By TIM THORNBERRY
Kentucky Correspondent FRANKFORT, Ky. — As humans huddle together in our homes to stay warm and wait for spring, honeybees are doing the same thing.
In anticipation of beekeepers who can’t wait to get out and work with those bees, Kentucky’s annual series of beekeeping schools are gearing up to welcome the swarm of people who are either in the bee business or are looking to learn more.
The schools, six in all, are a collaborative effort between the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension offices, the Kentucky Apiarist’s office and local beekeeping clubs. Greg Whitis, agriculture and natural resources extension agent in McCreary County, is preparing for the one-day Southeast Beekeeping School, to be held Feb. 20 in Stearns.
Whitis said the bee industry in his part of the state is seeing a resurgence while coming off a tough year in 2009.
“It’s on the rebound here and we’ve seen that over the last four or five years, and we could attribute that to a number of things,” he said. “We have more and more people interested in it; some have never had a beehive in their life, some are getting back into it and some had parents or grandparents who raised bees. And it’s not just here, it’s statewide.”
Whitis said it wasn’t uncommon for past generations to have hives on their farms to get honey and help pollinate their crops.
These days, the increased demand for local commodities could have a role in the growth of the bee business.
He also said most of the people he deals with are into bees because they like to do it, as opposed to for making money; good thing, after the tough year producers experienced in 2009, mostly because of bad weather conditions.
(Incidentally, for those who raised a garden last year and had plants bloom but not produce, the problem could have been that the pollination stage didn’t take place because of the lack of bee activity. “There was too much rain. The bees don’t fly well when it’s raining and the rain beats the nectar out of the blooms,” said Whitis.)
The beekeeping schools will feature an assortment of classes, from beginner classes to those for people with experience. In fact, Whitis said all the instructors connected with the Southeast School are beekeepers, including himself.
“It’s helps me to help new beekeepers,” he said. “I’ve gone through the things they need, having three hives myself. Beekeeping today is not your grandfather’s beekeeping, because he didn’t have the disease problems. Over the years we’ve learned little things to do to increase honey production.”
Those little things will be part of the many different topics to be offered, including disease and pest control, feeding, extraction and spring and winter management techniques, just to name a few.
Phil Craft, who serves as State Apiarist, thinks part of the renewed interest in beekeeping could be from all the press Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) received. CCD refers to the sudden disappearance of honeybees noticed in this country in 2006.
“We’ve had a little bit of a surge caused by the press of CCD. It just made people think about that and appreciate the honeybees, and that has stirred some people to action,” he said.
Craft also thinks some of the movement is due to retiring Baby Boomers whose kids have grown up, and they have taken up hobbies such as gardening.
“The newer people are not young people, they are people that are a little more settled,” he said.
Not only have more people become involved, but they are coming from a variety of settings including urban areas.
“It’s a keeping of livestock you can do with a minimal amount of land. People do this in suburban neighborhoods where they can’t have a goat or a cow or a chicken,” he said.
Craft also noted there are many beekeepers, even large producers who don’t have land at all but are keeping their hives with permission on farms and other pieces of land.
“You can have a fairly large beekeeping operation and maybe only own the facility where you process the honey,” he said. “Other agriculture is not like that. You can lease land, but people will virtually give you space to keep bees.”
Other schools across the state include the Eastern Kentucky Beekeeping School, which took place last month in Hazard; the Allen County Beekeeping School, which was last weekend; the Northeast Kentucky Beekeeping School Feb. 27 in Morehead; the Audubon Beekeeping School March 6 in Henderson; and the Bluegrass Beekeeping School March 13 in Frankfort.
For more information contact the extension office in that county or visit the State Apiarist’s website at www.kyagr.com/statevet/bees/index.htm |
