Post by Ismail AbdulAzeez on Jul 20, 2013 13:54:28 GMT 1
Ernie Griffiths, owner of E Bees Honey in Scottsbluff, has been keeping bees for 40 years now and has been a faithful vender at the farmers market in Scottsbluff for nearly half that time.
His interest in bees sprang from an unlikely source — a story. When he taught junior high English in Bridgeport, he said one of the stories in the curriculum featured a beekeeper.
“It mentioned that when bees swarm, they won’t sting,” he said. “I was combining, and there was a swarm of bees on a weed beside the combine.”
He didn’t have any protective clothing, not even a shirt to shield him from stings. Armed with a large paper grocery sack, he hopped off of the combine and carefully approached the bees.
It turned out the story was right. As he gathered the bees into the bag, he suffered not a single sting. He acquired a hive, and they thrived. The beekeeper in him was born. And for years, he populated his hives by collecting wild bees.
“My wife told me I wasn’t to get too many bees until I retired,” he said with a smile. “Now that I’m retired, I have a few more bees.”
He has since moved away from collecting random swarms of bees. Now he buys nucs, containing five frames of brood, queen and bees, from Texas. In the past few years, he has also successfully experimented with a new method to increase his hives.
His hives are actually two hive bodies, one on top of the other. In the spring, eggs, larvae and brood are in both hive boxes. He takes one box and sets it aside, separating the hive into two halves. The queen remains in one half, and he’ll order a queen for the other one. Buying a new queen is the only expense he has for the new hive.
Last year, he produced about 4 tons of honey. However, he recently purchased a new extractor that could triple his yearly harvest. The extractor spins the hive frames, pulling the honey out by centrifugal force. His previous spinner held 45 frames, but the new one spins 240 frames. And while 12 tons seems like a gargantuan amount of honey, he said it’s still a modest amount for the small producer.
Over the years his bees have produced honey from alfalfa, clover, asters and goldenrod pollen.
“I produce whatever the bees bring in,” he said. “This last year it was predominantly alfalfa. Some years, there’s a lot of clover in it.”
He added that the pollen source accounts for the shade of the honey, ranging from deep amber to a light yellow. Last year, the bees produced mainly alfalfa honey, colored deep yellow. He said the clover is blooming now, which will produce a light, clear honey.
Some sources claim that bees can travel anywhere from 5 to 20 miles away from the hive for food. Judging from the type of honey he has harvested, Griffith estimates that his bees rarely travel more than 2 miles from the hive.
Griffith also sells flavored creamed honey. Cinnamon roll, raspberry and strawberry are some of his popular flavors. Creamed honey is processed in a way that controls natural crystallization. He said all honey crystallizes over time. The old forgotten honey jar in the back of the pantry is a good example. Creamed honey has a large number of small crystals, giving it a smooth consistency that can be spread over toast, like jelly.
He said beekeeping is a delicate business, often fraught with complications and obstacles. But he said it comes with the territory. A beekeeper is often a problem solver.
“Anything you’ve heard about, I’ve had. We don’t seem to have the hive beetles that they have in the south, but the Varroa mite is a mess. You have to watch for them carefully and treat for them. The genetic altering of crops sometimes isn’t good for bees.”
Years ago, he said sunflowers developed a little red maggot in the seeds. Soon, sunflowers genetically resistant to the pest came on the market. His bees still produced honey from the new sunflowers, but by the spring, something in the sunflower honey killed off the hive’s brood of bees for the next generation.
Source: www.starherald.com/news/local_news/beekeeper-expands-honey-operation/article_5ff3b4dc-f01e-11e2-af70-0019bb2963f4.html
