To bee or not to bee
Local beekeeper shares insights on the challenges, joys of the enterprise
This photo is an example of the two different types of bees being produced within the hive: the worker bees and the drones. The drone cells, the males, are the bigger, rounded cells that extend beyond the wax. The worker bees, the females, are in the cells that are even with the wax and have a smooth top. Also, fun fact, the worker bees are all female; they are also the foragers that collect the pollen and nectar.
Once the interview begins, you see that the book is “Beekeeping For Dummies.”
Shauna Thomas is no dummy, so why that book?
“This is an excellent book to learn from,” she said with a laugh. “You can use Google, go on the internet, and there is so much stuff. There is a lot of information, and it can get confusing. You can go down that rabbit hole.”
Or you can just get a book that lays it out in a simple way, she said.
So, where does this story begin?
Once upon a time, a beekeeper could get bees, set up an apiary, and just let them go to do their thing.
It sounds simple, but it wasn’t. It was still complicated and took effort and work.
You still had to provide a “deep” (what the bees live in and what is thought of as that big boxy hive) and add a “super” (a superstructure where bees store honey but don’t actually live).
You still had to wear the bee suit, buy a smoker, and keep an eye on the hive.
But bees are pretty good at policing themselves, and the same beekeeping methods used for years are still around today. It’s still a “hands-on” enterprise.
There is no such thing as a magic machine or a combine that threshes honey.
A lot has changed in the past 20 years or so, and a lot has remained the same.
Now there are Varroa mites, wax moths, and hive beetles — all invasive pests that can destroy a hive.
And there is American foulbrood. If you get a breakout of American foulbrood, you will have to start all over.
More on these pests in a bit.
Thomas said she can’t remember exactly when she became a beekeeper, although she had been thinking about it for a long time before taking the plunge.
“I was interested in bees because we sorta need them,” she said. “I love nature and have always had an interest in nature.”
She said it took her a while to find the Anderson County Beekeepers Association, a little longer to actually attend a meeting, and then a little more than a year of meetings and encouragement from others to actually take the plunge.
“I was on the fence for quite a while,” she said. “I guess I finally reached my beekeeping age.”
She learned about the “deep,” the “super,” and what to watch for with her bees. She learned how bees act—which is very important to understand—and she learned the cycles of bees, also very important.
But she also learned to love the challenge, the work involved, and the sense of doing something good while having a little fun.
“It’s not that hard,” she said. “But it’s very expensive.”
The bees, equipment, and the bees’ deeps could cost as much as $1,300 to begin. A startup hive costs about $250, and you need two to start. “That’s so you can compare the hives,” she said. “You might look at your first hive and think, ‘That’s really good,’ and then go to your second hive and it’s really booming.
“Then you know something is going on with the first hive.”
It could be a “bad queen.” A bad queen will lay larvae in scattered patterns, just all over the place. Bees tend to like larvae in a central location and build around that while the queen lays more larvae.
If a bad queen is present, the other bees will work to oust her.
“They actually raise a new queen,” she said.
Sometimes, Thomas said, the hive will simply leave, look for a new home, and find a new queen.
There are three kinds of bees in each hive. The queen bee’s job is to lay eggs. The drone bees are male, and their sole purpose is to mate with the queen. The other bees are females and are the feeders—the bees flying about gathering pollen and nectar for the hive.
Bees gather pollen on their legs in what are called “pollen bags.”
“Sometimes bees encounter ‘robber bees’ that steal the pollen on the other bees’ legs,” Thomas said. “Robber bees are usually coming from a weak hive. They need food and will steal it if they have to.”
Bees eat honey, but that’s okay because it’s their honey in the first place.
“Honey is just super-concentrated nectar,” Thomas said. “Bees gather nectar, mix it with water to water it down for easy storage, and store it in the wax combs. It gets thick, you know, honey, because the bees have fanned off the excess water.”
The whole point of a hive is to make a home, make food, and multiply. Honey is the product of that effort.
Thomas said beekeepers shouldn’t expect to see excess honey in the first year, meaning they won’t produce enough to take out.
“In the first year, they’re making their homes, settling in,” she said.
She said beekeepers have to keep a watchful eye on the deeps, and when they’re about 70 percent full, they need to add a super, another keep on top of the original.
That’s where the honey is harvested from.
And if you don’t add the super?
“They may leave. They’ll feel crowded and go search for a new home,” she said.
Honey is usually harvested no later than May.
“June starts the dearth period,” she said. “The flowers are starting to fade, and they don’t have enough pollen or nectar. You have to be really careful to make sure your hives have enough food, and that you haven’t harvested all of it.”
If they don’t have enough to eat, she said, then the beekeeper must make up for the loss of food, usually by making sugar water for the hive. Or, again, the bees may leave.
During the winter months, anything below 40 degrees, the bees form a sort of “bee ball” in the center of the keep to stay warm and alive.
“Bees don’t defecate in their own homes,” Thomas said with a laugh. “So when it warms up, you see them out taking a cleansing flight.”
Remember back in the good old days? Beekeepers could put out their deeps and let the bees do their thing. Sure, there were pests. Skunks like honey. So do Winnie-the-Pooh-type animals.
But now, invasive pests have started making beekeeping a little bit harder.
Varroa mites. Every hive has them. Thomas said bees are hatched with them. They look like little brown warts on a bee’s body. They can devastate a hive if left untreated.
Thomas said there are numerous natural solutions available to combat Varroa mites that won’t hurt the hive. She said a beekeeper can fill a glass jar with natural powdered sugar (no cornstarch) and put bees in it, shake them a little, and as the bees clean themselves, they discard any Varroa mites on them.
“It’s a good way to see how badly they are infested,” she said.
Wax moths and hive beetles can decimate a hive by eating the honey and destroying the combs. When wax moths get in a hive, they leave behind a substance that looks like cotton candy.
“Have you ever pulled a cotton ball apart? That’s what it looks like,” Thomas said. Wax moths target weak hives.
Hive beetles are just that—beetles. They basically leave slime behind.
In both instances, the deep needs to be replaced.
“The bees will chase the beetles out,” Thomas said. “If you open your deep to check on them, you can tell. The beetles have been pushed to the top corners by the bees and out of the hive.”
But the damage has been done.
American foulbrood is a whole different problem.
“That’s game over,” Thomas said. “American foulbrood will destroy your hive and not just yours, but every hive in the area.”
It is a bacteria that leaves the wax combs pitted and weak. Bees can carry the bacteria with them and spread it.
Thomas said Tennessee requires beekeepers to register their apiaries. If American foulbrood is found in a deep, “They [the state] come in and burn it. That’s it, it’s gone,” she said.
The state then notifies all beekeepers in the area to be on the lookout.
Thomas said if the state burns your hive, they do offer some monetary compensation.
She said as far as she knows, there have been no outbreaks of American foulbrood in this area.
“But you have to watch for it,” she said.
If you want to help bees do their jobs, “Please, please, please, God please, don’t use pesticides,” Thomas said. “It gets on their legs, and they carry that back to the hive, and that’s that.
“I know people don’t want bugs on their tomatoes, in their gardens, but please use something natural.”
You can also Google East Tennessee Pollinators to learn about the kinds of plants bees love.