The buzz about bees
Apiarist Jody Pritchett of Unionville praises the pollinators
Story and photos by Page Haynes
An average worker bee travels 55,000 miles, visits upwards of two million flowers, and produces only about one-twelfth of a teaspoon of honey during her six-week lifespan. All that travel and work, however, sets in motion the pollination responsible for one-third of the food we eat every day.
Seasoned beekeeper Jody Pritchett of Cave Creek Bee Company in Unionville says it's for this reason that we celebrate National Honeybee Day on Aug. 15. Started in 2009, the observance recognizes honeybees, celebrates beekeepers, raises environmental awareness, and promotes locally produced honey.
Jody has been raising honeybees since 2017, starting with just a few hives before growing his business into a thriving 120-hive operation. His honey has been stocked at Lincoln Bedford Moore Farmers Co-op in Shelbyville, United Co-op's General Store in Chapel Hill, United Co-op in Lewisburg, Rutherford Farmers Co-op in Eagleville, and several other community stores.
“My honey production was reduced last year because of the drought,” says Jody. “Then it rained all of May. Rain washes the nectar off flowers, and bees don't fly in the rain. So we got hit twice, which hurt me because I sold out of honey. I saw the drought coming early again this year, so I reduced my hives to 70 and found a supplemental job at United Co-op in Lewisburg.”
A member of the Marshall County Beekeepers Association and Columbia Beekeepers Association, Jody often travels to teach beekeeping classes and seminars. Driven by curiosity and a healthy respect for the natural process behind honey production, he enjoys helping others start their own hives and has sold queen bees and small starter colonies, called "nucs."
He explains that each of his 70 hives contains approximately 60,000 bees and can produce about 80 pounds of honey annually. The hives consist of two to seven stacked boxes called honey supers. Jody also provides two deeper brood boxes where the queen can move freely to lay eggs, reducing the likelihood of swarming.
Bees enter through a slit in the bottom box. Each hive contains one queen bee, thousands of female worker bees (making up most of the 60,000) with age-based roles such as cleaning cells, nursing larvae, guarding the hive, or foraging for nectar, and male drones whose sole purpose is to mate with the queen. The queen lives 3½ to 5 years and lays about 2,000 eggs a day. Worker bees live about six weeks, while drones lack stingers and die after mating.
"Bees reproduce by swarming," Jody explains. "In the wild, after a five-gallon-volume hive is filled with eggs, the bees will naturally start to split. Half of those bees and the old queen will leave, and half of the bees will stay and make a new queen. I provide my queens with two deep, five-gallon-volume boxes, which take her longer to fill with eggs, so the hive doesn't have to split."
To develop a queen, worker bees select three or four eggs and begin feeding them royal jelly, a nutrient-rich, milky secretion like a mammal's colostrum. Larvae destined to become queens are fed royal jelly exclusively throughout their seven-day development, allowing them to grow larger, develop functioning ovaries, and live for about three to five years. Within about 14 days, the first new queen emerges from her specially constructed cell and destroys the remaining developing queens.
Jody knows how to encourage bees to develop additional queens. Though time-consuming, he sells many of them to people starting new hives and occasionally uses them for educational demonstrations.
Jody checks some of his 70 hives, using a smoker to distract the bees.
The queen bee, as shown in the center, is fed exclusively on a protein-rich royal jelly, activating genes that give them reproductive organs, a larger abdomen, and a lifespan of 3½ to 5 years. Queen bees have shorter wings than worker bees and can sting multiple times without dying, but rarely sting unless they encounter rival queens.
United Co-op employee Jody Pritchett of Unionville has been raising honeybees since 2017 and currently raises about 4.2 million bees at his Cave Creek Bee Company. He uses a smoker fueled with pine needles as a distraction tool when working the bees and emphasizes the importance of pollination for our food supply.
Once the queen is established, the worker bees take over the daily operation of the colony.
"Worker bees are all females, and their job is to take care of the hive," explains Jody. "As soon as one hatches, her first job is cleaning the cell she emerged from so the queen can lay another egg there.
"She then becomes a nurse bee, feeding young larvae every few minutes until they are capped in their cells around day 14. After new bees emerge around day 21, nurse bees feed them royal jelly for 24 hours before switching them to bee bread [honey and pollen].
"As worker bees age, they become guard bees, protecting the hive. If one stings you, she gives her life for the colony. Her final job is foraging for nectar, pollen, and water to help make honey and sustain the hive."
Jody says foraging worker bees bring nectar, pollen, and water back to the hive about every 15 minutes to feed the larvae and sustain the colony. Nectar becomes honey through a remarkable process: foragers collect nectar in a specialized honey stomach, where enzymes begin breaking down its sugars. They then pass it to worker bees inside the hive, which continue processing it and deposit it into honeycomb cells. Other bees fan their wings to remove excess moisture over several weeks before sealing the finished honey with a wax cap.
Bees ramp up production in the spring but begin running short of pollen around the first week of July, when summer heat and reduced rainfall limit flowering plants. Food shortages can leave large colonies of around 60,000 bees hot, hungry, and more aggressive, sometimes causing them to rob weaker neighboring hives of honey to feed their own larvae. Honey production typically increases again in the fall.
Colony size drops from about 60,000 bees to a winter population of roughly 15,000, an appropriate size for surviving the colder months. Seasonal management focuses on balancing honey harvest with colony survival. Jody removes surplus honey in early summer while leaving about 40 pounds for the bees. He also supplements their food supply with sugar water in the fall or solid sugar patties in late winter to prevent starvation when nectar sources disappear.
"Beekeeping is an expensive hobby," Jody says. "It's hard to do it commercially and make a living at it. I get calls every day from people wanting to buy honey. Honey is healthy to eat, and dried bee pollen is considered a superfood. But beekeeping is time-consuming, and it's hard to keep bees alive sometimes. They can get diseases or parasites, such as hive beetles, wax moths, or mites, which, if left untreated, can wipe out an entire hive."
"I'm more into beekeeping to help the pollinators," he says. "Pollination is so important for growing our fruits and vegetables. Our small pollinators are struggling with the environment we live in today. We need all the pollinators — not just honeybees, but butterflies, bats, some birds — anything that collects pollen and transfers it to other plants. That's how our crops and plants reproduce, and it's really fascinating.
I enjoy teaching others about the importance of it."
To celebrate our fragile pollinators during August, participate in National Honeybee Day by supporting local apiaries, buying honey from regional farmers or your local Co-op, or planting bee-friendly flowers in your garden.
For more information about Cave Creek Bee Company, visit https://cavecreekbeecompany.com.
Worker bees enter the hive through a slit in the bottom box, bringing nectar, pollen, and water back about every 15 minutes.
Jody uses a hive tool to dislodge each frame as he searches for the queen.
Jody uses a hive tool to dislodge each frame as he searches for the queen.
Bees favor clovers, black locust, thistles, tulip poplar, blackberry, basswood, sumac, sunflower, sourwood, soybean, ragweed, goldenrod, and other wildflowers to make their honey.
By Page Haynes,
Contact phaynes@ourcoop.com