Isabelle Baldwin
On a rainy, cold, Saturday morning in mid-December, more than 30 people packed into a room at Bush Hill Presbyterian Church on Franconia Road. They all had an eye toward spring, when flowers will bloom and, they hoped, bees will fill the air.
Many were gardeners, some were fans of honey and others had family members who kept bees. They were all there to take the first step toward becoming beekeepers – and that first step was to learn whether they were cut out for it or not through an introductory presentation offered by the Northern Virginia Beekeepers Association. (The next step would be a 16-hour basic beekeeping course.)
“There is some ugly stuff about raising bees,” said instructor Rob McKinney, a long-time NVBA leader who started beekeeping, in part, because he thought it would be less expensive than buying honey all the time. He was wrong about that, he discovered.
However, the benefits of beekeeping are many. Scientists have estimated that more than three-quarters of food crops rely on pollination.
Beekeepers tend to have the best gardens around, and also benefit from the honey and hive by-products such as wax while supporting the local environment. NVBA provides mentoring, classes, education and support, forming the foundation of a community of beekeepers in the region.
GETTING STARTED
Beekeeping requires time, money, space, training and understanding neighbors. The first year of preparations alone can cost an upwards of $700 for supplies, equipment, and sugar. In fact, McKinney joked that he should have bought stock in sugar companies before he started beekeeping a decade ago.
Beekeeping is more popular than ever before in America, with roughly 3 million colonies nationwide and a growing collection of rooftop and backyard hobbyists.
Isabelle Baldwin
For many, the love affair began long before Virginia started issuing $200 grants to backyard beekeepers in 2013. Such is the case with Amy Bennett, a Virginia native whose nurturing disposition – and an experimental January night with fried okra – led her to a 15-year-long endeavor into beekeeping.
“I had about a hand full of white cornmeal left over and I thought, ‘I’m going to put this on a plastic tray and set it outside and some creature will eat it’, and I went outside about half an hour later and there were honey bees all over it, excited because they thought it was pollen,” recalled Bennett of her first close encounter with honey bees.
Concerned that the bees would freeze to death, Bennett contacted the county extension office who later connected her to a member of NVBA. “In the course of our conversation, she told me, ‘Don’t worry, they’ll know when to go home,’” said Bennett, who signed up for a course later that night. Bennett is an expert in many fields; from her certificate in nursery to her respective degrees in landscape architecture and historic preservation, she has come to know and love Virginia’s native plants. “I’m always walking around looking down at the ground,” she said.
During her career as an archaeologist, Bennett spent her days excavating skeletons. At the age of 68, her afternoons are now consumed with rescuing clusters of honey bees from trees and caring for her own 12 hives.
“I’m what, in the bee world, they call a ‘small-scale’ beekeeper,” said Bennett, who has been with NVBA since 2003. “I don’t do this to make money. I sell nucleus colonies in the spring, but the primary reason for doing that is to try to make the bees pay their room and board.”
Nucleus colonies, or nucs, are small colonies created from larger colonies, housed in a standard 10-frame Langstroth hive – a vertically structured beehive with a bottom board entrance, boxes of frames for the queen’s eggs and honey storage, and an inner cover and top cap sealed for weather protection. Nucs contain bees in all stages of development and act as starter colonies for beginners.
Unlike many other hobbies, beekeeping is unpredictable and requires a lot of seasonal problem-solving; commercial and small-scale beekeepers can spend up to 6 months out of the year without seeing a single honey bee.
“Any beekeeper will tell you: if you ask three beekeepers the answer to a problem, you’ll get seven different answers. Everybody’s got their own idea,” said Bennett, adding, “if you want to be a responsible beekeeper, you really have to stay on top of what’s going on in your hive.”
But for all the responsibility, landscape designer Lynley Ogilvie, who took NVBA’s “Intro to Beekeeping” course, loves sharing her hobby. “I can’t say enough good things about the hobby of beekeeping,” said Ogilvie, who shares her enthusiasm for apiculture with her son, George, a ju-nior in high school.
“I am his sous chef – I stand quietly to the side, handing him tools and equipment each time he does a hive check,” Ogilvie explained. Over the past year, the two have become enamored by their bees, merging their two hives in October in hopes of giving the colony a better chance to survive their first winter.
As time progresses, the pair is looking to expand to three hives. When they welcomed their first hive last spring, Ogilvie embraced her new guests by planting meadows of native trees, grasses, and perennials in their front lawn that bloomed in succession from March until December.
“Standing in the meadows this summer was one of my greatest joys. Each time I went to weed the new beds, honey bees, native bees, butterflies and birds buzzed and swooped around me. Even in McLean, the world is alive with nature if you take the time to notice,” Ogilvie said.
3 Things to Know Before Getting Bees
As a hobby, potential beekeepers must be willing to devote their time, energy, and space to their hive(s). They must also be willing to accept the potential for bee stings – it will happen.
Would-be beekeepers often forget: Bees aren’t like other pets. A honey bee won’t cuddle with you at night or demand to be walked during the day, but bees will need more oversight than a tomato garden. They won’t just survive on their own.
Regardless of how many books you read, documentaries you watch, or beekeeping friends you know, you are going to run into problems. Here’s what you really need to know before making the commitment:
Beekeeping is expensive.
Beekeeping can be more expensive than other pass-time hobbies like painting or knitting and requires a lot more materials. To set up a nuc, beekeepers need a smoker, hive tool, bee brush, extracting equipment, and protective gear, costs which add up easily – and that’s not including the price of a 2 lb. package of the bees themselves, which can vary between $95-$130. (And yes, they can be shipped through the U.S. Postal Service.) However, some beekeepers make back some of that money by selling honey, beeswax, pollen and even bees themselves.
Beekeeping can be time-consuming.
The amount of time you need to spend on your hive changes like the weather. Literally. It's recommended that beginners check on their bees every 7 to 10 days during the spring and summer. Checking on them too often (more than once a week) could upset the bees. In contrast, during a brutal winter, bees can go up to 4 months without needing inspection and shouldn't be inspected in temperatures below 57 degrees.
Beekeeping is physically demanding.
Picking up a 16 oz. jar of honey in the grocery store isn't hard – harvesting honey off a 25 lb. frame under the unforgiving August sun is. During the peak spring and summer season, beekeeping will take a lot of sweat out of you, and, as with any physical activity, there’s always the potential for back problems (though some would argue this is a small price to pay for a lifetime supply of free honey).
