North Carolina can trace its beekeeping roots back in state inventories to as early as 1697 and the formation of the N.C. Beekeepers Association to 1917, but surprisingly that isn’t the oldest beginnings for either in the United States.
The Colorado State Beekeepers Association was formed in 1880 making it the oldest state association in the country. And honeybees were recorded on the shipping manifest for the British ship Discovery that landed in Jamestown, Va. in 1622.
But North Carolina has one of the largest beekeeping associations in the United States. The association, along with support from the bee programs with N.C. State University and the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, underpin a solid foundation for success with beekeeping in North Carolina.
And that foundation has allowed interest in beekeeping in the state to continue to grow, said State Apiarist Don Hopkins.
“Interest is still surging,” Hopkins said. “People are still interested in beekeeping and there is still lingering concern about the very poorly named colony collapse disorder. People ask ‘where have the bees gone?’ There are a lot of people who want to help the bees.”
Interest picked up around 2006 when N.C. State University offered a grant program for people interested in beekeeping where each participant received a Russian queen and Italian queen and agreed to monitor their colonies for two seasons for varroa mite loads to compare if one queen’s colony fared better than the other. Hopkins said there was a lot of discussion at the time that Russian bees were more resistant to varroa mites.
The state’s roughly 80 active beekeeper clubs help continue to fuel interest, Hopkins said.
“Many of the clubs in the winter months offer short courses, usually done by volunteers in the clubs,” he said. “There will be quite a number of people who take these classes. Then by the middle of March, these people are ready to start bees. While there is a fair amount of attrition, every year there is always a new wave of beekeepers.”
Bees serve a big role in food production because they help pollinate crops. With agriculture and agribusiness in the state being a more than $100 billion industry there is plenty of need for bees, so growing interest is welcome.
The state’s beekeepers typically fall into one of three categories: Commercial beekeepers offering pollination services and managing over 300 hives, sideliners with 300 or fewer hives that may also sell honey and bee products, and hobbyists who often have less than 50 hives.
“We probably have fewer than 20 commercial beekeepers, but some of those beekeepers have as many colonies as all of the rest of the hobbyists combined,” Hopkins said, noting that many commercial bee hives are transported by tractor trailers across the country to pollinate almonds and other crops in California and later up the East Coast for fruit pollination.
Bees continue to face challenges and having an active beekeeping community helps keep watch over these industrious pollinators for diseases and pests.
Over the past 20 years, beekeepers have had to keep watch and treat their hives for colony collapse disorder and varroa mites.
With the discovery of yellow-legged hornets in Georgia and South Carolina, beekeepers have a new enemy to watch out for and that is where having a strong association and active beekeepers is especially helpful.
“The very first yellow-legged hornet found in Savannah Georgia, was made through the observation of a brand new beekeeper. He was watching the bees going in and out and noticed a bigger insect was acting like a hockey goalie – intercepting the bees as they would return,” Hopkins said.
“And the case in York County, South Carolina was a very similar occurrence,” he added. “An observant beekeeper happened to notice this insect was hawking, which is how we describe that behavior. When we go to the upcoming beekeepers meeting, we will be mentioning to look for this hawking behavior around a hive.”
The yellow-legged hornet feeds on bees during its life as its food focus shifts to a more protein-rich diet.
“If you are eating insects as a source of protein, you have a lot of protein in a hive of bees,” Hopkins said.
Hopkins and other industry professionals will have the opportunity to share this information at the upcoming association meeting that will be held July 9-11 in Winston-Salem. The meeting will include presentations on possible future pests, something Hopkins acknowledges will be a challenge for the industry.
“There are going to be speakers talking about pests that are not even in the country yet that we have to keep our eye out for,” Hopkins said. “This year’s lineup is going to be a pretty strong meeting.”
For more information on the association, go to www.ncbeekeepers.org/