Get the Scoop on National Honey Month with Beekeeper Peter Stuckey

John Hill — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 16:05:38 +0000

September is National Honey Month, and we are getting the scoop from ��Vlog��ý Little Rock’s resident beekeeper, Peter Stuckey, who is also a database administrator in Information Technology Services. National Honey Month promotes American beekeeping, the beekeeping industry, and honey as a natural and beneficial sweetener. How long have you been beekeeping, and how did you get started? I have been keeping bees for nine years. I started keeping bees when I heard about Colony Collapse Disorder. Beekeepers were seeing a large number of beehives dying out or absconding (leaving/disappearing). At the time there was a very strong fear that we were losing our beehives. Bees pollinate one out of every three bites of food we eat. I began to research how I could help. Some solutions were to reduce the use of pesticides, plant large plots of pollinator friendly flowers, and if possible keep bees myself. I then found that in Little Rock a property owner is allowed to keep two hives of bees per city lot. I then started watching a lot of Youtube videos about beekeeping and visiting websites. I checked out the “Beekeeping for dummies” book from the library. When I canceled a visit to my parents so I could attend a Beekeeping conference at the Extension service, my wife knew we were getting bees. What is involved in taking care of a colony of bees and harvesting their honey? Bees have been caring for themselves for thousands of years. My role as a beekeeper is to provide space for the bees to grow and store the honey. Additional steps I can take is to treat the bees for various pests and diseases. Harvesting honey is an involved process and requires pulling heavy boxes of honey off of the hives, uncapping the honeycomb, and then spinning it in an extractor. The extracted honey is then strained and put into bottles. Beekeeper honey is often better for you and tastes better than commercial honey because it is in a raw form. Commercial honey is often heated and filtered (which destroys the pollen in the honey as well as other beneficial compounds). How much honey does a colony make? It depends on the number of bees in the hive. It takes 12 worker bees their entire life to produce one teaspoon of honey. A worker’s life is about six weeks, with the last three weeks being time spent outside of the hive collecting nectar to make honey. In an average strong hive, there will be around 90k worker bees. I estimate that I get about 25-35 pounds of honey from a honey super (box). The ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Campus Garden has honeybees. Can you tell us how many colonies they have and how you look after them? We currently have eight hives in the campus garden. As I said before, my role is to make sure they have space and to care for their health. Generally, I visit the bees around two times a month, a few more times a month in the spring. I take about 30 minutes per hive so I take about three hours per visit. What happens to the honey collected from the Campus Garden? Some of the honey is donated to the Campus Garden to be sold as part of their farm stand events. I also sell the honey to the campus members and others I know. What impact do honeybees have on the environment? More than 100 important crops are pollinated by honey bees. This includes many of the fruits and vegetables that we eat, but also a number of important crops such as nuts, herbs, spices, oilseed crops, forage for dairy and beef cattle, as well as medicinal and numerous ornamental plants. Even plants that are not grown for their fruits require pollination in order to propagate them by seed. Honey bees add an estimated $15 billion to the U.S. economy each year in increased crop yields. What advice would you give for someone who wants to learn more about beekeeping and harvesting honey?

��Vlog��ý Little Rock Information Technology staff member Peter Stuckey is also a beekeeper with several hives kept at the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Campus Garden. Photo by Ben Krain.

My advice would be to find more information regarding beekeeping from books, Youtube, and the local beekeepers association. Beekeepers, by nature, are very helpful as well, so I would try to work with a mentor. What else would you like to add? Honeybees are very focused on their work. If you see a bee working flowers, you don’t have to be afraid of them because she doesn’t care about you. You aren’t a threat to her hive or to her. If you harass her, then her opinion of you may change and she may deem you as a threat. Just let her do her thing and if you have to be where she is, just move in in a non-threatening way and she will move on. If you come upon a swarm or see a swarm flying in the air, generally, they are also not going to bother you. On occasion a bee may get stuck in your hair, a freaky experience with all that buzzing. If one does, just flip your hair to knock her out of your hair and she will go on. If you have a bee getting “in your face” literally, she is telling you to move on and leave the area. You are very likely near her hive. If you can identify the location of the hive, then move in a direction away from it. After you have moved far enough away, she will leave you alone. If you have bees somewhere inconvenient like in your house or in a tree very close to your house, call a beekeeper to help you remove them. We try desperately to relocate instead of euthanizing bees.

Volunteer beekeeper tends bees that create more food in campus garden

Ajani Oyindamola — Fri, 24 May 2019 13:35:27 +0000

By day, Peter Stuckey is a database administrator in the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s Information Technology Services. After work and on the weekends, the 23-year-veteran of ��Vlog��ý Little Rock is a local beekeeper who helps to fight the global reduction of honeybees around the world. “I started beekeeping seven years ago when I heard about Colony Collapse Disorder,” Stuckey said. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Colony Collapse Disorder occurs when most of a colony’s worker bees disappear while leaving a queen bee, brood, and plenty of food behind. It was first discovered during the 2006-07 winter, when beekeepers reported very high losses of 30-90 percent of their hives. “Beekeepers were going out to where they kept their hives, and many of the colonies had collapsed,” Stuckey said. “There was a lot of concern about why the bees were dying. Among the suggestions of how to help included looking at amateur beekeeping. I started out with two hives, but I’ve got seven at this point.” Since honeybees are essential to pollinating the food we eat, it’s especially important to maintain healthy colonies during the pollinating season. “When we have fewer bees, less things get pollinated,” Stuckey said. “A third of the foods we eat, including a variety of fruits and vegetables, we would not have without the honeybees and their pollination. It’s been proven that there is an increase in overall production of plants when honeybees are in the area. Every spring, thousands of honeybee hives are taken to California to the almond groves. Farmers pay $200-$300 per hive because they will get that many more almonds because of it.” In the Campus Garden, Stuckey takes care of four beehives. The honeybees pollinate the two-acre garden, which leads to more food production. Much of the food is donated to the Trojan Marketplace Food Pantry to feed students and members of the community facing food insecurity. The students who volunteer in the Campus Garden are often fascinated by the bees, which produce about 100 pounds of honey per year.

��Vlog��ý Little Rock staff member Peter Stuckey is an amateur beekeeper with several hives kept at the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Campus Garden. Photo by Ben Krain.

“I try to get into the hives once every two weeks. I’m looking for disease or pests, and I’m looking to make sure the queen is still there and able to produce more bees. I have to make sure they have enough room to make honey,” Stuckey said. “If students are in the garden, they put on veils and get up close and ask questions. There is definitely an interest.” Stuckey has become the go-to guy concerning bees in the area. He’s often called in to capture feral hives or swarming bees. Swarming occurs when a new colony is formed when the leaves the colony with a large group of . Earlier this month, Stuckey and Dr. Michael DeAngelis, associate professor in the Department of Earth Sciences, captured bees that were swarming around a piece of equipment at a construction site. They brought the bees back to the Campus Garden to recuperate, and they have now been transferred to a safe location. For anyone interested in taking up beekeeping, Stuckey said you need a hive, smoker, hive tool, veil, and other protective gear to get started. “To be a beekeeper, you have to get over the fear of being stung. I’ve gotten stung a lot, but it doesn’t hurt as much when you are stung in the hands. You also have to not be allergic to bees,” he said. “It’s very rewarding to see how the honeybee hives work. It’s an amazing experience to harvest honey and see what the bees can do. I highly recommend it. These little bugs give their whole lives and work so hard just to produce a little honey. Generally, it takes 12 bees their entire lives to produce one teaspoon of honey, which is less than half of what some people put in their cup of coffee.”

- University News Archive - ����Vlog��ý Little Rock

Get the Scoop on National Honey Month with Beekeeper Peter Stuckey

Volunteer beekeeper tends bees that create more food in campus garden

- University News Archive - ��Vlog��ý Little Rock