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CABELL WAYNE BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION

If a beekeeper tells you he knows what he is doing, be wary and keep a keen eye on this fellow. For he has already told one lie, and no doubt will tell you another. –Author unknown

 

                           President Gabe Blatt [304-429-1268]speaks to the Cabell Wayne Beekeepers

 CABELL WAYNE BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION

 The Cabell Wayne Beekeepers Association meets on the second Monday evening of every other month January, March, May, July, September and Novenber at 7 pm at Christ Temple Church, 2400 Johnstown Road, Huntington, WV 25701. 

Our dues are $12 a year and you also become a member of the West Virginia State Beekeepers Association

Our meetings include an educational session. Beekeepers and non-beekeepers are welcome to stop by and learn the Art of Beekeeping.

 

Here's a beautiful video of Huntington where our bee club meets

Here's a beautiful picture of a bee working an Echinacea flower in the backyard of one of our members, Sean McManus. If you enjoy this picture, Éric Tourneret has one of the most beautiful websites devoted to bee photograph that I have ever seen. You can find it at The Bee Photographer.

 

 HELPFUL INFORMATION FOR BEEKEEPERS

BEEKEEPING INSTRUCTION

Click here for more information about Beekeeping in West Virginia and here for a History of Beekeeping in West Virginia. There are several excellent local WV beekeeping clubs and associations. Several of them have websites you can visit: Hampshire Co. Beekeepers, Eastern Panhandle Beekeepers, Monongalia Co. Beekeepers,  North Central WV Beekeepers, Kanawha Co. Beekeepers, Jackson Co. Beekeepers. To learn all about Kentucky beekeeping and sign up for a free newsletter go to the site kept by Phil Craft. For a link to a terrific regional bee association dedicated to educating the ordinary beekeeper try The Heartland Apiculture Society. And, speaking of Heartland, this is a video of Kent Williams' talk at the 2007 meeting on first year management.

 How to Get Started Keeping Bees is one of the best site for beginners to learn all about how to keep bees. Lots of free information and advice from over 5,000 beekeepers is available at Beesource Forums.  Kim Flottum, the editor of Bee Culture magazine , has written a very helpful article on How to Get Started at Beekeeping. You can download a picture explaining Wade Stiltner's brick code. 

Conrad Berube has wirtten one of the best books for the small scale beekeeper and you can read it here for FREE! Another excellent free publication is Beekeeping Basics. You can also find a great article about Backyard Beekeepers as Warriors Against a Plague. If you need any information about honey bee biology, you can find it here.

 For a delightful article on the bees battle against varroa mites, read Of Mites & Men. Two excellent articles on Biodynamic and Sustainable are worth reading for their unusual approach to beekeeping. A terrific site with lots of useful research and information on raising bees in the Mid Atlantic Region can be found at The Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium (MAAREC). Go here to learn about what plants belong in a Bee Garden.  And here's a site with lots of great information about bees and BEEKEEPING. For an interesting article about treating for varroa mites the natural way, click here.  A wonderful beekeeping encyclopedia is the beekeepedia.  The Honeybee genome has been decoded and scientists are learning a lot about social behavior encoded in the genes. A new article on what researchers have discovered about disease reisitance from the bee genome is available now. For a wonderful site to calculate various mixes of things for your bees, check out Beekeeping Conversions.

If you've ever wanted to do a bee beard, here are some instructions.

Click on this link to check out the 2006 report of the 2006 Honey Harvest in the USA.

Every year, when eager beekeepers see pollen coming in on the legs of their bees, the question arises: where did the pollen come from? Thanks to this wonderful link from Jeff Patton, you can find out by matching the color here. This link will take you to a map of the USA clcik on any state & it will show you the main nectar sources plus the months they bloom.

This is a link to a very helpful slide show about queen rearing.

Russ Dean told us about this great site describing how bees work. And here is a very instructive website about bee behavior. Russ also sent this link to everything you can do with beeswax.

Our President, Gabe Blatt, urges the use of an easy-to-make trap for wax moths, yellow jackets & European Hornet. The download instructions, click on HornetTrap.pdf

One of the people who taught me the most about keeping bees was the late George Imirie. His articles are still valuable and can be read at this site. 

If you have ever wondered about beekeepers in Arabia, there is a fascinating article about their traditional beekeeping methods here. And you can learn all about raising bees in Top Bar Hives.

About the most comprehensive publication about bee nutrition is Fat bees, skinny bees.

And you can take a fascinating tour of a Beekeeping Museum. And check out 3,000 beehives in biblical beehives. Or you can read about bees and global warming.

BEE VIDEOS

 A very helpful site with many free videos of beekeeping to watch can be found at BEEKEEPING INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEOS. Brushy Mount ain Bee Supply has a number of excellent instructional videos -- especially for the beginning bee keeper here. Another nice blog isUrban Bees To hear the sound of a new queen "piping" click HERE.  There is a wonderful 1951 documentary called "City of the Bees" at Google Video. To see a clip from Tennessee about pollination go to my bee blog on eyespot, click on the large picture, then click the -> arrow at the bottom left of the screen. Here is an excellent 6 minute video for beginners about How to Install a Package of Honey Bees . There was a  terrific NY Times video on Colony Collapse Disorder. Jeff Harris with the USDA-ARS narrates Life Cycle of the Honeybee and Varroa Mite in this excellent 10 minute video.

This is a delightful video of some beginners hiving a package of bees. And these folks are having a LOT OF FUN hiving a swarm of bees. Here is a very helpful video about finding the new queen after the bees have released her. You can watch a wonderful video from Brushy Mt. Bee Supply called You Made It Through Winter Now What?

Here is a good video about using small queen mating nucs. And one about artifical insemination of queens. And here is a beautiful video of a bee house in Greece. You can find instructions about introducing the queen using a queen cage here. If you've ever wondered when to re-queen your hives, you can find advice at this site.

Linda has posted a great video showning how to use a wax tube fastener.

One of the best sites for bee videos is Zunibee.

Here is a page filled with link to beekeeping instructional videos. And one showing bees working dry sugar. In this amazing video, you'll witness what is known in beekeeper parlance as "grooming behavior"—honeybees grooming themselves in an effort to remove the dreaded varroa mites from their bodies.

BEE BLOGS

Blog are web logs that are like a diary about current beekeeping activities of an individual or group. They are often fun and informative. Here are a few of the very best the Feral Bee Project, Linda's Bees, Hive Mind, Beepocalypse,  City Bees,  The Daily Green Saves The Bees, Top Bar Hives, Canaries in a Coalmine.

A very useful bee blog for beginners is a series of lessons found at basic beekeeping.

 Here's a great bee blog about cutting honey for use as chunk or comb honey

One of our West Virginia beekeepers, Cass Cohenour, has a terrific bee blog. And BEE SURE to visit the Cabell Wayne Beekeepers blog!

HONEY & HEALTH

To learn all about the fascinating world of apitherapy [healing through the use of bee stings or venom] try Apitherapy News. To read a fascinating article about the power of propolis to fight viruses go here. Here's a fascinating article about the healing power of honey. 

BEEKEEPING SOFTWARE & GAMES

To play a really fun game based on beekeeping, try Elvind Monk's 'Honey War'. There is now a very useful piece of beekeeper's software to keep track of all your hives available FREE at this site. If you want a free site to keep track of all your beehives online, try My Beehives. To mark the location of your beehives and shout it to the rest of the world, Try Here. Here's a funny spelling game like the old 'Hangman' only, if you miss the word you get stung by a bee!

You can listen to all kinds of songs about honey at Draper Bees.

COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER

A great new report from Jerry Hayes and others about the new Fall Dwindle or Colony Collapse Disorder can be downloaded here.  To help discover what is causing this disorder, you can enter your problems here or here. For the latest recommendations on CCD from MAAREC download CCDRecommendations. And you can listen to a radio program where Dr. Eric Mussen & Dr. Jim Amrine of WVU discuss CCD here. And this is another terrific radio program dealing with CCD. There was a very interesting article about our vanishing bees in the NY Times. The cover story in Science News dealt with the current status of the research on CCD. And one of the best poular atricles on the plight of the honeybees can be found in New Yorker Magazine.

Here is an article claiming that Organic Beekeepers are having no problems with CCD. Fortune Magazine has published an excellent summary of CCD.

AFICANIZED BEES

To hear a story on how to manage African Bees try this.

There is an excellent article on how to handle Bee Emergencies in this pamphlet from the University of Tennessee Extension Service. An excellent Power Point presentation on Africanized Bees is also available from the Florida Extension Service. There is a graphic video of Africanized Bees attacking a man and the difficulty Emergency Personnel have dealing with the situation at the L. A. Fire Dept. Training site . Here is a map showing the spread of the Africanized bees from year to year in the US .

There is a fascinating video on the Africanized Honey Bee [AHB] here.

LOCAL BEEKEEPERS IN THE NEWS

And a wonderful atricle about our 2006 Bee Field Day which appeared in the LINCOLN JOURNAL.

OTHER BEE NEWS

If you want to catch up on the latest bee news, you can check out apinews. You can sign up to receive a free daily news feed about bees & honey at Buzzwords NZ Beekeeping.

CURRENT & PAST ISSUES OF OUR NEWSLETTER

Click on the links below to view past issues of the Cabell Wayne Beekeepers newsletters. If you need the free version of Adobe Reader, click here to install it on your computer: Adobe Reader

Issue 1 Issue 2 Issue 3 Issue 4 Issue 5 Issue 6 Issue 7 Issue 8 Issue 9 Issue 10 

Issue 11 Issue 12 Issue 13 Issue 14 Issue 15 Issue 16 Issue 17  Issue 18 Issue 19 

Issue 20 Issue21 Issue 22  Issue 23 Issue 24 Issue 25  Issue 26 Issue 27 Issue 28 

Issue 29  Issue 30 Issue 31 Issue 32 Issue 33 Issue 34  Special Edition-BeeSchool 2009  

Issue 35 Issue 36 Issue 37 Issue 38 

CONTACT INFORMATION

To contact the Cabell Wayne Beekeepers Association, click here: CONTACT US

 BREAKING NEWS:

 

June 28th, 2012

07:00 AM ET

Berlin is abuzz with mechanical 'robot' bees

By Christopher Cottrell, Special to CNN

Berlin, Germany (CNN) - Its brain is the size of a pinhead, but that doesn't stop the common honeybee from knowing basic geometry.

Widely regarded as one of the most intelligent insects on the planet, bees can use their mathematical prowess to communicate the exact location of nearby food to their hivemates via a technique dubbed the "bee dance."

It is the only known instance of symbolic communication in the animal kingdom and today a group of scientists in Germany is trying to build a robot that mimics it.

Dr. Raul Rojas, director of Berlin's Free University's Project RoboBee (yes, it's really called that), is trying to “hack the system” of the bees’ cognitive processes by constructing a mechanical bee capable of luring real ones out of the hive and leading them to food.

“When the bee dances, it waggles," Rojas said while trying to demonstrate the motion of a bee shaking its abdomen back and forth with his hands. “It also moves its wings, producing a sound, and makes a run in a certain direction before coming back and doing it all again.”

Rojas and his team are building on the legwork of Nobel laureate Karl von Frisch, an Austrian ethologist who spent decades researching insect communication. In the 1940s, von Frisch became the first person to decode the bee dance.

The crucial factors of the “bee dance” (see the video below; note: those aren't robots) are the angle at which the bee shimmies down the side of the hive and the dance’s duration, Rojas said. The duration is proportional to the distance at which food is located from the hive, while the angle tells the other bees which direction they have to fly in once they leave the hive.

So if a bee performs its dance at a 45-degree angle at 8 a.m., for example, when the sun is in the east, other bees know to fly roughly east-southeast.

“From a cognitive point of view, it's an amazing process," said Tim Landgraf, a graduate student who works with Rojas at the university's biorobotics lab. “The thing is, this super small bee has a brain the size of a pinhead.”

Rather than the furry, white mice that are the usual martyrs of scientific progress, Landgraf set his sights on bees after attending a lecture by Dr. Randolf Menzel, one of Germany's leading apian scholars.

Menzel "was still super curious and really seemed to like what he was doing," Landgraf said of the 72-year-old neurobiologist who is also involved in Project RoboBee. "So I asked him for a thesis and - zap! - I was working on detecting and tracking bee antennae in videos."

Using their own bee look-alike - a small wad of foam wrapped in thin plastic and connected to a meter-high contraption of metal, plexiglass and computer wiring - Landgraf and his colleagues are able to perform their own ”bee dance” via remote control.

"What we are trying to do with the robots is replicate the bee dance by making the same movements, the same sounds,” Rojas said, adding that they have even tried injecting sugarwater into the foam tip to trick the bees into thinking they smell nectar.

By sometimes omitting one of these factors - be it wing movement, scent or heat - the team comes closer to identifying the essential stimuli of the bee dance. The hard truth is that despite the progress they’ve made in identifying various components of the bees’ communication, they have yet to determine just how follower bees are able to decode the information in the dance.

Bee hives are dark inside, a fact that disqualifies any visual stimuli. So the dance, and all the encoded information it contains, must be communicated via stimuli that doesn’t rely on any visual signals.

Skeptics argue that bees don’t communicate direction or distance at all - that their dance is simply a way to get the other bees excited and convince them to follow the dancing bee out of the hive. Others say it's the smell of nectar on the dancing bee's body that attracts the other bees.

Landgraf says these theories are likely incorrect because of the visible correlation between the direction in which the bee dances inside the hive relative to the location of food outside.

“I can’t think of a better way [to come up with an answer] than building a robot,” Rojas said.

 

Beekeepers at the Capitol

CHARLESTON - On Tuesday, March 10, 2009 Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin met

with leaders of the West Virginia State Beekeepers Association. Present for the meeting

were the officers of the Cabell Wayne Beekeepers Association: Gabe Blatt, President;

Wade Stiltner, Vice President; and Dan O'Hanlon, Secretary-Treasurer. Speaker Thompson

and the WV Legislature have been very supportive of beekeepers and agriculture. The beekeepers

presented Tomblin with a beautiful scented beeswax candle made by Wayne

County resident Henrietta Stiltner. The group has held a number of meetings recently in Lincoln County.

Beekeepers at the Capitol

CHARLESTON - On Tuesday, March 10, 2009 House Speaker Richard Thompson met with leaders of the West Virginia State Beekeepers Association.Present for the meeting were the officers of the Cabell Wayne Beekeepers Association: Gabe Blatt, President; Wade Stiltner, Vice President; and Dan O'Hanlon, Secretary-Treasurer.

Speaker Thompson and the WV Legislature have been very supportive of beekeepers and agriculture.

The beekeepers presented Speaker Thompson with a beautiful scented beeswax candle made by Wayne County resident Henrietta Stiltner. The group has held a number of meetings recently in Lincoln County.

 

Here is a copy of the final draft proposal to Commissioner Gus Douglas of the West Virginia Queen Producers Initiative.

 

 

The September, 2007 issue of the American Bee Journal featured the WV Bee Inspectors, including our own member, Wade Stiltner:

Apiarist Wade Stiltner uses smoldering cedar chips to smoke these bees so they stay docile as he handles their hive.

Some Southern West Virginia beehives have plenty of cells filled with pupating baby bees (shown), but little honey to feed them.

 

Apiarist Wade Stiltner, a bee inspector for the state Agriculture Department, said recent droughts and freezes have been deadly for bees.

 WV State Beekeeper's meet in Chapmanville

Local beekeepers host state meeting

from the Logan Banner Published: Monday, April 2, 2007 7:53 AM CDT

Nearly 100 members of the West Virginia Beekeepers Association met Saturday in Chapmanville at the Chapmanville Middle School for their annual state spring meeting. Pictured above, Wade Stiltner of Wayne County explains how to replace queen bees in a hive. Stiltner, who is also a state inspector, reportedly has over 260 hives. Assisting Stiltner is Paul Poling, W.Va. State apiary specialist. The event was hosted by the Corridor G Beekeepers. Banner photo by Martha Sparks 

 **********************************************************************************

Here's an artcile that appeared in the Sunday, August 27, 2006 issue of the Herald-Dispatch about our Bee Field Day

Bee field day focuses on healthy hives

 

Matt Hempel/The Herald-Dispatch

Cabell Circuit Judge Dan O'Hanlon demonstrates the proper technique for using powdered sugar to remove varroa mites from beehives during the Cabell-Wayne Beekeepers Association field day Saturday, August 25, 2006, near Fort Gay. About 50 beekeepers from across southern West Virginia to get hands on experience learning the different techniques used to remove the bee killing parasitic mites.   

By Bryan Chambers

The Herald-Dispatch

August 27, 2006

About 50 beekeepers from across Southern West Virginia got some hands-on training Saturday on how to keep their hives healthy and free from parasitic mites that have decimated the honeybee population in the state.

The field day, held at the Wayne County farm of Wade Stiltner, a bee inspector with the state Department of Agriculture, showed experienced and beginner beekeepers different methods used to rid hives of the varroa and tracheal mites, which spread across the country in the 1980s, reducing pollination and threatening the food supply.

"The arrival of mites entirely transformed beekeeping into the process that we are familiar with today," said Gabe Blatt, president of the Cabell-Wayne Beekeepers Association. "Before, you had to do virtually nothing. Now, it's more time-consuming."

Cabell Circuit Judge Dan O'Hanlon, who has been an avid beekeeper for nearly 20 years, said the mites use suction-cup-like feet to attach themselves to a honeybee.

"They're like ticks on a dog," O'Hanlon said. "They essentially suck the honeybee dry."

O'Hanlon showed the crowd what he referred to as the most natural way to rid hives of mites. It involves sifting powdered sugar into the hive, waiting a few days, then spraying it with a sugar- and fat-molecule-based product called sucroside. The powdered sugar prevents mites from attaching themselves to the bees, while the sucroside actually kills the mites, he said.

As complex as beekeeping might be, it's a hobby that anyone who loves nature should try, Ona resident Brad Weekley said. Weekley said a co-worker turned him onto beekeeping about two months ago. He now has six hives.

"I've always liked farming but never had enough land for livestock, so I went for beekeeping," he said. "It's a lot of work, but the payoff is worth it."

Blatt said honeybees pollinate one-third of all food crops in the United States. In West Virginia, they are vital to the state's timber industry and apple production, he said.

"It's so beneficial to the ecology to keep bees," he said. "Plus, the honey is good."

Copyright © 2005 The Herald-Dispatch

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And here is the story which appeared in the Lincoln Journal Tuesday, August 29th, 2006:

Sun splashed Wayne event attracts Lincoln beekeepers.

 

By SEAN O’DONOGHUE

Staff Writer

 

Beekeepers from the flower-rich Southern corners of the state gathered at Wade Stiltner’s Apiary in Fort Gay on Saturday. One of six annual meetings of beekeepers from these parts was being held at the Wayne County location. Groups traveled from Corridor G, Kanawha County, as well as a healthy number from Lincoln County. Once per year, the meeting is an exercise in skill sharing and learning and this year's host, Wade Stiltner, welcomed nearly 50 enthusiasts.

Bee keeping is Stiltner’s career. His work, along with that of his thousands of bees, results in an output of ten tons of honey each year. This year Stiltner will still manage to supply about five tons, despite being the victim of a road accident some months ago. Stiltner’s Apiary supplies honey to FoodFair as well as to other large operators.

A brightly-colored newsletter attracted this writer to the event. Judge Dan O’Hanlon, of the Sixth Judicial Circuit, is a busy member of the Cabell-Wayne group. He is the secretary, treasurer and newsletter editor. His work at attracting folk to the event paid off with a fine turnout last weekend. Good weather and an impressive spread of food attracted travelers from all over. Soon after I arrived, a patient queue formed at the food tent. “Bees are responsible in some way for a third of what we eat,” Stilter pointed out. Clearly, the assembled members know the value of the bee in helping to produce the eats and treats before them.

Three brothers traveled from Lincoln County. Tom, Ed and Ernest Neace of Ranger are keen beekeepers and were joined by Vietnam veteran Harold Harvey of Yawkey. Having served his country in South East Asia, he returned home and within two years had become a beekeeper. He speaks with pride of his nine Bronze Star Medals. Even just a passing mention of these leads to expressions of gratitude and admiration from those in his midst. The Bronze Star is awarded for bravery, heroism and meritorious service and is the fourth-highest award for such acts.

I am the veteran of only one bee sting that happened years ago. With some trepidation therefore, I inquired about the possibility of taking a close-up shot of a West Virginia bee. Stiltner led me to some of his hives where thousands of nature’s busiest were working. Some reassurance came my way when Stiltner spoke of how tame the bees are. And I left Fort Gay without being stung, the bees being far more interested in accumulating their mighty surpluses of nectar and pollen than piercing my pasty, white pelt.

The State Insect for WV is indeed the honeybee, specifically the Western Honeybee (complete with cowboy hat and a penchant for invading flowerbeds without the proper intelligence). The selection of apis mellifera probably involved the able politicians of the state. It was appropriate, therefore, to meet with State Senator Truman Chafin (D-Mingo).

After leading the group in grace before the meal, Chafin was the target of much praise from the bee folk. They lauded his efforts in securing grant money. “I’m only a spoke in the wheel,” said Chafin. One of the members pointed out that the wheel wouldn’t work without spokes. Chafin said that applications for funding are made to the agriculture commissioner and that his success in securing money had been the target of jibes by his opponent in the recent primary. His fellow aspirant to office was critical of the $100,000 in funding for the bee keeping industry. “I forgave my opponent,” said Chafin, pointing to a lack of insight into the importance of the bee and bee keeping in bringing food to the table, while also supporting jobs and enterprise.

Further efforts have resulted in the appointment of a bee inspector for this part of the state, namely Wade Stiltner himself. Stiltner said that in the past the state’s two bee-inspecting positions have been based in the northern past of the state. With his recent appointment, it is hoped that the bee keeping interests in this corner of the state will have an active advocate.

They need not have any doubts about Stiltner’s abilities or enthusiasm. He spoke of the massive potential for the bee keeping industry in this area. However, he said that the need to get young people involved was crucial. “Look around at the people here today,” said Stiltner, pointing to a crowd mostly aged over 21. “We need to get younger people involved in bee keeping.”

His eagerness to advance the art is shared by the Lincoln County beekeepers, a number of whom expressed a strong interest in setting up a group in their own county. It is clear that by organizing and coming together, those with such a special interest would have a stronger voice when approaching the organs of local government for funding and support.

 

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow.

 

-The evocative words of William Butler Yeats from his poem The Lake Isle of Inisfree.

There is some peace in knowing that the work of local beekeepers has helped treble the bee population in the past five years, according to Stiltner. And the diversity of our fields and woodlands provides bees with more than just bean-rows. The native vegetation affords beekeepers the chance to produce a variety of honey flavors, including Autumn Olive, Basswood, Wingstem and Blackberry. The fruits of the bees’ labors were on display in the honey room. Stiltner showed me a number of 55-gallon drums of honey, the sweet outpourings of 20 colonies. On the other side of the room were a number of beeswax products, another product resulting from tending to the bees.

            The start-up costs of bee keeping are not high, according to Stiltner. Bees will travel only two-miles from their hive so apiarists should aim to be about four miles apart. Once the equipment is in place, nature does much of the work, the flora of our local counties ensuring busy times for the flying insects.

Those new to bee keeping in these parts would also have access to an ever-growing, always dedicated network of fellow keepers, whether hobbyists like Andrew Williamson from Harts Creek or professionals like Wade Stiltner. Stiltner equates our food supply to our supply of oil. Bee keeping to him is a proactive measure in ensuring we have an adequate food supply, similar to how we should have approached dwindling oil supplies years ago. Attracting young people into the business is a key effort in ensuring the art of bee keeping survives.

*****************************************************************

On August 25th, 2005, the Charleston Gazette did a story on one of our members:

By Jennifer Ginsberg

Staff writer

FORT GAY - Some of the equipment Wade Stiltner uses in his beekeeping business spills out onto his lawn in Wayne County. He simply doesn't have room for it in a nearby shed.

"I've gotten into something bigger than I am," jokes the 52-year-old former underground coal miner.

Bees buzz around what appear to be white dresser drawers stacked on his lawn. Those "drawers" are technically called "supers" and hold the key to what helps Stiltner make a living. The supers stack on top of each other to make a hive, which holds 30,000 to 40,000 bees. Stiltner, a part-time state bee inspector and vice president of the Wayne-Cabell Bee Keepers Association, owns 250 hives.

Aside from his space issues, he faces something more pressing: what to do with his business once he can no longer run it. He has noticed that younger people aren't really interested in keeping bees.

The state has more beekeepers now than 10 years ago. In 1995, there were around 200 registered beekeepers, said West Virginia Department of Agriculture's state apiarist George Clutter. Now, around 1,600 people keep bees.

That still might not be enough.

"More times, older people are getting into bees. Young people aren't into bees because it's hard work," said Paul Poling, an apiary specialist with the state Department of Agriculture.

The industry seems to hold promise for those who can deal with stings and tough labor. Beekeepers can make around $100 each year per hive in honey money and pollination fees, before paying their

expenses. As the beekeeper gains more experience, that amount can increase to $150 to $175, Clutter said.

The industry comes back to supply and demand. There's a decreased supply of bees across the country because mites killed about 50 percent of the nation's bees last winter, said David Ellingson, president of the American Beekeeping Federation.

But the demand for bees to pollinate crops like almonds, blueberries, watermelon and apples hasn't gone away. California's almond-bearing land has increased by 132,000 acres in the past decade, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Stiltner and Poling will ship around 700 hives to California by tractor-trailer in early November to pollinate a farmer's almond crop. The bees will return to West Virginia in April. Poling estimates he'll make around $30,000 after expenses for his bees' work.

For the nation's bee industry to remain viable, it needs to find a natural or genetic way to control the bee-killing mites, control the importation of cheaper honey into the United States and increase the number of bees in the country, Ellingson said.

West Virginia Department of Agriculture instructors teach beekeeping classes around the state throughout the year. And there's a co-op in Weston where beekeepers can buy their supplies, instead of having to pay shipping costs as they did in the past.

Beekeeping is suited for West Virginia's mountainous, forested terrain because bees don't require flat, lush farmland or fertile soil. They just need flowers from which they gather their nectar and transport pollen.

"We're living in the middle of a flowering forest. Almost all trees have some sort of flowering bloom," Clutter said. "You go to other states and the majority of trees are conifers; there's no honey production there."

Last year, West Virginia's honey producers made 495,000 pounds of the sticky stuff. Stiltner harvested seven tons of honey last year and sold $11,000 worth of it to a Virginia honey company.

Honey prices were around $1.10 a pound last year, compared with around 55 cents a pound this year. Stiltner plans to hold on to his honey in hopes that the prices will rise.

He knows his honey could make more money if he packaged it in the familiar 8-ounce honey bear bottles and sold them at festivals and in stores for $2. Then, he'd pull in $4 a pound, before accounting for his expenses. But that requires the time to bottle, sell and market the product. He plans to tackle that task next and also use the beeswax to make candles and figurines.

Despite the promise of a potentially plump income, keeping bees isn't an easy job. Stiltner says he puts in 60 to 70 hours a week and admits to not having much of a life away from his bees in the summer.

"It's not easy. You may as well forget bass fishing or laying on the lake," he said. "But what business isn't like that?"

It's also tough to keep bees alive because mites can attack the bees and kill off entire hives. Poling suggests someone interested in becoming a beekeeper learn a lot about it before diving into the trade, and then start out small. People should also work with a successful apiarist for at least a year before setting up their own operation, he said.

"It's a good time to be into it," he said. "If you have the bees, you've got to stay on top of the mites. All it takes is one bad winter with mites."

 

And remember: “A good beekeeper is generally more or less cranky.” -C.P. Dadant*

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