By SUSAN BLOWER
Indiana Correspondent

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Harvest is around the corner and not just for traditional crops like corn and beans. For beekeepers mid-August is the annual extraction season.

A honey harvest sounds sweet, but it takes patience and determination to get past a few upset honeybees. But 2009’s Indiana Honey Queen, Lisa Schluttenhofer, has nothing but kind words for the insects.

“The honeybee pollinates one-third of our food supply. My favorite statistic is that it also pollinates cotton, so we wouldn’t have jeans and T-shirts without it,” said Schluttenhofer, revealing youthful enthusiasm as well as her own wardrobe preferences.  At 19, the former FFA member is well-read on many aspects of beekeeping, although her personal experience with bees is extensive.

She oversees ten hives at her home near Thorntown, where she returns from Purdue University every few weeks to check on them. During the fall when they need to be fed, she is grateful that her parents step in to help.

Having just made the rounds at the Indiana State Fair and helped Indiana observe its first official National Honeybee Awareness Day on Aug. 22, Schluttenhofer was able to share her passion and concern for honeybees with thousands of people.

“The honeybee numbers have drastically decreased since the 1980s due to colony collapse disorder, as reported in the media in recent years. Indiana has not been drastically affected because this is mostly commercial beekeepers,” she said.

No specific cause has been pinpointed but a combination of factors could include pesticides, the accidental import of the Russian Varroa mite, nutritional needs and viruses.

The news is not all grim, however, Schluttenhofer said.

The honeybees seem to be stabilizing this year, and more people are becoming hobbyists, even in urban settings. “You don’t need much space to be a beekeeper,” she said.

Does it hurt?

The No. 1 concern for most beginners might be safety, or to be honest, pain, but this Honey Queen is pretty tough.

“In seven years I’ve probably been stung 50 times. After that first time you either really get past it or you don’t. Most of those (stings) came from careless moments.

“I get stung less often now and I move a little slower. Patience helps. I was only stung once this year,” she said. “Yes, it still hurts.”

She does not usually wear her gloves when working with the bees because they get in the way. Unless it’s extraction time. “They get upset when you’re taking their honey,” she said.

Beekeepers don’t remove all of the bees’ honey since it is their food source through the winter but instead collect the surplus.

Sweet benefits

Honey is not just sweet but nutritious, full of vitamins and antioxidants, Schluttenhofer said. “It contains pollen, which is a protein, and some believe it helps with allergies to local flowers and boosts our immune systems,” she said.

Local beekeepers do not pasteurize their product, unlike the honey sold in stores. Schluttenhofer believes that the pasteurization process is unnecessary.

“It removes particles which add flavor and a lot of nutritional value.”

She cooks with her own honey, which gives her great enjoyment and satisfaction.  At age 12 Schluttenhofer began her journey with a pamphlet and a class on beekeeping and got her family involved. Now a student at Purdue, she is studying a related field, natural resources and environmental science.

“I see that everything is connected. Whether it’s excessive pesticides or a mite from Russia, the impact on the honeybee has changed our ecosystem.”

She hopes to work for the Department of Natural Resources as an interpretive naturalist. “(Being Honey Queen since October) has been great preparation and provided me with wide experience, from talking to elementary kids to fair-goers.”

Schluttenhofer has needed some of her determination to keep up with the busy schedule and the stress of locating some of her speaking engagements.

She differs from her honeybees in one important way. Bees have a native honing device to guide them. “I have a terrible sense of direction, and I got lost a couple of times,” she said.