LOUISVILLE, Ky. – According to a report released last November by the Department of Entomology at the University of Maryland, a total of 3,347 beekeepers from across the United States participated in a survey pertaining to the loss of bee colonies they managed this past year. Those in the survey managed 192,384 colonies and represented 7 percent of an estimated 2.71 million managed honey-producing colonies in the country in 2020.

In Ohio alone, the honey bee colony loss rate for the 2020-2021 season was 40.6 percent. In Kentucky the loss rate was 31.7 percent. Indiana’s was 28.4 percent while Illinois had 47 percent. Utah saw the highest colony loss rate (51.9 percent) while Idaho (21.8 percent) suffered the least damage.

According to the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, there are roughly 2,500 beekeepers across the Commonwealth. Beekeepers often struggle to keep beehives alive over the cold months and they’re not always successful.

One of those beekeepers is Dave Handsbury, owner of Handsbury Honeybees near Frankfort. Handsbury has found a way of keeping his hives buzzing all year round, even in the dead of winter.

“The beekeeper gets really stressed out in the winter, so everyone wants to know if their bees are alive. That just the way we are. So instead of really bothering my bees, I just listen to them with my ear,” Handsbury said.

Now in business for five years, Dave and his wife, Barbara, got their start after taking a beekeeping class in Frankfort.

“One night I’m looking in a magazine and my wife is looking in a magazine and she leans over and says, ‘We need to help the pollinators.’ And I said I have no idea what you’re talking about, and she said, ‘the honeybees,’” Hansbury said. “I told her if she sets something up, I’ll try to learn.”

From that day on, Handsbury has been providing his nearly two million bees in the summertime a place to call home. But things weren’t so simple at first.

“I lost my first colony and I didn’t like it, so I started thinking of something else and last year we had this system on 80 hives between me and some friends and we didn’t have any of our bees die out,” Handsbury said.

Today, Handsbury has nearly 84 hives with 15,000 bees in the winter and 60,000 bees in the summer, and the stress is now a thing of the past.

Handsbury put his 25 years of building houses to work to create a shelter to protect his honey bees during the cold winter months.

“I built a shelf that’s two inches around,” he said. “Then I put all of this emergency food, which is really just hard sugar or a winter padding here. Then if I need to add extra food I can just pull this piece of plexiglass, add sugar, put it back and I don’t lose very much heat from the bees.”

His new contraption allows him the chance to keep an eye on his bees while still keeping them warm at the same time. His workmanship allowed his bees to thrive during the coldest months of the year.

“I would hate to think I’d have to stop,” he said. “We do it just for the bees. A lot of people do it for the honey but for me, it’s the challenge of getting your bees to live.”

Handsbury extracted 120 gallons of honey last year.

John Horman, of Zanesville, Ohio, said he had second thoughts about raising honey bees because the eastern portion of Ohio sees more than its share of cold winter days and snow. And while he admits he hasn’t made a clever, ingenious gadget like that made by Handsbury, he has taken precautions nonetheless.

“I’m not the handy man that Mr. Handsbury is,” Horman admitted. “So, I take other precautionary measures. For instance, winterizing your hives is important in northern climates. Long before cold days and heavy snows set it it’s a good idea to pay attention to the yard where the bees are kept. Try and get them in the full winter sun if you can for most of the day. This helps the temperature in the hives. Second, get the shelter from the wind. I place mine in a tree line to block that wind. Some people build a small fence around them.”

Horman tends to roughly 75 bee boxes, some of those spread out on his neighbors’ farms.

“Feeding the bees in the winter months is a must,” he said. “Bees don’t leave the hive when it’s cold so it’s a great idea to feed them a supply of food before winter sets in. First, you can feed them fondant. You can buy these fondant blocks for $5 apiece. Or, make your own mixture of sugar, water and vinegar. Beekeepers should check on this food supply during the winter, too, as the reason is most hives are lost in the winter because of freezing and starvation.”