Published: January 10, 2009 10:39 pm         

Hobbyists take part in beekeeping workshop

TERRE HAUTE — Hobbyists across the state participated in a live workshop designed to sweeten their interest in keeping bees.

Kelly Allen, a volunteer with the Indiana Beekeeping School, said Saturday’s workshop at Ivy Tech drew nine residents, in addition to about 90 more at locations in Nashville, Columbus, Fort Wayne and Indianapolis.

School director Rob Green spoke over speakerphone to the statewide audience as the participants assembled the parts needed to create their own beehives.

In addition to the hive kits, students received information and hands-on training in beekeeping.

Allen said her husband’s family kept bees while he was a boy and the two took up the practice about 10 years ago in a “small, backyard” operation.

Depending on the season, Allen said each of her hives contain about 3,000 bees in the winter and 30,000 during the peak summer months.

Honey production depends on the weather, she said, noting that a “good year” could yield as much as 100 pounds per hive.

While commercial beekeepers often rent out their services for crop pollination, the Indiana Beekeeping School’s target audience is small-scale, backyard operations for hobbyists, she said.

But the benefits provided by bees aren’t confined to their owners’ yards.

According to information provided by the school, bee pollination accounts for about $20 billion in increased yields in U.S. agriculture annually as hives’ members travel up to three miles in their search for nectar.

But those numbers aren’t as high as they should be, as “feral honeybees,” those living in the wild, have almost completely died out.

Cynthia Gaver, another school volunteer, said she took the class last year and came back to help facilitate.

She plans on moving to Canada within the next year and will take her beekeeping with her.

“Bees have been on the decline for about 20 years,” she said.

Two different types of parasitic mites and a bacterial disease have statistically wiped out the wild honeybee population, and the heavy use of pesticides coupled with a loss of habitat haven’t helped much, she said.

And as family farms have dwindled in number, so has beekeeping.

Gaver said previous generations kept bees for honey the same as any other kind of food source, something she thinks will start to come back in vogue in future years.

“Without them, we’re basically left with corn and wheat,” she said, stating that one out of every three mouthfuls of food consumed in America was affected by bee pollination in some way. “We need them and they need us. It’s a good symbiotic relationship.”

Participants David Southwick and Ann Wendecker currently share two beehives and are planning a third this year.

“We’re doing it primarily for the ecological reasons,” Southwick said.

Wendecker said they have a 60-acre farm and the fact that bees pollinate the food plants is a bonus.

“It was great. Very informative,” she said of the seminar.

Allen said today’s students will take their hive kits home and prepare them for the next meeting in May when they’ll receive their bees.

Brian Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.