Buzzy’s Bee Honey in Iowa takes care of orchards, pollination

Post-pandemic economic news reports that US industry is desperately short of workers, but don’t tell Chris Jackson of Danville.

Jackson, owner of Buzzy’s Bee Honey, has no problem attracting a motivated workforce by simply letting nature take its course.

Jackson isn’t sure how many workers he currently employs, but he thinks it could be around 9 million. He struggles to come up with an exact number because his employees are only half an inch tall and too busy to sit still during a count.

Jackson is a beekeeper – the proper name of a beekeeper. They are hooded and heavily clad individuals who roam the field and the woods, tending to the containers that serve as a base for worker bees.

The majority of beekeepers are simply looking for the honey and wax produced by energy insects. They will turn it into jars of honey, soaps, lip balm and candles which are a staple offer at craft shows and farmers’ markets.

But Jackson’s bees have a vocation that goes beyond the simple production of honey. The Danville beekeeper also provides an important service to segments of the agricultural industry. Jackson’s honey pickers are in demand for orchards and field crops as pollinators.

Jackson estimates that 60% of his beekeeping business income comes from pollination services. Its workers tend the bees not only in the orchards and fields of the region, but every fall a semi-truck of beehives makes the long trip to the Pacific Northwest to tend the almond orchards.

Jackson takes care of the honey bee known technically as Apis mellifenia. But it is only one of 20,000 species of pollinating bees in the world. Honey bees have the particularity of allowing the beekeeper to provide a base of bees. This is where honey is created from the plant nectar that the bee collects.

The Apis Mellifernia is not native to America but arrived on these shores in 1622, brought by German colonists. The popularity of the bee to begin with was the honey it produced, but the pollination function it provides has a much greater impact on agriculture.

“One in three food bites we eat depends on pollinators somewhere along the line,” Jackson said. “Without the bees, we would be in big trouble. “

Jackson, whose day job is as a welder at a local manufacturing plant, is an enthusiastic stimulus to his bees. It can detail the life cycles of drones, worker bees, and the Imperial Queen that make life in the hive a complex social structure.

He can tell you the right way to harvest honey and the right technique to get a new queen to create a second hive.

“There are about 60,000 bees in a colony, and a new queen will attract about half that number with her when she is transplanted into a new hive,” Jackson said. “It’s really unbelievable.”

Jackson begins placing his hives locally in April, then returns weekly to make sure the bees are thriving. Her bees can be found in a variety of local places, including the Belted Cow apple orchard in Henderson County, Illinois, where they not only produce honey, but also pollinate “a beautiful apple.”

As the summer progresses, Jackson will continue to watch the hives and collect the honey. He will bring the colonies to a staging area at the end of the summer to check on the condition of his worker bees to ensure the hives remain healthy.

“One of the things we are checking is the appearance of a mite that will cause bees to die,” Jackson said. “The mite is a very small insect, so I call it my ‘little bug on an insect’ problem. If left untreated, bees are prone to a fatal disease in a condition called ‘cloudiness’. collapse of settlements ”.

The selected beehives are then prepared for transport to the almond orchards and will be returned in March to restart the cycle.

Jackson confessed that looking after his bees, placing the hives, and monitoring the health of his tiny workers is demanding, but “it’s like doing the impossible and just the ‘funniest’ thing you can do.”

However, bees sometimes remind Jackson that collecting honey can come at a price.

When asked if he had ever been stung by a bee, Jackson responded with the question, “Do you mean today?” “