Beekeeping

You’re sitting outside on your porch enjoying a cup of hot cider. Suddenly, a few bees show up and buzz around you, showing interest in what you’re drinking. You might wish these annoying visitors would leave you alone, but do you know how important bees really are?

Bees don’t just produce the honey that goes into your tea, they also pollinate, helping plants grow, breed and produce food. That includes helping plants like almonds and vanilla, as well as apples and squash. And beekeepers are essential to that entire process — from making sure the bees are healthy and happy to transporting them across the country in semitrucks to fields that need pollination.

It’s not just beekeepers, by the way, who are involved in the process of creating honey and pollinating — petroleum plays a huge role as well.

PETROLEUM: A HELPING HAND TO GET BEES WHERE THEY’RE NEEDED.
Commercial beekeepers are a vital part of the industry. Many of them manage hundreds, sometimes thousands, of hives to provide pollination services to farmers across the country.

Chris Moore, of Moore Honey Farm in Southeast Texas, ships his bees on semitrucks to different states including California, where they pollinate almond trees. Each truck carries 408 colonies, with 40,000 to 60,000 bees in each colony. In case you’re not a math person, that’s about 16.3 to 24.5 million bees on every semi.

Some trucks also head to North Dakota, West Texas and Wisconsin where the bees make honey and pollinate seedless watermelons and cranberries. If it weren’t for these beekeepers, we wouldn’t have a lot of the food we eat today.

The truck drivers transporting the colonies spend a lot of time on the road and, of course, have to fuel up along the way. Moore says he prefers to fill up his semitrucks at the Valero station nearby. “It’s local and they’ve got quick pumps,” he says.

PETROLEUM PRODUCTS KEEP BEEKEEPERS SAFE AND PRODUCTIVE.
Commercial beekeeping is not the only way petroleum is a part of beekeeping. For instance, it’s also in the materials that make up the special suits beekeepers wear to keep them from getting stung.

To cope with the hot weather in Texas, many beekeepers wear suits that have ventilated fabric layers, which are made out of polyester or a mix of polyester and vinyl. “They don’t just protect the beekeeper: the clothing is cool and comfortable and allows for ventilation,” says Michelle Boerst, master beekeeper at Bursting Bees, located in the northern part of the state. Some beekeepers wear rubber gloves, but Boerst prefers ones that are made out of goat skin. These gloves have a nylon layer that is sting resistant.

Even though Boerst’s company usually removes unwanted bees from people’s homes from all over the North Texas area, she sells a little honey too. “In Texas, we have what we call two honey flows,” says Boerst. The first is from April to the end of June. “And so, as beekeepers, we take that first spring honey flow.”

She pulls the honey frames, which hold the honeycomb within the hive enclosure, and places them in a centrifuge that extracts the sweet sugary substance. Some of that honey is then stored in plastic jars and containers and sold at farms, farmers markets and at your local grocery store.

The second batch of honey starts with fall flowers between August through the beginning of November. It has a bitter and sometimes spicy aftertaste. The bees get to feed on it and keep that honey for themselves. “We both get our share of honey,” says Boerst.

HOW CAN YOU HELP THE BEES AND THE BEEKEEPING INDUSTRY?
“Buy local honey,” says Moore. A lot of the honey at grocery stores is imported and from different countries. And believe it or not, some farmers markets tout that their honey is locally made even when it isn’t. “So do your research and check labels to make sure the honey is authentic and local,” Moore adds.

Another way you can help is to plant flowers that bloom all year. “Find flowers that bloom in spring and fall as well as summer, so the bees have a diet all year round,” says Boerst.

Lastly, if you have a swarm of bees near your house, don’t spray them or hurt them. Call a local beekeeper, who will be more than happy to take them off your hands.

So, next time you’re eating a watermelon or cranberries, or even drizzling honey on your pancakes, remember — there were millions of bees and many beekeepers who helped put that food on your dining room table.