In this city, even if your bee is flying out of Market and Kearny, they fly a quarter of a mile and they’re in parklands near the Embarcadero or Western Addition where they can graze,” said McKean.

In fact, he added, density can also be a good thing.

“San Francisco has such a crazy variety of flowering plants, both indigenous and imported, so you get this wonderful mixture of flavors, and every batch from every neighborhood is a little different. San Francisco honey is fabulous.”

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Urban beekeeping in San Francisco: conservation and honey | Culture | sfexaminer.com

Coral Gables (United States) (AFP) – Melissa Sorokin sees herself as “a bee advocate,” deeply passionate about helping to rescue the at-risk creatures that play such a critical role in biodiversty

Often called in by spooked or concerned residents, she acts as emergency responder for the vital pollinators, spending the substantial time it takes to move threatening or threatened hives to safer locations.

Sorokin, who lives in Florida, says rescuing hives is infinitely better than homeowners or businesses allowing pest control services to swoop in and simply kill the bees.

“If they don’t call me, as a beekeeper, they are most likely going to get an exterminator, who instead kills the bees. It’s easy, it’s quick, it’s good money, cheap for them,” says Sorokin, 54.

On the other hand, “I’m like a bee advocate, a bee tender,” she says. “I love them. And I have a friendship with them.”

Sorokin’s mission is vital, she adds, because bees are under threat from climate change, pesticides, large cultivation of single crops, urbanization and invasive species.

The honey bee population is in freefall. A December study from Penn State University found that the United States experienced a 43 percent colony loss between April 2019 and April 2020.

The knock-on effects are immense, with the US Food and Drug Administration noting that about one third of food eaten by Americans comes from crops pollinated by honey bees, including apples, melons, cranberries, pumpkins and broccoli.

On a sunny afternoon, Sorokin heads to a client’s garden in Coral Gables, near Miami, to remove a beehive.

She first scouts out the place where she suspects the bees are hiding: a shed attached to a house.

Once the presence of the insects is confirmed, she burns pieces of wood in a smoker, dons a mesh head net, and blows smoke into the shed’s eaves to calm the bees.

She then grabs a chainsaw and cuts a wooden rectangle in the roof eave. Pulling back the planks reveals a humming, heaving hive.

Sorokin, wearing protective gloves, carefully removes panels of honeycomb covered with bees, and places them like racks in an artificial hive.

“It’s not very complicated to move bees. They sleep at night. So you can move them at night or you can move them in the morning keeping everything nice and close,” she explains.

“My goal, my wish,” is to help the bees, she says. “I hope that they have a better life with me because I help them.”

When Sorokin finishes transferring the insects from the shed, she closes up the new box hive and takes it to her car, where she straps it in with a seat belt.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: For a best friend to Florida bees, each rescue is personal (france24.com)

Lakshmi Varanasi

Marina Marchese is one of two certified honey sommeliers in the United States. Marina Marchese

I’ve never really understood why no one talks about honey the way they talk about wine or cheese or olive oil.

There are thousands of different grapes, growing in different places, and each one produces a unique kind of wine.

The same is true of honey. There are thousands of botanical sources that make so many types of honey that it’s hard to even quantify.

In Bulgaria, for example, honey is made out of the coriander flower. In Greece, honey is made from thyme. Just in Italy alone, there are more than 25 types of honey.

Yet most people in the US are only familiar with “mass market” honey — a generic, blended version with a singular flavor profile.

My origin story

I came into the world of honey tasting by way of beekeeping.

I visited a honey bee hive for the first time in 1999. Like most people, I was terrified, even though I was wearing full protective gear, a veil, and a hat. Yet I was surprised to see how docile the bees were.

Marchese tending to her honey bee hive. Marina Marchese

A year later, I started my own hive. At first, it was just a hobby, but soon it turned into a full-fledged career. I began selling my own honey under the brand Red Bee at local farmers’ markets. Then I started collecting honey from various botanical sources. I also started making connections with beekeepers across the country by attending conferences.

The deeper I delved into this realm, the more I wondered why there wasn’t a central database that catalogued every variety of honey. I read everything by the US Department of Agriculture. I read everything by Eva Crane, the mathematician who devoted her life to researching bees and bee-keeping. I started going to as many honey shows as I could.

Eventually, I stumbled upon a program in Italy called The Italian National Register of Experts in the Sensory Analysis of Honey. The goal was to teach the sensory analysis of honey — similar to what exists for the smelling or tasting of wine.

The program has been operating for 40 years and has three levels. For your final certification, you need to pass a formal exam. There’s an oral portion, a written portion, and a blind tasting, where you must identify the botanical source of 18 honeys by smell and taste alone.

I was the first US citizen to pass through all three rounds of the program. Since then there has been a second, which only underscores the point that there are very few honey sommeliers in the country.

To read the whole article go to; I’m a Honey Sommelier, Here’s How I Landed the Job (businessinsider.com)

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: I’m a Honey Sommelier, Here’s How I Landed the Job (businessinsider.com)

University of Missouri Extension is taking applications from veterans for the third year of the Missouri Heroes to Hives program.

The free program trains veterans in beekeeping while also addressing their mental and physical wellness, said MU Extension agronomist Travis Harper.

“Research has shown that the act of keeping bees can be very therapeutic, much like gardening and other outdoor activities,” Harper said. “We also incorporate Q.P.R. suicide prevention training, stress relief and tai chi into the Heroes to Hives curriculum.”

The program, which runs from March to December, consists of three parts: online training modules from Michigan Food and Farming Systems that veterans work through at their own pace, monthly Zoom webinars on topics specific to Missouri beekeeping and hands-on training at an MU teaching apiary in Warrensburg, Mount Vernon or Poplar Bluff.

Heroes to Hives is also available for those needing adaptations for disabilities, he said. “Beekeeping is very physically demanding, and we want to make sure all veterans who want to keep bees are able to keep bees.”

The program is free to all veterans — active-duty, reserve, National Guard, etc. — and their spouses or dependents. Sign up for this season by Feb. 28 at www.heroestohives.com.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Beekeeping training offered to veterans (newstribune.com)

by Christian Senger

College of Charleston sophomore William Helfgott has turned a beehive he won through his 4H program when he was just 8 years old into a thriving business called River Bluff Honey.

In the summer of 2017, at the age of 15 , Helfgott set out with a backpack full of honey jars and a dream of selling out. Just thirty minutes later, his backpack was empty and he was hooked on the beekeeping business.

The following spring, Helfgott was selected to receive a scholarship to become a certified beekeeper in the state of South Carolina. In June of 2018, he was approached by a retailer and they agreed to sell his product. And with that, River Bluff Honey (named after the street Helfgott lives on) was born.

Unsurprisingly, many media outlets became interested in Helfgott’s story and business. After several appearances in magazines, newspapers, TV shows, and more, River Bluff Honey is now available in 30-35 stores in South Carolina and Georgia. Plus, Helfgott donates a portion of all profits to the Lonon Foundation, a Charleston nonprofit that provides resources to children affected by their parent or caregiver’s cancer.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: College of Charleston sophomore heads up successful local honey business | WCIV (abcnews4.com)

Young people from Kolasin believe in success

The Perisic family from Kolasin, a small town in Montenegro’s north-east, bought several bee colonies last year and already enjoying in quality honey from their own production. Fun fact: this work is mostly done by a twenty-year-old student of economics, Milica Perisic.

Together with eight other young enthusiasts, Milica has recently taken up beekeeping thanks to the project of the Association of Beekeepers from Kolasin, which promotes this noble hobby among youth. This association has provided beginners with complete beekeeping accessories, modern literature and detailed training on beekeeping. The European Union, UNDP Montenegro and the Municipality of Kolasin, joined in the ReLOaD2 project, have made it possible for these young people to open their joint “practical apiary”, where they train young women and men from Kolasin to provide proper bee care.

The Perisic family are interested in beekeeping since the COVID-19 pandemic when people have become very interested in natural products. The project of the Association of Beekeepers came at the right time, giving Milica the opportunity and motivation to confidently venture into beekeeping.

Milica believes beekeeping is a serious opportunity for development, even though it is only a hobby for family and friends for now. “First of all, this is a great way to spend my free time, to spend some time in nature and observe these incredible small creatures, but also, this is a great opportunity to make money – and I won’t give up”, Milica says.

She admits that people find it unusual for a young woman to be engaged in beekeeping. “Sometimes they make jokes when I look for books and magazines about beekeeping, because they often think of it as a hobby for older, retired people, but eventually, everyone is interested in learning more about my hobby”, Milica added. She spends a lot of time in Podgorica due to her studies, but she spends every free moment of her time to come to Kolasin. Milica says she can imagine herself living in future in this town which she has perceived as a holdback while she was a high school student.

Thirty-year-old Djordjije Scepanovic has also bought his first bee colonies half a year ago: “I’ve always been interested in this, but somehow, I lacked time and conditions. Then I’ve decided to sign up for training in Kolasin, and with new daily learnings I’m already satisfied with the progress. It is true that I’m a beginner, but I see a perspective in this, because there will be no human species without bees”, he said.

Djordjije is considering beekeeping as his main job. “I’ve suffered an injury that prevents me from continuing with the work I’ve been doing so far, and this alternative appeared at the right moment. I will dedicate myself to beekeeping because it offers so much, and compared to any other job, it also gives you relaxation and enjoyment”, he said.

The Association of Beekeepers has been promoting beekeeping for 20 years, and they see the past year as the most successful in that sense.

Representatives of the Association of Beekeepers note that there is a great demand for bee products, while the current production in Montenegro does not meet the needs of the market. They believe that the economic environment in Kolasin has rapidly improved with the highway construction, adding that an incredible wealth remains unused in rural areas – endemic species and diverse floral flora, which Milica and Dordjije have recognized brilliantly.

Numerous parts of Montenegro, which is the home for a half of all European plant species, represent an inexhaustible potential for beekeeping. “That’s why I recommend everyone who is at least a little bit interested in nature to think about similar ventures”, the President of the Association, Bogoljub Bulatovic, says.

“In addition to the tools and knowledge young people have gained, the entire local community will benefit, because the development of beekeeping improves fruit growing, and thus the entire agriculture. Since the beginning of the project, our membership has increased by 25%. If only two people decide to devote themselves seriously to beekeeping, and there will likely be many more, the landscape of the Kolasin area will change significantly”, Bulatovic pointed out.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Beekeeping as a hobby and business of the future | United Nations Development Programme (undp.org)

By Bill Weir, CNN Chief Climate Correspondent

Arcadia, FloridaCNN —

Their busy, buzzing business partners pollinate everything from almonds in California to blueberries in Maine, so few people understand the state of American agriculture quite like Florida beekeepers.

But colliding climate crises have left few as sad and worried.

The storms and droughts of ’22 had already taken their toll on crop yields and a drying Mississippi was clogging harvest shipments when Hurricane Ian blasted into the nation’s apiary epicenter in central Florida. The storm drowned or crushed hundreds of thousands of hives, killing bees by the hundreds of millions – and those that survived are starving.

“Our entire ecosystem is flipped upside down and twisted up like a blender,” Keith Councell told CNN as he picked through piles of shattered and sodden hives on his farm near Arcadia, a little north and inland from Fort Myers.

“This was really bad because we were in the prime Brazilian pepper bloom,” he explained. “That’s our main source of nectar in the fall.”

Keith Councell handles honey bees on his farm near Arcadia. Evelio Contreras/CNN

Much of the American beekeeping industry winters in the Sunshine State to catch the dependable bloom of the Brazilian pepper tree before shipping fresh bees to California for the February almond crop and then onwards to some 130 fruit and vegetable seasons across the country.

But just as hives were filling with honey and young bees in late September, the Category 4 storm raked ashore, not only tossing and flooding tens of thousands of bee boxes but ripping the flowers and leaves off of hundreds of square miles of forage. “Some of those trees have been sandblasted,” Councell said. And in another cruel twist, some trees are putting out “stress blooms” as they die, which attract the hungry bees but carry no nutrition.

Emergency rations started to be trucked in when starving bees began robbing from other hives.

Councell tapped a plastic jug the size of a garden shed containing sugar water, nearby another full of corn syrup. The hope is that putting out jars of these sweet stuffs will be enough to keep bees alive for now.

“Ideally, they would be collecting different pollens from different plants, for all their amino acids and nutrition,” Councell said. “You can’t give bees one candy bar and expect them to survive on it. They need that full meal but right now, our environment…” He pointed at the shattered pepper trees and orange groves. “There’s nothing there.”

To read the complete article go to;

Starving bees are robbing hives as their keepers try everything to save them | CNN

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Starving bees are robbing hives as their keepers try everything to save them | CNN

Catherine O’Neill Grace

In spring 2020, Heather Mattila, professor of biological sciences at Wellesley, was awaiting a shipment of honey bees for the hives on campus when it became clear that normal academic practice was in jeopardy.

“We didn’t know what to do or where to go or what life would be like,” she says. “So I just brought the bees home instead of bringing them to campus.”

Mattila lives in Boston, adjacent to the Arnold Arboretum. “I’d never had them at home before as a practice. But ever since the pandemic, I’ve had bees in the yard every year because they are so relaxing. It’s like watching a waterfall.”

Mattila grew up in Thunder Bay, Ontario. “At the time—you know, everything’s shifting now—but at the time, it was the northern limit of where people kept bees,” she says. “I remember seeing the hives at one particular house, but honey bees weren’t a thing for me until I was in university, the age of the students that we have at Wellesley.”

Mattila studied zoology at the University of Guelph, which for decades had one of the largest bee departments in the world. She ended up taking a bee biology course—and found her topic. “I’ve just always loved animals, and I love social animals. I love watching humans interact. I love watching the dogs we’ve had over my lifetime interact. And honey bees are really an extension of that,” she says.

Heather Mattila checks on a hive. Photo provided by Lisa Abitbol

At the beginning of the semester, Mattila takes students in her introductory biology class out to meet the bees. “It’s never easy to meet bees,” she says. “Even for me, it wasn’t. I wanted to shove my hands in my pockets for the first week that I worked in a bee lab. But there’s something about bees that just clicks with people.” Students new to bees are often surprised that the hives smell wonderful, and the bees’ buzzing—the humming of the hive—is soothing and peaceful. “You know how the students enjoy puppy therapy during exams? Bees can have that effect,” Mattila says.

Honey bees are an ideal research subject for undergraduates, Mattila says. “When you study animals, you want to see them actually operating in their natural environment—and bees can be kept and observed right on campus.”

Now that the Wellesley hives are back on campus, students are swarming to Mattila’s lab to learn about these creatures, which, as pollinators, are central to global food production. The world needs bee researchers, because bees, both domesticated and wild, are in danger. Threats include climate change, habitat loss and fragmentation, pathogens, pesticides, and agricultural practices that affect bee diversity. Understanding bees has never been more important. We spoke to scientists who have gone out from Wellesley to conduct research in the lab and in the field.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Plan Bee: As Problems Assail the World’s Bee Population, Wellesley Scientists Step In | Spotlight | Wellesley College