Beekeepers share their knowledge with fairgoers

One hive can produce 100 pounds of honey.

By LAURE CIOFFI

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

CANFIELD — The swarm of people around the Mahoning-Columbiana County Beekeeping Association booth was almost as large as the beehive on the table.

Beekeepers from both counties were on hand to answer questions and sell lots of honey — about 700 pounds to 800 pounds produced locally this year.

“Where’s the queen?” asked Tom Troyer of Sugar Creek Township.

That’s the question most fielded by beekeepers at this year’s fair at their booth in the Hay and Grain Building number 26.

Fairgoers got to see a working hive from the Mill Creek Center as well as buy a variety of products made from locally grown honey, including honeycombs, candles and candy, and, of course, pure honey. The swarm was enclosed in glass and framed in wood so it could be observed easily.

The queen bee is easy to spot because she’s about 25 percent larger than the rest of the colony, said Don Duda of Berlin Center. Duda, a lawyer with the Mahoning County prosecutor’s office, has been raising bees for the last 12 years. His 11-year-old son, Donnie, is the Mahoning County representative in the Ohio State Fair junior beekeepers competition. The boy has been working with hives since he was 4.

Locating the queen

“Everybody likes to find the queen bee. When you find her, you know it [because of her size]. She’s an egg-laying operation, 24-7,” Duda said.

The queen is the only fertile female member of the hive. The rest are infertile females called worker bees and males called drones.

Connie Troyer is allergic to bees, so she was happy Sunday to see them up close without worry.

“I think a lot of people are scared of bees. This way we can look at the up close. It’s amazing how many there are,” she said.

The average hive can have anywhere from 5,000 to 30,000 bees, said Allan Avnet of New Springfield, a member of the beekeeping association for the last 30 years.

Avnet said he started beekeeping as a way to help his garden and eventually the beekeeping became his main priority.

“The bees are interesting to be around. You can go into a hive one day and they can be calm and quiet and the next day mean. They are fascinating to watch,” said Avnet, a retired plastics engineer who now operates his own small home repair business.

After fairgoers ask about the working hive on display, the second-most-asked question was where are all the bees?

“It just doesn’t seem like we have the number of bees we used to have,” said Lennie Ruyan of Massillon, who stopped by the beekeeping association booth.

Why hives fail

Avnet said there are multiple reasons why there are fewer bees, but most recently beekeepers locally and nationally are seeing Colony Collapse Disorder, where bees will disappear without explanation from a hive. It’s unclear why it happens, he said.

Avnet and Duda say they haven’t experienced the disorder but have seen a decline because of other problems. They both advocate buying honey from local beekeepers.

Honey sold at the fair is made from the locally cultivated hives, but most honey found in stores is imported from other countries, Avnet said.

“Local honey is going to be fresh every year, and we know what goes into it,” he said. The same can’t be said for honey produced outside North America, he said.

Even a small operations like Avnet’s — he has only one hive — produces about 100 pounds of honey a year.

And, in addition to producing the sweet-tasting, healthful honey, bees also play an important role in agriculture.

“If all the bees die today, in two years, we’d be out of food,” Avnet said. “They pollinate fruit, vegetables, nuts and flowers. Without bees, there would be a whole lot less of these things and eventually none.”

cioffi@vindy.com