Keeping the Bees

Lee Heine

The national spotlight has focused on beekeeping quite a bit recently. Dreamworks released the highly successful Bee Movie in November, which grossed about $200 million worldwide. Sadly, real-life bees did not fare as well, as in late 2006 beekeepers reported losses of up to 90 percent of their hives.

Lee Heine is one beekeeper who has been on the wild roller coaster ride. Lee is the branch manager of Dadant & Sons, Inc., a beekeeping service in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He experienced the highs of advising and negotiating with Hollywood for the Bee Movie as chairman of the National Honey Board to the lows of the Colony Collapse Disorder. The United States Department of Agriculture defines CCD as "simply no or a low number of adult honey bees present but with a live queen and no dead honey bees in the hive. Often there is still honey in the hive and immature bees (brood) are present."

Since the 1940s, the bee population has dropped from 5 million to 2.5 million. The USDA says the "honey bee colony health has also been declining since the 1980s with the advent of new pathogens and pests. The spread into the United States of varroa and tracheal mites, in particular, created major new stresses on honey bees."

As of today, there are several possible causes for CCD, including environmental changes, malnutrition, pathogens, mites and pesticides.

The media exposure has garnered curiosity from those unfamiliar with the hobby or, for Heine, profession. "There's a lot of interest," he says. "The beginning beekeepers have to be careful, however. The biggest problem they have is obtaining too much information, via the Internet or whatever. There's a ton of information out there and it's not always correct. The most successful hobby beekeepers are the ones that let the bees be bees. That seems to work the best. The bees are fighting enough issues with the disease problems and all the sprays that people are using; you know—environmental issues."

Lee hosts a one-day seminar on the first Saturday in March, open to hobbyists and beginning beekeepers. "This will be our sixth annual workshop," Lee says. "We have 100-120 people that attend annually. Most states have agriculture in the classroom that caters to third, fourth and fifth graders. Wisconsin educates fourth graders and our industry brings it to the forefront."

Lee receives his bees from California, which are transported back to D&S Beekeeping Supply in Watertown, Wisconsin. There, the customers pick up packages to take back to their hives. "All beekeepers hope to have a good producing queen, great weather and a great nectar producing location."

Along with his wife Nadene, the Heines make sure the California drivers and the D&S workers are well fed (with the following recipes) on the day the packages arrive.

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