We’ve heard the scary stories about bees disappearing … and we know: no bees, no food. So we wondered, where do beekeepers get bees? Basically, from another, bigger, beekeeper.
The question that rarely gets asked is, how do hobbyists and pros alike replenish their moribund hives? For hundreds of beekeepers in the Washington area, the road to bee resurrection leads to rural Georgia, and to a bee farm named Wilbanks Apiaries.
Reg Wilbanks and his 20 or so employees are finishing their annual bee package season this week. At the company’s various bee yards centered in the town of Claxton, skilled workers take a wooden, screened box about the size of a shoe box, place a funnel over the entrance hole and shake in a generous measure of live bees that often ends up being closer to four pounds than three. This costs $58, or roughly two bees for a penny. Wilbanks deals only in the most gentle breed, called a three-banded Italian after the markings on its abdomen and its Mediterranean origins, but each of the 12,000 buzzing workers — all female — packs a venomous sting of last resort.
Replenishing Hives Stung by the Loss of Bees (The Washington Post; May 29, 2008)
