SOMERVILLE, Ohio – Bees are in trouble. A recent USDA Agricultural Research Service press release noted that commercial beekeepers lost over 60 percent of their beekeeping colonies since summer 2024.

Beekeeper Larry Johnson is aware of this news, having lost a good percentage of his bees last winter. But he likes to focus on the positives in beekeeping: how to encourage newbies, how to get kids interested, and how to give them all a good start in beekeeping.

A section of his farm is devoted to bees. He is a past president of the Butler County Beekeepers Association. They keep their hives there. There are pollinator gardens, Johnson conducts bee labs, plus, anyone who is interested in beekeeping can come and see what it is all about.

“I encourage people who think they might want to get into beekeeping to come to one of us, to come out, put on a bee suit, and see if they can handle it,” Johnson said. “People put in a hive that’s got 80 to 100 thousand bees in it, and they are flying around and that can be a lot.

“I encourage them to start small and be sure they can physically handle it before they invest a lot of money,” he said. “Bees are tough but you have to take care of them. You have to dedicate the time that they need.”

Also, like everything, the initial startup for beekeeping can be expensive, especially for kids getting into it as a 4-H project.

“For my kids, I found sponsors, people that had businesses,” Johnson said. “They would sponsor $500 to get a kid started with his or her own hive and then they get 12 pounds of honey for the first four years of production, once the bees start producing honey. That way they are getting something back for their investment and it helps get kids going in the right direction. I want to promote that 1000 percent.”

Butler County Beekeepers has a youth development program, Johnson explained. They take donations. Kids fill out scholarship applications and talk about the bee project they want to do for the fair next year. The association gives them money to help buy equipment, things that they need, to be successful. Each youth gets a mentor to guide them and make sure everything is going well.

“I think since COVID, people got interested in doing things with their kids and trying to be somewhat self-sustaining, to produce things in their backyard,” he said. “The average person, if they can get through the first year they seem to hold on pretty well, but a lot of people will fall off in that first or even the second year. That’s why we at the club try to help and not to let people get discouraged.”

If somebody loses their hives in that first year, Johnson and other members of the group try to keep them positive, figure out what went wrong, and then find a plan to help get them back on track.

The most important thing is getting enough honey to be successful. Surprisingly, Johnson suggests that planting natives is not the only answer. While it may be invasive, vining honeysuckle produced a good nectar flow this year. There was also a good maple, autumn olive, and dandelion flow. The honey locust did not do very well but the honeysuckle did.

“You can generate a ton of honey from buckwheat but it is not really native to us,” he said. “It is just a matter of beekeepers being able to produce a crop to sell to customers.”

If your bees only bring enough food in to keep themselves alive and not the beekeeping projects, it’s not worth it, Johnson explained. Nobody wants to work for free or just to break even. That also means honey prices must go up.

“I introduced the current honey price where we are to the Butler County Beekeepers Association members and to Butler County,” Johnson explained. “They were selling honey for $9 and $10 a pound and some people still do. I have done some research. If the demand is there, we can get upwards of $16 a pound for pure raw honey.”

To be sustainable with a beekeeping operation a beekeeper must get that much, he said.

Johnson invited anyone who is interested in getting started in beekeeping to come to a meeting of the Butler County Beekeepers Association. Their meetings are the second Tuesday of every month at 7 p.m. in Boyd Hall at Miami University.