Beekeeping: A hobby that keeps giving back

 Beekeeping: A hobby that keeps giving back 

When people think of agriculture, they may not realize all the areas of food production it covers. One of these is apiculture, or the science of raising and maintaining colonies of bees, according to the National Agricultural Library. It is commonly known as beekeeping.

One beekeeper in the area, Paul Hanson, has raised bees and sold honey for decades.

Originally from Albert Lea, Hanson began beekeeping 27 years ago. He was living on an acreage in Wisconsin at the time.

“I had a friend who gave me a beehive, and that’s how I began,” he said.

He added he always likes hobbies that “give back” in some way, like planting fruit trees and in this case, producing honey.

When he returned to Albert Lea, Hanson said he brought his bee business along with him. He and his wife are members of the Audubon Society, and he keeps his beehives at the Albert Lea Audubon Nature Preserve on Oregon Street.

The process of raising bees and selling honey begins in mid-April.

“We have to buy bees every year,” Hanson said.

Bees are typically bought by the pound and arrive in the mail. One pound comes out to about 5,000 bees, he said. It takes three pounds of bees to make a hive.

Hanson said he ordered 21 pounds of bees this year. He has done as many as 45, but said he is trying to scale back now that he is older.

“We’re hobbyists. We don’t want it to become work,” he said. Hanson gets his bees from a bee supplier in Stillwater.

The bees arrive in a cage. Along with the cage, the queen bee and a few “queen attendants” come in a separate box similar to a matchbox, Hanson said.

After moving the bees from their cage to their new home in the beehives, Hanson said the next step is pretty easy.

“After you hive the bees, you just make sure they’re fed until dandelions come,” he said. “And once dandelions come, you don’t have to do anything.”

Bees will travel up to four square miles to find food, he said.

The goal then becomes getting the number of bees up to about 40,000 — enough to make honey — through reproduction. This process can take about a month.

In mid-June, Hanson said he puts special boxes, known as honey supers, onto the hives to collect the honey.

The way in which bees make honey is very interesting, he said. After collecting nectar, the bees will swallow honey into their “honey stomachs.” They take it back to the hive where they regurgitate and dehydrate it until it becomes thick. After that, they produce wax to “cap” the honey.

In August or September, Hanson said he “uncaps” the honey by removing the wax with a hot knife. He then puts the honey in a centrifuge and spins it. This gets rid of any debris that may have gotten into the honey.

Many producers of raw honey, Hanson said, skip this step altogether. Filtered or not, he said, the safety of eating the honey remains the same because of its antibacterial properties.

The final step of honey production Hanson takes is to clean out his equipment. And by cleaning, he means setting the used supplies outside and letting the bees take care of the rest.

“I don’t have to do anything,” he said.

When all is said and done, Hanson said, he will get about 100 pounds of honey per hive, but the range he has gotten goes anywhere from 45 to 300 pounds. He said many different factors contribute to how much honey is produced.

“A lot of it is like farming; it depends on the weather,” Hanson said.

Fortunately, having a surplus of honey to store has not proven to be an issue.

“Honey is the one food that never ever goes bad,” he said.

Surprisingly, Hanson said he does not eat very much honey himself. This is mainly because he wrestled in his youth, and he used to drink an entire jar of honey for an energy boost before competitions. He now only eats it in moderation.

There are a couple of important things to remember when starting out as a beekeeper, Hanson said.

“There are two things that will happen: you will get sticky, and you will get stung,” he said.

Honeybees, he said, only sting when threatened, as dislodging a stinger will eviscerate the bee and kill it.

Taking honey from the hive is one activity that makes the bees feel threatened, Hanson said. He wears a protective beekeeper suit to minimize stings, but it can still happen.

Beekeeping, like many other ventures, has become more expensive than when he first started, Hanson said. One reason for this is that bee diseases like mites cause many bees to die every year, so he must continually buy more to replenish the hives.

Despite its challenges, Hanson said it is a very fun and relatively easy hobby.

“There are about three times a year, or four times a year you actually have to really work with them,” he said. “I figure that in a full season, I might spend less than a week doing anything.”

Hanson sells his honey from his home at the corner of Hammer Road and Bridge Avenue. His house is easy to find because a large pink pig statue sits in the front yard.