NEWBURYPORT — Barbara Milhender hopes to produce more than 100 pounds of honey from her two bee hives this fall.
"They are doing well this year," said Milhender, of Newburyport. "But the more I work with bees, the less I know."
Locally, beekeepers are rejoicing during this successful summer and are now readying for the harvest period. They stand in stark contrast to the epidemic beekeepers in many parts of the country are facing: the sudden and alarming wholesale disappearance of many honey bee species.
Bees play an essential part in the human food chain. Without them, crops that require bee pollination — nearly all fruits and vegetables — would fail.
"The problem with bees disappearing isn't as bad in New England as it is in the rest of the country," said David Meldrum, president of the Essex County Bee Keeping Association and Andover resident. "It's a problem in the rest of the country, but because there is more biodiversity here, bees can forage all summer in New England.
Milhender has been keeping bees as a hobby for four years while also serving as the librarian for the Essex County Bee Keeping Association, based at the Topsfield Fair Grounds.
"It's nice to be part of the community (of beekeepers,)" Milhender said. "It's also very meditative, you can't go into the hive if you're going a thousand miles an hour. It's Zen."
Milhender went to "bee school" to learn the basics of bees but has since furthered her understanding of bees by reading as much as she can.
"Reading and trial and error," Milhender said. "A lot of it is observing, too."
Milhender and other local beekeepers have been spared from "colony collapse disorder," a mysterious epidemic that causes bees to fly off and die. Over the past two years, it has spread across the nation.
By 2007, bee losses ranged from 30 to 60 percent on the West Coast, with some beekeepers on the East Coast and in Texas reporting losses of more than 70 percent. Some local beekeepers theorize that New England has a wider variety of food sources for bees to feed from and believe that may be a reason it has not affected New England.
"If we went to Virginia, we would see they have a lot of crops in the spring," Meldrum said. "Come July, there are not that many flowering plants, and bees don't have much the last half of the summer."
Jill Buchanan, marketing consultant for Essex County Greenbelt Association, said studying the bee species is just one way to understand the need for open space.
While researching bees for her work at the Greenbelt Association, she became fascinated with the dependency bees have on the environment and vice versa.
"Bees and other pollinators are really part of a mutually dependent relationship," Buchanan said. "Monocrops are a potentially seriously problem for bees. It's not healthy, just like if we ate pasta every day."
Buchanan and the directors of the Greenbelt Association are working to educate the public about protecting ecological areas.
"Open space is an issue critical not just for natural heritage as a region and economy but for keeping the sense of place and community and having the ability to sustain self," Buchanan said. "For bees, they depend on wild flowers and other plants in large quantities, not just domestic crops, to survive."
Meldrum notes other areas that produce corn in large quantities are also having problems with bees. Corn does not require bees to pollinate it, and so in effect large swaths of land become barren for bees.
"In New England, we don't do single crops, so there is a better variety," Meldrum said.
But it is not just food sources that scientists are studying as a reason why bees are dying off throughout the country. Other factors such as insecticides and pesticides, mites, a shorter brood incubation time, and weather changes are also potential reasons. In Essex County, Meldrum estimates there are about 700 beekeepers averaging two to 10 hives a family.
And while this summer's wet weather has helped produce more weeds, a favorite food for bees, Meldrum says the main problem for local bees are mites: small parasitic bugs that weaken local hives by transmitting disease to bees.
"It used to be you could set up your hives and pretty much leave them alone. Now, keeping bees involves more management for infestations and disease; it's more work," said Meldrum, noting the problem began in the 1980s.
For Milhender, her hives are producing well, a sentiment she has heard echoed among other beekeepers in her neighborhood.
"My neighbor is doing well. I haven't heard any bad news," Milhender said.
Giving bees a boost
You can help keep bees healthy by making your yard and garden colorful, diverse and pesticide free. Here are some tips:
Use local and native plants in your yard and garden that provide pollen and nectar for bees to eat.
Plant many different plants in your yard, with several colors, different shapes and different flowering times.
If you can tolerate it, enhance your number of pollen-producing plants.
Courtesy of Jill Buchanan
