Guest blog post by Camden Street Learning Garden Urban Ag Coordinator Jacob Rutz
Turns out, bees don’t follow the news like we do. Despite all the measures and orders for social distancing, these social insects continue to pack into hives, thousands at a time! Luckily, bees don’t get coronavirus, but there are a lot of other diseases and pest problems that can befall them and much to learn about these fascinating creatures, the role they play in agriculture, and how to keep them healthy.
In the interest of helping to care for our resident bees at the Food Shuttle’s Urban Learning Gardens, this past winter I and fellow Food Shuttle garden coordinator, Fern Hickey, took part in a beekeeping class with the Durham County Beekeeper’s Association. Through this eight-week class, we learned the basics of how to keep honeybees: anatomy of the bee, social structure of a colony, key components of the hive, nutrition and feeding, and how to manage some of the common pest issues we see in North Carolina. Taught by a huge team of local beekeepers, the class was chock full of information and inspiration.
Beyond just producing honey, bees are essential to the health of our gardens. Bees spread pollen between plants, ensuring that the flowers of our vegetable and fruit crops are fertilized and thus produce food for us to eat. In fact, honeybees and other pollinators are responsible on average for 1 in every 3 bites we eat! And while there are hundreds of native bee and other pollinating insects in North Carolina, honeybee’s sheer numbers and diligence makes them the #1 insect we rely on for our state and national food supply.
Though it wasn’t part of the class, I recently got to take part in one of the most exciting components of beekeeping: catching a swarm! In order for honeybee colonies to reproduce, the queen bee and about half of her colony will leave the hive, posting up on a nearby structure until they find their new home. It is in this precise moment, which can last just a few hours to a few days, that beekeepers can actually “catch” the swarm by knocking the hive into a new box. If the bees find the new home satisfactory, they will take up residence and then you have yourself a new hive! If you want to see some of the excitement for yourself, check out this video that I took of our amazing beekeeper here at the Camden Street Learning Garden, Alice Hinman of Apiopolis, knocking the swarm into a new home.
At our Geer Street Learning Garden in Durham, Fern is awaiting the arrival of two new bee colonies. The new bees, due to arrive any day now, will be installed in our two Geer Street hives, which have sat empty since the previous residents met a sad end, likely due to the varroa destructor mite (a parasitic pest quite as destructive as its name suggests). Equipped with all her new beekeeping knowledge (and the help of a more seasoned pro), Fern hopes to keep these bees happy and healthy, so that they can go about playing their pivotal role in our local garden eco-system.