It has been about three years since I last wrote about my adventures with beekeeping. Given that this month’s cover story is about flowers, and that Pollinator Week runs from June 22-28, it seemed like a great time for an update.
However, credit for inspiring this article goes to Marilyn Sebourn, our front desk receptionist. Marilyn knows that I am a beekeeper, albeit not a great one. She watched National Geographic’s documentary series, “Secrets of the Bees,” executive produced by James Cameron and streaming on Disney+, and she thought I would enjoy it as well. I grabbed the grandkids one Sunday after church, and we sat down to check it out. It truly is an awesome show that I highly recommend. I learned quite a bit and finally saw some things I had only known in theory.
For instance, I knew that commercial beekeepers shipped bees to California, but I had no idea that it was the largest managed pollination event in the world. Each February, over 2 million bee colonies are sent to California on flatbed semi-trucks to support the two- to three-week almond tree bloom. This translates to somewhere between 30 billion and 90 billion bees. Why is this important? California produces 80% of the world’s supply of almonds, and it takes two bee colonies to pollinate each acre of almond trees.
Bees are important to Arkansas, too. Bees directly and indirectly support about $20 billion of Arkansas’ agricultural economy. While soybean and cotton crops are self-fertile, they produce larger and higher quality yields when visited by bees. Bees are responsible for 80% of the pollination required for Arkansas-grown tomatoes, berries, apples and watermelons. They also pollinate alfalfa and clover to support nutrient-dense food for our dairy and beef cattle. Arkansas has 40,000 registered bee colonies managed by nearly 2,000 beekeepers.
Some more interesting facts: Bees’ wings beat at approximately 200 to 230 times per second, creating that buzzing sound. Bees are completely red-blind but can see ultraviolet light, allowing them to see patterns on flowers that are invisible to humans. An individual bee’s lifetime work is about 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey, and bees must visit about 2 million flowers to produce just 1 pound of honey.
Honeybees convert collected nectar into honey by mixing it with their enzyme‑rich saliva and then evaporating the moisture. To do this, a bee releases a drop of nectar from its honey stomach, rolls it around to expose it to air inside the hive, and then places the partially dehydrated drop into a honeycomb cell. From there, the colony fans its wings to keep air moving and continue the evaporation process. The bees reduce the enzyme‑nectar mixture from about 70% water to less than 18%, at which point, it becomes honey — ready to be capped and stored for the winter. The colony needs about 50 pounds of honey to survive winter, and excess honey is collected by beekeepers for everyone to enjoy.
Honey is naturally acidic, and with low moisture, it is resistant to bacteria, giving it a very long shelf life. Edible honey, over 3,000 years old, was even found in King Tutankhamun’s tomb. So, if your honey looks crystallized and old, it is still good. Just put the bottle in some warm water and allow the sugar crystals to dissolve.
If you visit the Mayo Clinic website, you can read about the medicinal properties of honey, including its potential to lower cholesterol, soothe coughs, support digestive health, ease seasonal allergies and even aid in wound and burn care. Proverbs 16:24 says, “Kind words are like honey, sweet to the soul and healthy for the body.”
How is my beekeeping going? It could be better. I had three active hives last year, but I only harvested about 3 gallons of honey from one. The other two produced none, and one hive didn’t survive the winter.
However, things are looking up. Most beekeepers love to catch swarms to expand their apiaries. With a 3-pound package of bees costing about $150 and a nuc (five frames of bees with brood) costing over $200, free bees are nice. This spring, God smiled on my paltry apiary and blessed me with three swarms of bees, which I was able to capture and transplant into hive boxes. For me, this was equivalent to winning the bee lottery, but just like all lottery-winner stories, it can complicate your life.
I only had enough hive boxes for two of the swarms and was forced to buy more equipment for the third. Given my poor honey yields so far, this was a bit of insult to injury. However, I am an eternal optimist, so off I went to get more equipment. Lucky for me, I found the perfect place. I was fortunate to connect with John Smith at Central Beekeepers Supply in Russellville, and he was able to set me up even faster than Amazon Prime. I like to try new things, so I purchased a unique new hive from John called an ANEL hive, made in Athens, Greece. It has been in service for about a month, and I love it.
I list my hobbies on my professional bio as Reliability, Affordability and Responsibility of your electric power and services, which leaves little time for beekeeping. This may be a factor impacting my honey yield, but I suspect the real reason is lack of nectar where I live. At least, this is my best excuse. If any beekeepers reading this article want to share some best practices (via arkansaslivingmagazine.com/contact-us), I would be most receptive to the wisdom of a thriving hive mind.