Living Local | HER ITAGE clockwise from left
A new bee emerges from the comb for the first time. Amy
and Otto Kaiser own three hives in Fairmont. They keep an apiary in their backyard.
Stephanie and Tim Bender, owners of S&T’s Bees, a beekeeping supply and bee product store in Randolph County, have doubled their sales in the last year. Stephanie serves beekeepers from every county in the state. They stop in to chat, share ideas, and get their hands on the best equipment. “Last year we sold approximately 150 packages of live bees. This year we jumped to 400. If I would have had 500 or 600, we would have sold those, too,” Stephanie says. Young beekeepers, especially, are knocking on her door, so in 2015 she held an informal introductory class out of her home. “Our main goal when we started was to the preserve the honeybee. They are vital to our agriculture. A lot people don’t realize that one to two bites of food out of three in your mouth were pollinated by honeybees. If we don’t have them, we don’t have a lot of food.” Stephanie has also seen an uptick in interest among consumers looking for local honey and beeswax—both of which are touted for their allergy-fighting properties. In addition to everything a beekeeper might need to start and maintain a hive, Stephanie sells raw, minimally filtered golden honey, beeswax candles, soaps, lotions, and lip balms from the fruits of their 27 hives. “Unfortunately a lot of what you get in the store isn’t real honey. People want something they can trust, from where they live,” she says. But even with hives like Amy and Otto’s, tucked away in backyards and gardens across light, aromatic yield, while local basswood, the state, honeybee populations are declining. in late spring, adds a complex, biting flavor. Managed hives have declined from 5 million Neighboring tulip poplars offer a dark, in the 1940s to 2.5 million today, yet bees are robust crop with their summer flowers and still relied upon to pollinate $30 billion in crops goldenrod, a late-season bloomer, makes a rich in the the country. Diseases and pests like varroa amber honey, spicy like a distilled summer day. and tracheal mites as well as the pesticides and Tom, now a retired teacher, got his first fungicides potentially responsible for collapsing hives after taking a class at Fairmont State colonies have been decimating honeybees University. He was looking for pollinators across the globe. But with the rise in concern tom kees, veteran beekeeper for his cherry trees. His interest grew with comes increased interest among consumers his honey crop and at one time he kept more to protect bees and the environments they than 20 hives and operated a small business fight. They work together in harmony. Life is live in. “It’s a little bit easier to talk to most selling live bees. He also served as president work and work is life to them.” folks about bees now because they have a basic of the WVBA from 1997 to 2001 and was Enthusiasts like Tom, together with understanding. The interest has brought a lot secretary of the Marion County Beekeepers his wife, Aretha, and Amy, alongside her of notice to honeybees and beekeepers,” Tom Association, where he helped organize a husband, Otto, represent a budding interest says. “Not everyone will get bees. But everyone popular beekeeping school for beginners now in keeping, protecting, and promoting we talk to will walk away with a greater in its 20th year. But the bee culture itself was honeybees across the state and the nation. appreciation of who and what honeybees are, his biggest reward. “Every time I go into a According to the WVBA, membership has how important they are, and how they interact beehive, I go down to the brood nest and to nearly doubled from 2007 to 2013, from 480 with the rest of nature.” me it’s a wonder. These little creatures don’t to 950 registered members. wvbeekeepers.org
“One of the things about being a beekeeper in West Virginia is that it’s like a honey wonderland.”
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