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Authors: Hannah Nordhaus
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not square with their own, as mere ‘book knowledge unworthy [of] the attention of practical men.’ ”
Miller considers himself something of an innovator in the beekeeping industry. He reads business journals and speaks to beekeeping groups about such perplexing concepts as the cost of funds, proper depreciation decisions, long-term versus short-term acquisitions, and nonperishable versus perishable consumables. He realizes that what makes a good beekeeper—a love of bees, a respect for life, a sense of stewardship—is not necessarily what makes a good businessman, and he strives to be good at both. He believes passionately in reinvesting in the industry, in research into bees and into new technologies, but he fears that his field is “infested with small thinkers.” Like his great-grandfather N.E., he doesn’t believe himself to be a small thinker. Successful beekeeping, he says, requires a willingness to adapt and change. But most beekeepers like to do things the way they always have done them.
There’s no one way to do it. There’s the John Miller model: go south to pollinate, divide and multiply the hives, move to the northern plains to participate in summer’s abundance, make honey, put the bees in the Idaho potato cellars for two months, start over again. There’s the Richard Adee model, which is the John Miller model on steroids. Adee runs about 80,000 hives between operations in Mississippi and South Dakota and California, acquiring other outfits as they go out of business: 5,000 here, 15,000 there, achieving unheard-of economies of scale. There’s the Orin Johnson model: Johnson runs 700 hives, keeping his numbers down and trying to manage well what he has, placing most of his bees in the wild sage fields within fifty miles of his home in Hughson, California. There are those who, like Miller, pollinate the almonds and oranges in California, but then send their hives to other bee guys in the northern plains for the summer. There are the northern bee guys who eschew the hassles of the almonds altogether and stay put for the winter, letting their bees die and restarting their hives from “packages” of mail-order bees the next spring.
However they do it, it still isn’t easy. Fifteen years ago, Miller estimates, there were 5,000 commercial beekeepers—defined as those who manage more than three hundred hives and make their living primarily from beekeeping, producing at least six thousand pounds of honey per year. Today, the number of guys, and a few women, who live and die by the bee has dropped by more than three quarters. There were 468 commercial beekeepers in North Dakota in 1979; 178 in 2009. The commercial guys have been driven out of business by pesticide kills, droughts, and poor honey prices; by strip malls, mega-malls, mini-malls, and subdivisions swallowing up their bee yards; by the hassles of buying, renting, and coordinating forklifts, syrup tankers, and semis; by missed birthday parties and family events; by nights and weeks and months on the road; by the annual “trauma and drama” of finding employees who don’t mind working in a maelstrom of stinging insects and are willing to leave their families for months at a time; by disagreeable competitors who dilute their honey with water or syrup or don’t take good care of their bees; by thieves who pilfer hives; by invasive insects, parasites, and diseases. There are few leisurely vacations; few golf club memberships—in 1988, after back-to-back droughts in North Dakota, Miller sold his house, lent all the money to the honey business, and moved his family into a trailer nearby. He likes to joke that someday, he will change the name of his bee outfit to “Aggravation Apiaries.”
Most beekeepers are, like N. E. Miller, like John Miller, like Lorenzo Langstroth, obsessive types. The beekeeper, wrote Langstroth, must be sure that “he fully understands and punctually discharges the appropriate duties of each month, neglecting nothing,
Miller considers himself something of an innovator in the beekeeping industry. He reads business journals and speaks to beekeeping groups about such perplexing concepts as the cost of funds, proper depreciation decisions, long-term versus short-term acquisitions, and nonperishable versus perishable consumables. He realizes that what makes a good beekeeper—a love of bees, a respect for life, a sense of stewardship—is not necessarily what makes a good businessman, and he strives to be good at both. He believes passionately in reinvesting in the industry, in research into bees and into new technologies, but he fears that his field is “infested with small thinkers.” Like his great-grandfather N.E., he doesn’t believe himself to be a small thinker. Successful beekeeping, he says, requires a willingness to adapt and change. But most beekeepers like to do things the way they always have done them.
There’s no one way to do it. There’s the John Miller model: go south to pollinate, divide and multiply the hives, move to the northern plains to participate in summer’s abundance, make honey, put the bees in the Idaho potato cellars for two months, start over again. There’s the Richard Adee model, which is the John Miller model on steroids. Adee runs about 80,000 hives between operations in Mississippi and South Dakota and California, acquiring other outfits as they go out of business: 5,000 here, 15,000 there, achieving unheard-of economies of scale. There’s the Orin Johnson model: Johnson runs 700 hives, keeping his numbers down and trying to manage well what he has, placing most of his bees in the wild sage fields within fifty miles of his home in Hughson, California. There are those who, like Miller, pollinate the almonds and oranges in California, but then send their hives to other bee guys in the northern plains for the summer. There are the northern bee guys who eschew the hassles of the almonds altogether and stay put for the winter, letting their bees die and restarting their hives from “packages” of mail-order bees the next spring.
However they do it, it still isn’t easy. Fifteen years ago, Miller estimates, there were 5,000 commercial beekeepers—defined as those who manage more than three hundred hives and make their living primarily from beekeeping, producing at least six thousand pounds of honey per year. Today, the number of guys, and a few women, who live and die by the bee has dropped by more than three quarters. There were 468 commercial beekeepers in North Dakota in 1979; 178 in 2009. The commercial guys have been driven out of business by pesticide kills, droughts, and poor honey prices; by strip malls, mega-malls, mini-malls, and subdivisions swallowing up their bee yards; by the hassles of buying, renting, and coordinating forklifts, syrup tankers, and semis; by missed birthday parties and family events; by nights and weeks and months on the road; by the annual “trauma and drama” of finding employees who don’t mind working in a maelstrom of stinging insects and are willing to leave their families for months at a time; by disagreeable competitors who dilute their honey with water or syrup or don’t take good care of their bees; by thieves who pilfer hives; by invasive insects, parasites, and diseases. There are few leisurely vacations; few golf club memberships—in 1988, after back-to-back droughts in North Dakota, Miller sold his house, lent all the money to the honey business, and moved his family into a trailer nearby. He likes to joke that someday, he will change the name of his bee outfit to “Aggravation Apiaries.”
Most beekeepers are, like N. E. Miller, like John Miller, like Lorenzo Langstroth, obsessive types. The beekeeper, wrote Langstroth, must be sure that “he fully understands and punctually discharges the appropriate duties of each month, neglecting nothing,
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