by Jule Hubbard

www.journalpatriot.com/fullstory.asp

Suppliers of beekeeping equipment in Wilkes County and elsewhere have unexpectedly found that it's a sweet time to be in business.
Business for companies like Brushy Mountain Bee Farm in the Brushy Mountain community and Miller Bee Supply in the Mulberry community is booming this year as more people nationwide decide to become beekeepers.
Brushy Mountain Bee Farm has been two to three weeks behind in filling orders for the parts of bee hives, beekeeping suits, smokers and other equipment for about two months, said Shane Gebauer, general manager of the business.
Gebauer said it normally wouldn’t take more than two or three days to fill an order.­
Brushy Mountain Bee Farm now employs 34 people, about 15 more than last year at this time. Facilities of the business, owned and operated by Steve and Sandy Forrest, have been expanded multiple times over the years.
Gebauer said Brushy Mountain Bee Farm is believed to be the nation’s third largest beekeeping equipment supplier.
Miller Bee Supply’s employment doubled to 14 during the same time and the business has new and larger facilities—a 7,200-square-foot manufacturing building and an 8,400-square-foot warehouse completed last year.
The number of orders at Miller Bee Supply is more than double those of the previous year, said Presley Miller, who owns and operates the business with his wife, Beverly. Miller said his business is about the nation’s seventh largest beekeeping equipment supplier.
Miller said he has picked up several wholesale customers who couldn’t fill their orders from other sources.
Miller, a third generation Wilkes beekeeper, said beekeeping and gardening are among things more people do during tough economic times, partly because they reduce personal food costs and can be a source of extra income.
He said a lot of the newcomers to beekeeping are people in their 30s and 40s. According to media reports, many of them also live in urban areas of the country.
Beekeeping equipment suppliers feared that widespread media reports about honeybee mortality nationwide from “colony collapse disorder,” a complex problem still being studied for answers, would discourage potential and existing beekeepers and hurt their business.
Spokesmen for Brushy Mountain Bee Farm and Miller Bee Supply said this news coverage in the past year apparently instead increased awareness of the importance of honeybees to vegetable and fruit crops and caused people to want to help by becoming beekeepers.
Gebauer said the publicity is among several factors benefiting beekeeping.
“It’s a perfect storm—all of the things coming together at this point in time to increase interest in beekeeping,” said Gebauer.
In addition to people wanting to help increase honeybee populations, he said, the many “baby-boomers” who recently retired now have time to take up beekeeping.
“You can liken what has happened in beekeeping to what has happened in American agriculture in the last 10 years or less. People are reverting more to food that is locally-produced and on a smaller scale—moving away from the mega farms,” he said.
“Those locally grown products need pollination and it is easier for smaller producers to get pollination from the honeybees of hobby beekeepers.”
Gebauer said disease and other problems spread more rapidly and cause wider-spread damage with large-scale agricultural operations, including beekeeping, than they do when production is scattered among numerous smaller operations.­
One explanation put forth for colony collapse disorder is that it results from honeybees stressed from being moved about in their hives to various locations by largescale beekeepers who are paid for pollination services.